SMALLPOX EPIDEMIC.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 144145, 15 July 1913, Page 3

SMALLPOX EPIDEMIC.

VACCINATION IN SYDNEY. NO NEW DEVELOPMENTS. BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. COPYRIGHT. SYDNEY, July 14. The city is full of sore-armed vacciuecs. A number have boon incapacitated for work. Tho authorities insist that vaccination is the only sure method of chocking tho disease, and are insistent that the only sure road to safety is its universal application. Vaccination depots have been opened in various suburbs. The children of various schools’ staffs and most business firms are being treated cn masse. ' All the doctors are overworked and are reaping a rich harvest. Amongst tho cases quarantined aro two nurses, one from a city hospital, and cue from another hospital. Everyone in tho two institutions has been vaccinated.

An anti-vaccinator has challenged the whole of tho members of tho Chamber of .Manufacturers to publicly debate tho question that vaccination is both useless and dangerous add does not benefit anyone excepting tho doctors and undertakers. Much confusion and delay' has been caused by tho insistence on the order that no train passengers from Victoria shall proceed beyond Alliury without a certificate of successful vaccination. Many passengers have been .turned back and others, persisting in proceeding, wore forcibly ejected. Subsequently an order from Melbourne allowed them to proceed. Passengers by train from Brisbane have been reduced to a minimum. There were five fresh cases of smallpox reported to-day. DANGER FROM AUSTRALIA. (Received July 15. 8.50 a.m.) LONDON, July 14. A correspondent, writing to the Pall Mall GazeUo, asks what tho Board of Trade and Port of London Authority are doing to prevent smallpox being brought to England by means of incoming mails and produce. FOOTBALL TEAM HELD UP. (Received July 15, 9.35 a.m.) SYDNEY, July IS. The New Zealand University football team lias been compelled to spend another week in Sydney on account of tbo smallpox epidemic. The team will play Sydney University on Wednesday and depart on Saturday. Tho Health Authorities discovered late last night a family of five, all suffering from smallpox, making a total of ton cases yesterday. PER PRESS ASSOCIATION. WHANGAREI, July 14. Though tho outbreak of sickness among the Natives at Kaikohe was considered sufficiently alarming to justify the postponement of a sitting of the Native Land Court, the Native school in tho district was kept open as usual. The Natives suffering from the disease in that district had received practically no attention ■whatever, and contacts have been freely moving about from ono settlement to another. The consequence is, of course, that a considerable number of cases have developed, and tho need for a well-directed system of isolation and purification is very, pressing indeed. WELLINGTON, July 14.

Cabinet met this afternoon, and considered tlie position regarding the development of the outbreak of smallpox. The Prime Minister stated subsequently that there wan nothing fresh to report beyond the decisions reached on Saturday. It had not been considered necessary to make any further restrictions regarding travelling, nor to make vaccination compulsory. DUNEDIN, July 14. A meeting of the local medical authorities convened by the District Health Officer (Dr. Champtaloup) for the purpose of considering precautions necessary in view of the outbreak of smallpox in the North Island, was held to-day. Dr. Champtaloup said his idea was that they should plan a campaign as to what precautions .they were going to take and what accommodation they thought it advisable to have available at once. He did not think they need alarm themselves, though they might have a case or two here. An expression of opinion was given as to the necessity for passengers from the North Island being vaccinated, and it was resolved that this was a necessity. Other resolutions passed were in effect: That the meeting approved of notification of all cases of chicken-pox being compulsory.. Mid that investigation and vaccination should be carried out where it was considered necessary ; that an officer should bo appointed to investigate oases of chicken-pox; that regular weekly visits should bo made to settlements, and a note should be sent beforehand that the people would bo vaccinated and that the medical officer would pay special attention to any illness in Maori settlements; that suitable temporary accommodation be immediately provided for suspected cases and contacts-

It was reported that the hospital at Quarantine Island was ready for use, and that the department also had a staff of officers ready. Six nurses in tho hospital had been vaccinated, and notice had been posted calling for volunteers for nursing duty in tlio event of a smallpox outbreak. A motor boat had been arranged for to establish communication with Quarantine Island, and an ambulance was available. It was mentioned during tho conference that word had just been received that most recent cases of smallpox had appeared in Hawke’s Bay. MAORIS FROM MATAROA. MARTON, July 15. A number of Maoris from Mataroa, •who arrived at Marten this morning, were detained to be vaccinated. Some complied, but others refused, though they were allowed, after inspection by the Health Inspector, to proceed. THE EPIDEMIC SUBSIDING. AUCKLAND, July 15. Tho Health Officer states that no fresh epidemic cases are reported. Telegrams from tho country state that tho outbreak is suitsiding. Patients in tho Isolation Hospital are all doing well. A few! have so far recovered.

