LOS ANGELES EPIDEMIC,

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume L, Issue 16606, 9 December 1924, Page 11

LOS ANGELES EPIDEMIC,

BLOCKING THE OUTBREAK

ORBi FIGHT I'.V MEDICAL STAFF. LOS ANGELES, Nov. 3.—State and Federal health authorities tu-day weie moving to the aid oi Los Angeles in its grim battle to block (lie spread of an outbreak of pneumonic plague thai at last reports had claimed a Iota! of 22 victims in lh? Mexican quarter of the city and. with 10 eases undor treatment at the general hospital, was expected In claim .!i!l other victims 10-day.

Doctors W. 11. Kcllogg and C. 11. Halliday. Stain Hoallh Depnrtmonl experts, have ai'i'ived frotn San Francisco. Dr. Kellogg announced that (hough iherp was no doubt about Hie nature of tho malady or its seriousness, the; prospects for bringing it under control wen- good. Tlirrse squads of policemen guard tho Mexican quarter danger zone dav and night. Fond rind other rietwßJl-ipR arc sent, through the police cordon under strict super\ ision, white within the lines and in tho hospital wards, nurses, doctors and orderlies go about wearing masks to ward off infection. HEROIC NURSES.

Herein lies ;i lale of quiet heroism. Masks worn by those who work among the arc, after all, but partial prelection, and Ihe mortality rati* of tin? disease, which it allied in the bubonic plague, approaches 100 per cent. These workers among the doomed arc not, ignorant of tho practically certain fate awaiting litem il their protective masks and other precautionary measures fail them, but, as Dr. Kcllogg explained it: "That, is a.'l a pari of the work in dealing villi a situation like ibis. Those who do thti will: must lake the risks." Ground squirrel'! probably carried Ihe disease to,Los Angeles and communicated it [ocrals. who in turn transmitted il in the first human Viefim through the intermediary agency of a Ilea. Dr. Kellogg said in discussing the history of |>ho plague in the United States. SERUM 'SOUGHT. Serum laboratories in New York today were called on by the United States Public Health Service to report a! once if they were able to supply anti-toxins with which to fight t]*3 pneumonic plague in Los Angeles. If tho New York manufacturers have none on hand, the Pasteur Institute, in Paris, France, the only other place in Ihe world where the swum is available, will he asked to ship soma to this conntry.

Fight to overcome the pneumonic plague in Lot; Angeles will be conducted mideir the direction of physicians and agents of the United States Public Health Service, it was announced to-day from the offices of tho State Board of Health.