Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 December 1901 — LOCKJAW PANIC IN CAMDEN. [ARTICLE]

LOCKJAW PANIC IN CAMDEN.

Parents in Great Alarm Became of Several Mysterious Deaths. The epidemic of tetanus which has seized upon the children of Camden, N. J., and has already cost nine lives is causing a panic of terror and apprehension. The cause of the visitation is not known, but It is believed to be due to the wholesale vaccination which has been performed within the past three months as « preventive of smallpox. The Board of HeWtth has been appealed to and an order issued forbidding physicians to vaccinate any more children until a thorough Investigation Into the cause of the recent deaths has been made. Also the lymph that has been used will be sub-1 Jected to bacteriological tests. Not fewer than 5,000 children have I been vaccinated In Camden In the last I three mouths and there sto 3,000 more still awaiting the needle. They may be directed by the Board of Education to be vaccinated, It is thought, but in this event an association of parents now organizing will attempt Injunction proceedings. Should the enforcement of the law be decided on, hundreds of pupils will be withdrawn from school. By some physicians it is said that the supposed epidemic es tetanus Is in reality meningitis, but this idea Is not generally entertained.