as to bo ablo to walk about. One or two cases aro still acute. In tho majority of cases tho facial disfigurement during the eruption is very pronounced, still all are making good progress towards recovery. AN OFFER PROM STUDENTS. DUNEDIN, July 15. A number of final year students at tho Otago Medical School have offered their services to the Government in any capacity in connection with tho smallpox outbreak. Dr. Valintino has wired that ho is very glad to hear that the students are willing to stand by, and that ho will call on them if it is necessary. SUSPECTED NORSEWOOD CASE. DANEVIRKE, July 15. Tho suspected case of smallpox at a Maori pah seven miles from Norsowood has ben edcfinitely diagnosed as a bad case of skin disease. HEALTH DEPARTMENT’S DIAGNOSIS. MILD FORM OF SMALLPOX. BY TELEGRAPH.—OWN CORRESPONDENT. WELLINGTON, July 14. Tho Chief Health Officer (Dr. Valintine) informed your representative this evening that the department considered that tho circumstances of the epidemic amongst the Maoris in the north warranted tho department in diagnosing the disease as smallpox in a mild form. “There are,” he said, “two' very significant facts which justify this conclusion; (first) that patients attacked by the disease will not react upon being vaccinated, and (second) that persons who, so far as we can loam, have been in actual contact with eases of the epidemic, and who have been vaccinated, have not in a single instance contracted the disease.” Dr. Valintino remarked that the latest news from Auckland was of a reassuring character, the only fresh reports being those in regard to a suspected case at Mercer and another at Raivone (Hokianga). In neither of these cases, however, was there any information of a definite nature. A case, that of a Native, had been reported from Ormondville (Hawke’s Hey). A public vaccinator is being sent up the Wanganui River to-morrow to vaccinate tbo Natives at tho various settlements along the river bank. There has been a great demand for vaccine, but Dr. Valintino states that the department finds that it is able to moot all demands. A farther supply of lymph will bo despatched to Auckland to-morrow. Vaccination has been proceeding briskly in Wellington today, although compulsory vaccination has not been put into operation. A largo proportion of the passengers leaving Wellington by steamer fertile Soflth Island, or by train for the North, are taking the precaution of being vaccinated before leaving tho city. ./

THE WHANGAMOMONA REPORT

The cases reported from Whangamornoua were investigated by Mr. Gray, tho Stratford healtli officer, who fouhd that they wore just ordinary cases of cliickon-pox, and he was confident they 'had nothing in common with tho Auckland epidemic. HISTORY OF THE DISEASE. Few other diseases have been so destructive to human life as smallpox; and it has ever been regarded with horror, alike from its fatality, its loathsome accompaniments, and disfiguring effects, and from the fact that no ago and condition of life are exempt from liability. Except in the case of those protected by vaccination, immunity is rare. Nevertheless, even in civilised countries epidemic outbreaks are not uncommon, affecting especially those who are unprotected, or whose protectid/i has become weakened by lapse of time. One attack of the disease does not invariably protect for life. A competent medical observer has recorded 92 cases of recurrent smallpox out of 12,000. Tho disease has been known in Europe tho thirteenth century, and epidemics have been frequent over since. The only known factor in tlio origin of the disease is contagion, the malady being probably the most contagious of all diseases. Its outbreak as an epidemic in any particular form and in any particular locality may frequently be traced to the introduction of a single case from a distance. This is, of course, the chief danger of an outbreak at the present moment. By far the most common cause of conveyance of tho disease is contact with tho persons or the immediate surroundings of those already affected. The atmosphere around a smallpox patient is charged with the products of tho disease, which-cling to furniture, clothing, etc. Dark-skinned races are more susceptible to the disease than white people. Overcrowding, and all insanitary surroundings, favour tho spread of the disease when it has broken out.

The mortality attending smallpox epidemics varies largely, according to circumstances. In some outbreaks the typo of the disease is much more severe than in others, and the mortality consequently greater. In 1901 and 1903 there were epidemics in the United States, in which it was only 2 per cent. In one Philadelphia outbreak it was 27 per cent, in 7204 cases, while in the Glasgow epidemic of 1900-91 it reached 52 per cent, in the uiyvaccinated and 10 per cent, in the vaccinated. The deaths from smallpox in the United Kingdom declined from 2464 in 1902 to 12 in 1908, the deaths due to the disease in proportion to every million living hefng approximately 75 and 0'.3.

The chicken-pox scare is the main topic of conversation in town at present, although there is nothing to report locally. A settlor at Tarata informed tho Hospital. Board that a Maori boy named Rangi was afflicted with some skin disease, and Dr. Gault, of Inglewood, has gone out to-day to investigate. There seems to be quite a largo number of people who aro already taking tho precaution of becoming vaccinated. Several local medical men and one from Eltham have applied for supplies of vaccine lymph, a big supply of which; is duo from Wellington to-night.