Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1919-04-15

WY ASHINGTON, d. c., April 10.-There
wv are now between five hundred and
thousand cases of the deadly typhus
fever in the Dutch City of Rotterdam, and
the disease, according to latest reports, is
spreading, not only in Rotterdam but in
other parts of Holland.
This might not SEEM at first glance, mat
ter of much concern to Americans, but 1t is
so much so, in fact, that assistant sur
geOn general of the public health service,
with a staff of expert assistants is stationed
at Rotterdam for the purpose of guarding the
peoples Of the United States against typhus
Infection.
From ninety to one hundred vessels a
month are leaving Rotterdam for American
ports. Most of these are vessels used in the
Belgian relief work. Any one of them might
bring to the United States the germs of
typhus fever, which are transmitted by the
body louise.
The corps Of American public health Off
GERS guard against this danger by inspect
ing every vessel bound from Rotterdam for
an American port. They examine every pas
senger and every member of the crew. Those
suffering from communicable disease are not
allowed to remain on board and those in
fected with lice must be put through the
'delousing" process.
The public health service has full author
ity to enforce these measures for the protec-
ton of the United States. If the crew of any
vessels should refuse to comply with the re-
quirements of the public health service, the
American consulate III Rotterdam would re-
fuse it clearance papers, so that it would be
unable to discharge its passengers and cargo
in this country.
This work in connection with the typhus
epidemic at Rotterdam is only one phase of
the work which is being done, and which will
have to be done on {. much larger scale in
the near future, to protect the United States
from imported communicable disease.
1t is hardly an exaggeration to say that all
EurODe is raVagod bV disease To the law
man it seems as though the world had been
visited, during the past few years, by a verit-
able plague of new plaques. First there was
the infant paralysis a couple of years ago,
which was known before, to be sure, but was
new as an epidemic in modern times Then
came the Spanish influenza, which was also
new as a modern epidemic; while the troops
at the front were ravaged by trench fever, a
hitherto unknown disease; and most recent
OF all, the strange and new afhiction COM
monty known as sleeping sickness and called
epidemic stupor by the scientists, has made
it's appearance in this country and in Eng
land. The average citizen is always busy
learning from the newspapers about the
symptoms and dangers of some new disease.
In reality none of these diseases are new.
The germs that cause them are probably as
old as the human race. But the war, with
its crowding, it's wounding, it's dirt and star
walton, created an environment in which dis
ease f1ourishes, and has thus brought to the
attention of the schientists, in the form of
great epidemics, diseases which might other
wise not have been identified for many years.
The worst of the scourges which have been
spread by war have not yet reached the Unit
ed States. We have had our share of in
fuenza and of infant paralysis, but the far
more deadly typhus and cholera, both Of
which are epidemic over large portions of
Europe, have not yet reached America. The
keeping of these diseases out Of the United
States is hardly less important than pre-
venting the invasion of foreign armies.
AS long as the war went on, we were pro-
tected from these infections by our compare
tive isolation. immigration was at stand