Middletown transcript., 1916-09-16
.PHYSICIANSDISACREE
Wilmington Residents Threaten
Action Against Health Board
WANT CLEAN HEALTH BILL.

WANI CLEAN HEALTH BILL
Unless the present ''dope" goes
wrong, the Board of Health has crisis
of the first order to face in the case of
Daniel Levitch, son of Mr.. and Mrs.
Philip Levitch, of 213 West Second
street, Wilmington, who has been de-
clared case of infantiIe paralysis by
the board. Dr. David Rossman, saws
it is nothing of the kind.
The residents of the locality are de-
cidedly up in arms over the matter and
with the information they now have in
their possession threaten to make things
exceedingly lively for the board, openly
saying that unless the quarantine
against the Levitch home is lifted and
the neighborhood given clean bill of
health they will institute legal proceed
ings against the city. Business people
of the locality say that the quarantine
has cost them heavily in lost trade and
that they do not intend to sit idly by
and lose money.
The child which is the source of the
contention was reported to the board as
suspicious case and the city doctors,
after what is declared to be a super
fetal investigation, pronounced the case
to be infantile paralysis and placarded
the house. Dr. David Rossman asserted
that it was nothing of the sort, that
the patient was suffering from nothing
worse than a broken collar bone and
that there was absolutely no necessity
for quarantine. But the board stuck
to its guns and the quarantine is still on.
EXPERTS CALLED FOR
Believing that he was right and the
board wrong, DR.. Rossman Tuesday
sent to Philadelphia for an expert
opinion in the matter, securing the ser
vices of DR.. Harry Lowenburg, pro-
fessor of children's diseases in the Med
ico- Chirurgical College and visiting
physician to the Philadelphia Hospital,
the Mt. Sinai Hospital and the Jewish
Hospital, physician who is regarded
as one of the most eminent authorities
in the east on infantile paralysis and
kindred diseases.
DR.. Lowenburg came to Wilmington
Tuesday and made an examination of
the Levitch child. Fluid was drawn
from the youngsters spinal cord and
given all the scientific tests known to
the medical profession, in an effort to
determine whether it was a child plague
victim. The result was an Overwhelm-
ing verdict in favor of DIR. Rossman's
diagnosis that the case was simply one
of fractured bone.
The fluids drawn from the child's body
showed that the patients blood was ab-
solutely normal in it's count of white
corpuscles, which state could not exist
if the child were suffering from infan-
tile paralysis, in which case the white
corpuscles would greatly exceed the red.
Assisting DR.. Lowenburg at the ex-
animation were: DR.. Meredith Samuel
and Dr. E. II. Lenderman, DIR. ]. s.
Keyser, of Wilmington, as well as DR..
Rossman. Their conclusion was that
the child's partly paralyzed condition
was due to what is medically known as
'greenstick" fracture of the clavicle,
fracture common in children and re-
sembling the twisted state in which
sapling becomes when an effort is made
to break it. Involved in the fracture
are certain nerves which cause the par
alysis which the board of health doctors
declared to be the deadly polio myelytis.
The results of this examination are
to be put up to the board and a request
made that the quarantine be lifted and
the neighborhood given a clean bill of
health. If this is not done concerted
legal action will be taken by the bust
ness men and residents of the neighbor-
hooi, with the possibility of suits for
damages against the city.
Experts in infantile paralysis say that
the only way in which absolute diagno-
sis of the disease can be made is by the
test of fluids from the spinal column
and in the case of the Levitch child it
is said that this was not done until DIR.
Rossman called in DIR. Lowenburg.
Nor, it is also said, was the child's
clothing removed by the city doctors
when they made their examination.
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