A. C. Burnham | Genealogy Lady

VERY FEW NEW CASES
The Smallpox Situation In Dif-
ferent Parts Of The State

Dr. Hurty Says the Disease Is Yet in a
Mild Form-Cases in the City
-At Clay City.

Dr. J. N. Hurty, of the State Board of Health, in speaking of the smallpox conditions last night said that a number of new cases had been reported to him from Putnam, Clay and Miami counties and that in his opinion the conditions were becoming serious. “You might as well say,” said he, “it is going to be everywhere. Might as well locate it everywhere in the State, for that is what it is coming to.” He said all precautions necessary were being taken to prevent the spread of the disease, but the people, and especially those living in Clay county, think on account of the present mild form of the disease there is but little danger and that they are at liberty to carry the disease wherever they see fit to go, with no regard for the quarantine. A large majority of the cases reported have been traced to Clay City. One case at Peru and another from Putnam county reported yesterday were in families members of which had recently come from Clay City.

“The death rate,” said Dr. Hurty, “will be greatly increased this year. Possibly not from deaths by smallpox, which is now of a mild form, but from the after effects, just the same as with the grip. You know people used, seven or eight years ago, to laugh at the grip and the papers were full of cartons on the subject. But during the last few years they have learned that the grip in no joke. In fact, it has been shown to be more fatal than a number of other diseases more dreaded. It will be the same with smallpox. I think, though, the people will understand this after awhile and we will get it stopped.”

Dr. Hurty said he had been advised yesterday that a doctor in Vanderburg county had been fined there a day or two ago for not reporting a case of smallpox to the Board of Health.

In Indianapolis there have been no new cases reported. A. C. Burnham and wife, of 330 North Beville avenue, were removed yesterday from their home to the contagious pavilion at the City Hospital, where they will be cared for better than at home. The house was closed and will be disinfected to-day. It will then be disinfected two or three times and the quarantine raised, thus relieving the city of the expense of keeping up the quarantine. Burnham and his wife have the disease in a very mild form and as it was found soon after breaking out it is thought few exposures resulted and there will be no new cases develop from this source.

City Sanitarian Clark said the matter of building a pesthouse would be presented to the city authorities this morning, with rough plans of the building, which will, as now considered, accommodate thirty to fifty patients and it is thought the necessary permission to use the grounds will be given. The contagion pavilion at the hospital, which is not connected in any way with other wards at the hospital, will accommodate at least twenty patients.

Drs. Hurty, Clark, Ridpath and Ferguson, who were called upon to investigate a case in the home of a man named Leffingwell, on Linwood avenue, near Michigan street, reported yesterday that the afflicted child had chickenpox instead of smallpox.

Smallpox at Clay City.
Special to the Indianapolis Journal.
CLAY CITY, Ind., Jan. 21. – Health Officer Dr. Modesitt has had considerable difficulty in trying to keep smallpox suspects off the street, but with the aid of deputies he is getting them pretty well under control. The doctor is working day and night to secure the enforcement of the order and the people, with a few exceptions, are aiding him in the attempt to confine the disease to places where it now exists.

A few new cases are being reported, but mostly in localities where it already existed. The older cases are all reported better and but few are confined to their beds. No deaths have occurred. All outgoing mails are being disinfected. Every precaution is being taken to prevent the persons who have the disease and those from houses where it exists from going to the postoffice.

Five cases just east of here, in Owen county, were reported to Dr. Modesitt this morning and he reported them to the Spencer Health Board. A few cases have been reported here from Centerville, Jasonville and from the country west of here four miles. As far as heard from they are all mild cases.

Refuse to Get Excited.
Special to the Indianapolis Journal.
TERRE HAUTE, Ind., Jan 21. – Terre Haute physicians and public at large refuse to be excited over the reports made by the Indianapolis doctors of the spread of smallpox in this part of the State. The physicians say there have been cases of chickenpox here and that one case, now isolated, may be smallpox, but they believe that it is not true, as asserted, that all of the cases at Clay City could have been smallpox. It is possible that the appearance of smallpox and chickenpox is a coincidence. Reports have been received from many places near here of chickenpox, and in some instances it has been so prevalent that schools were closed for lack of attendance.

Smallpox in De Kalb County.
Special to the Indianapolis Journal.
BUTLER, Ind., Jan 21. – A great many cases of smallpox have developed twelve miles south of this city. Members of the Tracy, Bishop and Furnace families are down with the disease. Hicksville, O., physicians have had charge of the cases and failed to report them to the Indiana authorities. Much excitement is manifest.

“A Few New Cases,” The Indianapolis Journal (Indianapolis, Indiana), 22 January 1900, p. 8, col. 4; digital image, Chronicling America (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/ : accessed 6 December 2014).

