Jasper County Democrat, Volume 4, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 February 1902 — VIRUS FOR THOUSANDS. [ARTICLE]

VIRUS FOR THOUSANDS.

Health Officers Vaccinate Entire Population of East Boston, Within twenty-four hours the entire population of East Boston bared its left arms to the inspection of or operation by physicians with vaccine virus, and the authority of the board of health to compel Us use. Every inhabitant of Noddle Island, as the section is locally known, who could not show a comparatively recent vaccination scar, was compelled to submit to inoculation, and when the doctors quit work they counted up and found they had vaccinated more than 15,000 persons. This is probably the world’s record for such an event. The sensational stories sent out from Appleton, Wis„ regarding the condition in that city from smallpox are not wholly justified by the facts, a Milwaukee dispatch says. It was reported that the disease had made its appearance in the family of Dr. llodermund, who gained considerable notoriety last year by his actions in trying to maintain his theory that smallpox is not a cootagious disease. This is not true. There is a ca«(te of scarlet fever of a mild type in the family and it was this which gave rise to the rumor. ’ There are several score of cases of smallpox in and about Appleton, but in this regard the city is in no worse condition than a number of others in the northern part of the State. At Kokomo, Ind., a mob gathered at the home of William Somers at Greentown, stoned and threatened to burn the building unless Isaac Murphy, a smallpox suspect in Somers’ charge, immediately left town. The crowd poked under the door a white cap notice signed “vigilance committee," and containing a threat to hang Murphy to the nearest tree. Murphy had been captured Friday night after a 200mile chase, pursued by officers from a dozen towns, and had been taken in by Somers, an immune. When the mob appeared Somers fired on them. The mob bombarded the house with rocks upntil officers appeared.