Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 September 1897 — ARM TO FIGHT FEVER. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ARM TO FIGHT FEVER.

RIGID QUARANTINE IN SOUTHERN TOWNS. Law Will Be Enforced with Gnns if Necesaary—Guards Watch AH Pasainir Trains—Danger that the Pestilence May Spread. Peril in the Plague. The breaking out of yellow fever at Ocean Springs, Miss., New Orleans and other places has caused a very widespread alarm, in the South. Practically every city and town in Alabama has established the most rigid quarantine against Ocean Springs, New Orleans and other yellov fever infected points, and most places a shotgun quarantine is the order of the day. This is virtually true of Mobile, where the officials publicly proclaimed that the regulations would be enforced at the point of guns. Trains from the South and Southwest on all railroads passing through an-y part of the State are boarded by determined officers heavily armed, and no one from anywhere near the infected districts is permitted to leave the cars. At a number of small towns guards line the depot platforms as well os the trains. Many Alabamians summering at Gulf coast are shut out entirely from the rest of the world, as trains between Mobile and New Orleahs now run past all stations without stopping. It is feared that the delay of the health authorities in proclaiming the disease yellow fever will result disastrously, and It would be no surprise should it break out at various Southern points at any moment. May Spread the Plague. For three’weeks past people from all over this and neighboring States have been leaving Ocean Springs in fright because, as they said, a peculiar epidemic was prevailing at that place. Those who thus got away before the yellow fever commenced are now scattered far and wide, and herein lies the greatest danger. The Florida State Board of Health has

Issued a proclamation excluding from the State all persons and baggage from the yellow fever infected points in Louisiana and Mississippi, unless accompanied by a certificate that the person has not been exposed to the disease within fifteen days from the time of departure. The salt water resorts between Mobile and New Orleans —Pascagoula, Scranton, Biloxi, Ocean Springs, Bay St. Louis, Pass Christian, Waveland, the Southern Methodist Association camp grounds and all way stations on the Mississippi sound coast —contain at this season tens of thousands of visitors from all sections of the South. Mobile now has representatives by hundreds at Scranton, Biloxi, Ocean Springs and the camp grounds. These people, since the fever panic began, have been wildly anxious to get to their homes. Federal Anthoritlee Act. The general Government will render all assistance in its power to check the spread of yellow fever. This will be done mainly through the agency of the Marine Hospital Service. Dr. Walter Wyman, the head of the bureau, has returned to Washington and assumed active charge in directing the work in assisting the State officials of Mississippi in their efforts to confine the disease to the locality where it appears to have sta'rted. Dr. Wyman says that as yet he has no opinion to express whether the disease is really yellow fever, although he admits it looks very suspicious. The precautionary measures he has taken are based entirely on the declaration of the State Board of Health of Louisiana in the Gelpi case, which was that the disease from which the person had died was yellow fever. Dr. Wyman says the situation at Ocean Springs is entirely in the hands of the State Board of Health, while the Marine Hospital Bureau is doing everything possible to assist. Dr. Wyman has wired the physician in charge at Ocean Springs a copy of the treasury regulations relating to the prevention of the spread of epidemic diseases from one State to another. These regulations prescribe the manner of surveillance to be established over railroad trains coming from the infected district and give rules for the isolation of infected passengers and the disinfection of their baggage. The Marine Hospital Service has ample camp material on hand. The splendid outfit which has been at Gainesville, Ga., has been sent to the vicinity of Ocean Springs, and if a camp of detention is found necessary the outfit will be used as occasion may require. The bureau also keeps portable apparatus at Savannah, Ga., intended for use in epidemics. It consists of machines for disinfecting and fumigating purposes. They have also been sent to the vicinity of Ocean Springs.

COAST ALONG WHICH YELLOW FEVER IS REPORTED.