SMALLPOX SITUATION

Mild Case Discovered on Be-
Avenue, This City

Dr. Hurty Speaks of the State Board’s
Dilemma-New Cases in Vigo
County.

A case of well-defined smallpox has been discovered at 330 Beville avenue. The person attacked is A. C. Burnham, a former resident of Clay City, who visited that town a short time ago, and is believed to have contracted the disease while there. Yesterday morning his face was broken out with an eruption which Dr. J. F. Robertson, the family physician, at once diagnosed as smallpox. Dr. Robertson immediately reported the case to the Board of Health, and Dr. C. E. Ferguson was sent to investigate. He pronounced the disease to be a genuine case of smallpox, but said it was of very mild form. The house has been quarantined, and as no outsiders have been exposed to the disease, no apprehension is felt that it will become epidemic.

Dr. Fergusson said yesterday that if Mr. Burnham’s condition became serious, he would be removed to the pavilion for contagious diseases in the City Hospital as there is no pesthouse for such cases in the city.

The probable need of a pesthouse has awakened the City Board of Health to immediate action, and a joint meeting of the Board of Public Works and the Board of Health has been arranged for to-morrow night, at which time plans will be discussed for the erection of a pesthouse on the City Hospital grounds.

Dr. Hurty, secretary of the State Board of Health, received a letter from Dr. Mayfield, health officer of Washington county, late last evening, in which he stated that he had just returned from a two day’s trip through the northern part of Washington county, the same territory in which Dr. Robertson, of this city, diagnosed the supposed cases of chicken-pox, as smallpox. Dr. Mayfield confirms Dr. Robertson’s diagnosis, and says that he insisted on vaccination, but the people were to [sic] incensed because he had diagnosed the disease as smallpox that they indignantly refused to permit him to vaccinate them. He added, that as the people would not protect themselves he was compelled to establish a quarantine, which he would maintain for a period of two weeks, or until the period of incubation had passed.

Dr. Hurty also received a letter from Dr. Talbott, health officer of Vigo county, who says he has found several new cases in Terre Haute, and in none of these cases has a doctor been called. A rigid quarantine is being enforced and he particularly calls attention to the service that is being afforded the local Board of Health by the officers of the Evansville & Indianapolis Railroad Company, who have given orders that all coaches passing through the city of Terre Haute must be disinfected, and has instructed the conductors not to carry any passengers suspected of having the disease. A communication to the Indiana State Board of Health from the State Board of Health of Illinois says that it finds itself in practically the same position as the State Board of Health of Indiana. Dr. Johnson, a member of the Illinois board and a resident of Champaigne, Ill., was sent by his board to investigate an eruptive disease which was raging in the southern part of Illinois, and narrowly escaped being mobbed because he diagnosed the disease as smallpox.

In speaking of the dilemma of the State Board of Health, last night, Dr. Hurty said he could not understand how the citizens of this country could be so foolish. Said he: “In ignorant and superstitious Spain when the people were attacked with the dreadful scourge of cholera, they mistreated those who brought them succor, but who would have thought that almost the same conditions would prevail under similar circumstances in the advanced state of civilization supposed to prevail in this country? Nevertheless, it is true, and if the authorities did not pursue a determined course in this matter, there is no telling where it would end. There has been a great deal of comment on the fact that this disease is of a mild form, but these very people who laugh and sneer because some one is not dying every day, would be the very first to change their tune if they knew that there was not a single case of the mild form of smallpox, but what is attended with various disorders afterwards, that in many instances result in the death of the person attacked. They may die of brain trouble, kidney trouble, lung trouble or liver trouble-it doesn’t may any difference: the fact still remains that their death, if it should result fatally, lies at the door of the mild attack of smallpox.” Dr. Hurty said he predicted that the death rate for this year and next in the State of Indiana would be higher than ever before.

Diphtheria in Randolph County.

The troubles of the State Board of Health are coming thick and fast. Dr. Hurty received word yesterday that diphtheria was raging at Ridgeville, a small town in Randolph county, and that the local Board of Health was having the same trouble with the citizens of that town as has been experienced with the smallpox situation in Clay and other counties. Several days ago the citizens of the town sent to Richmond for Dr. Wiese, a specialist in diseases of this sort, and when he diagnosed it as diphtheria they became very indignant and refused to accept the diagnosis and refused to accept the diagnosis as being correct. As a consequence no quarantine has been established and the disease is very likely to spread.

“Smallpox Situation,” The Indianapolis Journal (Indianapolis, Indiana), 21 January 1900, p. 8, col. 4-5; digital image, Chronicling America (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/ : accessed 6 December 2014).