Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1916-12-09
FEAR, FOOLISHNESS
AND THE QUARANTINE
philadelphia Inquirer)


nal asking it to advocate a qua an
tine by Atlantic City against children
coming from New York.
We refuse to enter into any such
brutal scheme.
The quarantining against New
York by all sorts OF communities
because a few hundred children of
that city have bee nattacked by
what the doctors call infantile para
lysis is the product of ignorance,
foolishness and contemplate fear.
There is no sense in it. There is no
reason in it, There is nothing in it
but abject cowardice.
There are tens of thousands of
children in New York who are per-
fectly well. What would these pan
ic-stricken save-themselyes-at
price town authorities do Condemn
every child of New York city TO re-
main cooped up in hot city? Pre-
vent the charities from giving their
summer outings 10 weary mothers
and suffering children? Shall there
be no day by the sea or a week in
the country for the little ones?
The senselessness of this quaran-
tine movement is beyond all intelli-
gent belief
The word fear is without doubt
the most detestable one in language.
Or rather it defines a quality OF the
human mind that Is responsible for
about every evil that exists. Petty
town officials and so-called boards
OF health have succumbed to fear.
Perhaps it is not strange when we
read in the New York Sun:
ITO the health authorities of New
York themselves these refleXes of
their own blundering conduct are di-
lrectly attributable. They started the
panic; they filled the minds. first OF
dwellers within the city, and then
OF the population outside, with fear;
they are responsible for the exagger-
ated idea of danger from infantile
paralysis that obtains today over Sc
wide territory"
We do not doubt 1t. The New York
authorities have but followed the
modern method of trying to build VI
health by soaring everybody to death
1t is a happy individual indeed who
can escape from the clutches Of this
scheme Of preaching disease from the
cradle, through the schools and into
manhood. The New York authorities
, have given an overdose of the new
tangled remedy with the result de
scribed by the Sun.
What is this infantile paralysis
Nobody knows. Like every other IL
that afflicts mankind, its cause II
said to be some sort OF a germ. Blu
it is such a tiny little germ as to es
cape the doctors Because they ar
not acquainted with 1t they are a
sea. And because they are at Sc;
and cannot account for the growing
number of cases, they have talked o
contagion or infection or both. Ye
one of their number the other da!
reported that IL was rare that mor'
than a single case occurred in on
family, which would seem to knocl
the contagious theory in the head
while the United States Health Ser
vice has found that out of 2070 per
sons exposed by residence in th'
same houses and in the same famil
les with patients, only fourteen "de
yeloped the disease in frank paraly
tic form"
But because of the Campaign o
Frightfulness inaugurated by th'
health authorities of New York, fea
has taken possession of the parent
of New York, of Brooklyn and OF cit
les and towns too numerous to rec
ord. These New York health peopl
have done far more harm than the,
have done good.
1t is to be hoped that none OF thi
cowardly foolishness will find its wa.
into Philadelphia. Sanity has pre-
vailed here thus far. Indeed, tn
best comment on the situation tha
we have yet seen from medica
source was that OF the city's chic
medical director, DR.. A. A. Cairns
who said:
II can call TO mind only three rule
and they are applicable to the figh
against all other diseases as well a
infantile paralysis. They are: clean
illness, fresh air and good food"
Excellent, worthy doctor, excel
lent. And IL you had added wore
about the eradication OF fear. yo'
would have strengthened your goo'
advice.