Part 71

“To cover his own inefficiency. He is City Bacteriologist, also, and the law requires him, in time of epidemic, to make bacteriological analyses. He doesn’t know how. So he simply pigeonholed the case reports as they came in.”

“How did such a rascal ever get the job?” asked Clyde.

“Political pull. The most destructive of all the causes of death which never get into the mortality records,” said Dr. Strong bitterly.

“How many cases?”

“Three or four hundred, at least. It’s got a good start. And more than that of measles. While he was in the business of suppressing, Mullins threw a lot of measles reports aside, too. I don’t like the prospect.”

“The first thing to do,” decided Mr. Clyde, with customary energy, “is to get Dr. Mullins out. I’ll call an emergency meeting of the Public Health League to-morrow. By the way, Julia has some matters to report from school.”

“Well, suppose we call an emergency meeting of our own of the Household Protective Association for to-morrow evening,” suggested Dr. Strong. “Since we’re facing an epidemic, we may as well fortify the youngsters as soundly as possible.”

Directly after dinner on the following evening the Association was called to order by Mr. Clyde, presiding. It was a full meeting except for Maynard, who had not returned for dinner. First Dr. Strong reported that the cultures from the throats of the family had turned out “negative.”

“So we don’t have to worry about that,” he remarked.

Whereupon Mrs. Clyde and her mother drew long breaths of relief.

“And now for the Committee on School Conditions,” said Mr. Clyde.

“All I’ve heard of in our school is measles,” announced Julia. “There’s a lot of the boys and girls away.”

“No diphtheria?” asked Mr. Clyde.

“I asked Miss Brown that at recess, and she looked queer and said, ‘None that we know of.’ But I heard of some cases in the Academy; so I told Manny.”

“Why Manny?” asked Mrs. Clyde.

“He’s Chairman of the Committee on Milk, and the Bliss children from our dairy go to the Academy.”

“That explains why Maynard isn’t here, then,” said the grandmother. “I suppose he’s gone out to the farm.”

“Yes. He took the interurban trolley out, to make sure that they’d be careful about keeping the children away from the dairy.”

“Good team-work, Junkum,” approved the presiding officer.

“And I asked Mary and Jim Bliss to come around to-morrow to see Dr. Strong and have him look at their throats.”

“You ought to be drawing a salary from the city, young lady,” said the Health Master warmly. “You may have stopped a milk-route infection; one of the hardest kind to trace down.”

“They’re talking of closing school after to-morrow,” concluded the girl.

“The very worst thing they could do,” declared Dr. Strong.

“The very best, I should think,” controverted Grandma Sharpless, who never hesitated to take issue with any authority, pending elucidation of the question under discussion. “If you group a lot of children close together it stands to reason they’ll catch the disease from each other.”

“Not unless you group them too close. Arm’s length is the striking distance of a contagious disease. There’s a truth for all of us to remember all the time.”

“If it is a truth,” challenged Mrs. Sharpless. “One of the surest and one of the most important,” averred the Health Master. “The only substance that carries the contagion of diphtheria or measles is the mucus from the nose or throat of an infected person. As far as that can be coughed or sneezed is the danger area. Of course, any article contaminated with it is dangerous also. But a hygienically conducted schoolroom is as safe a place as could be found. I’d like to run a school in time of epidemic. I’d make it a distributing agency for health instead of disease.”

“How would you manage that?”

“By controlling and training the pupils hygienically. Don’t you see that school attendance offers the one best chance of keeping track of such an epidemic, among the very ones who are most liable to it, the children? Diphtheria is contagious in the early stages, as soon as the throat begins to get sore, and before the patient is really ill. Just now there is an indeterminate number of children in every one of our schools who have incipient diphtheria. What is the one important thing to do about them?”