Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1916-07-05
Health HINTS Fashions Womos Work - Household Topics
Vaccine for
Whoopimg Cough
By WOODS HUTCHINSON, M. D.

|
Trivial as it sounds and seems, on
account of the many serious alter
troubles in lungs, nervous system and
heart, to which it may lead, whoop-
ing cough is thing well worth keep
| ing away from in the first place, and
of treatment with most watchful care
and oversight if it be caught. The
little sufferer should be regarded as
an invalid, with all an invalid's priv
ileges and rights. The best and most
appetizing OF food, vacation from
school, and all other duties; all the
sleep that he can take, and breakfast
in bed, and play either in the open
air or on a well-sheltered porch, all
the time that he is not sleeping or
eating.
1t is a peculiarly difficult disease to
either avoid or control for several
reasons. One is its comparative light
ness, seldom keeping its little victims
in bed for more than day or so in
the earlier stages of the attack, often
not even that, so that it is hard to
make parents believe that it is worth
keeping children out Of school for, or
even away from social gatherings Of
other children.
Another is the length Of time which
it takes the disease to develop to the
point where it can be clearly recog-
nized. A child will be often shifting
and moping and sneezing or coughing
slightly for week or ten days or even
two weeks before the irritation piles
up to the point OF touching off real
explosion, and, unfortunately, all this
early period is infectious. Finally, the
disease itself is one of the longest
winded OF the little fevers. Never
less than six weeks, and often eight,
ten or even twelve, before the last
whoop has been whooped.
This makes it one of the most
troublesome OF children's diseases for
both parents, health officers and
teachers, land although most boards
of health make it a reportable disease
and. one which excludes children from
school, the practical difficulties in the
way Of enforcing quarantine, in the
sense of confinement to the house
or even to the yard, of active, ener'
getic youngsters, able and eager tc
run about and play with their friends.
are so great as to be almost insupcr-
able.
/ About the best that can be done is
to bring pressure to bear from both
ends, to warn parents OF children
with the whooping cough and to see
that the school teacher or nurse
warns the children themselves of the
serious nature and danger of spread
ing the disease, and that if their chill
dren appear at school or i'll any pub
lie place, or private house other than
their own. the parents will be sub
ject to prosecution and fined.
Secondly, to warn parents, teachers
and children who have not contracted
the disease, that the great danger is
in personal contact, such as swapping
pencils, or sticks of candy, or chewing
gum, with the children who have it.
and particularly of being coughed
upon by child i'll one of its parox-
ysms. If the affected children are
kept away from school and not al
lowed to go into private houses and
yards, as fortunately very few infec
tons are caught in the open air and
those only by direct personal contact,
a good deal can be done to lessen the
spread Of the disease.
Our greatest hope and prayer, how
ever, is for the discovery of vac
cine against the spread of the disease.
And when some three or four years
ago, after decades of fruitless search
and experimentation. two French BAG
teriologists announced the discovery
of the germ Of whooping cough, it
looked as if our prayers were about
to be answered. .
This wretched little bug, called
from its discoveries the Bordet-Gen-
gou bacillus, has its special habitat
and spawning ground just under the
mucous lining Of the windpipe in its
upper part, close below the larynx or
voice organ. And the irritation which
it produces by growing there in the
most ticklish part of the throat ex-
plains the fury OF the paroxysms of
coughing. Cultures were at once made
and vaccines of dead germs prepared
and while it is difficult to speak with
positiveness, because whooping cough
is an extremely scattering" disease,
taking one and leaving another, and
seldom Selling more than about one
in three of the children exposed to
it, yet some very encouraging results
in the way of prevention have already
been secured.
One of the largest groups, cover
ing nearly $500 children, was in New
York City, in the children's hospitals
under the direction of the Board of
Health last year. Nearly 1000 chill
dren who had been exposed to the
disease were given the vaccine and
their history followed up and COM
pared with about the same number
Of exposed children, whose parents
either refused vaccination or for 9TH
err reasons did not receive it.
The number of vaccinated children
who caught the disease was only
about one-fourth as large as of the un-
vaccinated children who had been ex-
posed to it. If we continue to get
results like this the prospects look
bright for stopping this great un-