The Adair County news. [volume] (Columbia, Ky.) 1897-1987, 1915-03-10
HEALTH OFFICERS COLUMN.
BY U. L. TAYLOR.

l propose to write this week on mea-
sleS, "Rubeola,'. This is a disease
that is very wide spread, but is consid-
cred not very dangerous to life. A
mistaken idea about it is that every
body, sooner or later, must have
measles 1t is very contagious NAL
ady, more so suppose than any other.
Epidemics of it come through the
country very frequently, and claim
for its subjects nearly the whole pop
ulation, everybody that has not been
rendered immune by previous attack.
1t spares neither race or color, or pre-
vious condition of servitude. 1t is
considered disease of childhood, but
it is because nearly all but the young
have been rendered immune by a pre-
vious attack. Not many people die
from measles directly, but it lays the
foundation for many serious COM
plants, and especially consumption.
1t is accompanied by cough, but the
main feature of it is an eruption, so
marked that nobody is deceived by it
after the eruption makes its appear.
ance. shall undertake to give nei-
ther symptoms nor treatment, because
my business is prevention, and if that
is success, neither symptoms or
treatment concerns anybody. This
disease is so wide spread that it is al
most always in some parts of this
county, and schools are frequently
suspended on account of it. Until re-
Gently the communities generally have
not undertaken to stop or control it,,
and even health officers have been in
clined to let run its course, but that
plan is changed now, as far as this
county is concerned. If smallpox
breaks out in any part of the county,
the wires are kept hot with telephone
messages, calling for the health officer
to come Immediately and quarantine
the suspects, flag the house, and the
whole neighborhood is in confusion
on account of it, and if case Of meas
les breaks out, in any community of
the county, nothing is said about it..
And yet last year in the State of Ken
lucky over 800 children died from
measles, and only two all told from
smallpox. Last year L undertook to
keep children with measles, out of the
schools, with the result that not a
school was suspended on account of
the disease. This year 1 propose to 90
enc step further, and flag the house
and quarantine the families in which
it is to be found. While do not pro-
| pose to treat anybody with measles,
it is, / think my business TO remove
from the minds of the people some
erroneous notions about its cause and
treatment. 1t is almost a universal
belief that measles ought to break out
thick all over the patient in order to
having any show for its life. And the
great poet, John G. SAKE, fell into
this error when describing the FASH
| ionable mourner.
81 saw her last night at the party,
At the elegant party at Needs,
And looking remarkably hearty,
For a widow so young in her weeds.
He then goes on and tells of her
black veil. her black bonnet, her
black dress, her black gloves and her
black fan. In speaking of her black
fan he says:
"Then there was the fan in its play,
Had quite lugubrious scope,
And seemed to be driving away,
The ghost of the angel of hope"
He winds up his poem by saying:
"Ah, we'll it is idle to quarrel
With fashion, or aught she may do,
And SO I conclude with a moral,
And metaphor warranted new.
! fsdftG'.f $50 tn..tGV - i,