Norwich bulletin., 1913-10-18
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Vaceinatlon ve. sanitation.

fcal condition over reputed smallpox said to be prevalent in their midst the following may be of interest to
 your readers. particularly those resid
 Ing in Danielson, Montville and Occum. IL IS brief account of the great cpl
 oemlc which ragged n Cleveland, Ohio, rom 1888 to the closing weeks of 1902
 . period of over four years. It was
 nnally subdued when vaccination gave
 place to sanitation but again resumed
 us ravages when Dr. Friedrich was
 was forced to resume vaccination. The.
 following IS Dr. Friedrtch's account
 as published in the Arena of that time:
 II afTords me pleasure to state that
 the house to house disinfection freed
 Cleveland from smallpox. Since Aug.
 ZS, 1901 not single case has origi-
 hated In this city, but seven cases
 were imported. The disease ragged here
 un1nterruptedly since 1898. We relied
 on vaccination and quarantine to com
 pat It, but in spite of all of our eff
 forts 1t doubled itself every year and
 was in fair way of repeating the record of last year, as in 1900 we had 993 cases and from Jan. 1st to July 1st 1901 the number amounted
 to 1923. On this date I was called to take charge of the health office, with IT leases on hand
 IT had fallen to my lot to inveStf gate and diagnose most of the cases that occurred since 1899. During that time l observed that after disinfec- tlon with formaldehyde of a house in which we had found smallpox, never another case could be traced to that house. On the other hand vaccination had gwen us many untoWard Symp- toms. Frequently it did not take al all. Onefourth of all the cases de- Veloped sepSis instead of vaccinia Some arms swelled to the wrist joint, with piecese of flesh as big as a dol lar and twice as thick dropping right out, leaving an ugly, suppurating wound which to heal took in many cases over three months F'rnalfy four cases of tetanuS developed so that peo- pie became alarmed. and rightly SO l laid these facts before the mayor and proposed to stop vaccination and ins- stead disinfect every section of the city where smallpox had made it's ap- pearance, also to give the city a gen eral cleaning up. The mayor assented and gave me all the aid needed. formed two squads of disinfectoTs pre- ferring medical students for the work. Each squad of men with a regular sanitary patTo1man at their head, and each man was provided with a formal dehyde generator. They started out to disinfect every section of the city where the disease had shown It's head and every house in the sectioD no matter whether the disease had been within or not.
 | the work but the result was most gratifying. After July g seven more eases developed, the last one Aug. 23 Along with this the regular sanitary police were given orders to make a house to house canvass to tell the pub lie to clean their yards. barns and OuthOuSeS and abate all nuisance that could be found. As 8 result Cleveland is now free from smallpox. and from the worst infected city it has become the cIeanest."
 Cleveland, however, was not long destined to enjoy immunity from dis ease as the following article written by me for the columns of Physical Culture at that time will show:
 Tn an article written by a local Quoting from the Philadel- phia Medical JournaD and published in the Norwich Bulletin, that gentle man endeaVOrS to convey the idea that sanitation has signally failed as preventive of smallpox in Cleveland and that it has@been necessary to re- sort to vaccination again. With view of correcting such false impress sions I beg leave to offer the follow ing: It is a conceded fact that Dr. Friedrich gave Cleveland much needed cleaning up during the sum- mer and fall of 1901 It is also a mo- torious fact that, instead of receiV- ing due credit from a majority of the medical journals and certain druggists trade papers he was at once made a target for hostile criticism and cen sured by them and his every effort be- Titled without stint, A vigorous op- position was at once brought to bear by health officers of neigBOOTing cities from Buffalo on the east to Chicago on the west and Dr. Friedrich was forced to abandon his sanitatary efforts, not because he had not improved the con ditiOns of Cleveland but because his efforts were furnishing ammunition to the opponents of vaccination. and dis proving the efficacy of that medical dogma That this was the true cause of the resumption of vaccination in Cleveland will be readily seen if one scans the columns of the medical press of the past year.
 Now that vaccination is again the fad in Cleveland we see the city again getting into line as a breeding place for the scourge All this is he.>lded about the country as a failure of san itation A letter from Dr. Friedrich (writter me in September) states that he had again resumed vaccination, and was vaccinating 10000 people per day. Let us examine the weekly health re- port of the surgeon general of the L. 5, Marine Hospital service published by the Philadelphia Medical Journal AS this is official. none will deny it's truth ] give this condensed to save space. For seven months following the period of sanitation which was Nov. 9, 1901 we find CleVe- land had 31 cases of smallpox with deaths. Now if we examine these same reports for the succeeding five months we find a situation that plainly hints that Cleveland must be getting filthy again. as it is evident that vaccina- ton is in no wise arresting the pro gress of the epidemic and this not the disease is usually ess active during warm weather Here we find conditions growing rapidly worse in spite of health boards vac 2ination. and summer heat The rec ord for five months from June to Oc- .ober 1902 totals 1859 cases with I'll deaths. DeduCting facts from these figures it certainly looks as if vac 1ination does not improve the situa- ton. No doubt you will find it nec- assary 10 look for vaccination and smallpox mostly in the same section 7f the city It is q time honored GUS om in most American families to en- force sanitation via the wash tub ev- ery Monday and as necessary to re- l peat the operation one week later
 Health authorities in Eastern Con i 1ecticut could at least try the san tary scheme and perhaps improve con- 1itions in the neighboring towns. You cannot SOW the seeds if disease in he human system and expect to reap ! l harvest of health
 A. w. DAVIS.
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