Los Angeles herald., 1907-05-22
EYE DISEASE MAY
CLOSE SCHOOLS
TEACHERS AND PARENTS ARE
ALARMED
Health Officer viii Make Personal
Inspection of Affected Institutions
Today-Gives Directions for
Cure and Prevention

Alarmed by the spread of an eye
disease, parents are temporarily re-
moving their children from the Breed
Utah, First and Amelia Street scnools
! The disease, which is highly conta-
gious, inflames the eye and in time
becomes very painful. 1t does not neal
for several days and is dangerous II
| the greatest care is not taken.
Half a hundred afflicted children
have been sent home by the school ply
sicians and nurses and in the last three
days MANY new cases have been re-
ported The outlook is rapidly becom-
ing serious and the board of education
is anxiously awaiting the verdict OF
the health officers whether they snail
close the schools.
The teachers are alarmed and have
cautioned the children against washing
their faces or hands in school, as a
child wiping his hands on towel used
nv a person afflicted with the disease
would communicate the sore to his own
eyes.
Officials Become Alarmed
Several times in the last few weeks
the principals of the schools named
have thought that the disease was
eradicated and that all the atected
children had been removed from school,
but some new case has developed ana
spread llSelI dIlOllS lllO PNEiiS
School officials are becoming fright
ened and one or two of them have ad-
vised closing the schools entirely, as
there seems to be no other way OF
stopping the spread of the infection.
Many little desks are already unoc-
cupied now, anyway, either on account
of the eye trouble or because OF the
anxiety of the parent.
Neither Health officer L. NJ. Powers
nor Assistant Health Officer Harris
Garcelon regarded the spread of the
disease dangerous so far, but when
Informed that two of the schools had
been obliged to dismiss classes they
decided to make a special inspection at
the Breed Street and First Street
schools today.
"The disease would be quickly
were positively followed" said DIR.
Powers. "Those living or staying near
afflicted persons should not wipe their
faces with towels used by sick chill
dren and there should be complete 1so-
lation. We order them home from the
schools, but after school hours the SICK
and we'll children manage to play to-
gether and the we'll become infected:
"Applications of boric acid stop the
affection. which is not hard to check.
The trouble is, it spreads so easily"
ct will GO out to the schools myself
tomorrow and see what can be done"
said Dr. Garcelon, ''in view of what l
hear. The little ones are hard to man
age and their parents do not realize
that it is necessary to keep those with
infamed eyes away from other chill
dren. Our school nurses do as much as
possible to teach sanitary rules. The
whites or sclera of the eyes get pink;
there is a discharge from the eyes and
some fever, but in few days they
get we'll This is not the disease ira
choma, also known as Egyptian dis
ease, an oriental eye trouble which is
almost incurable. This latter disease
brings granulation of the inner sur
face of the eyelids and comes from
orientals. We have had only two of
these cases this year, due to Japanese.
The Russians are responsible for pink
eye mainly.'