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Show H Ng ye "Pest Hou.se Disgrace, n B Two weeks ago this paper made an exposure of m the infamous condition of affairs at the city pest H house. The representations made showed that H the pest house was an institution of barbarism Hj ' which was a disgrace and an ignominy to the B ' city. m Notwithstanding this expose, no action what- H over has been taken by the City Council or Board H of Health to remedy this hideous and glaring in- H iquity. The negligence of these officials demon- B strates that they are not only traitors to the public H ' trust, but unheeding, reckless and incompetent. H, The plain facts of the case are that an epidemic H of smallpox is now impending, and the members Hl of the Health Board themselves confess that they Hf are totally unable to combat the spreading con- M I tagion. The whole scandal is due to that ne- mj farlous measure, born and coneivcd in the edi- Hf torial sanctum of the Deseret News the McMil- H lan Anti-Vaccination law and to the hopelessly B Inadequate facilities provided for the care of B smallpox patients. That wretched adobe enormity K In a wind-swept gulley at the mouth of Parley's Hi canyon, perforated, leaking and hideous to look H upon, would be an unfit haven for a Bengal fresh Hj from an African jungle. And yet twenty-eight miB- H' erable victims of smallpox are harbored behind H these broken and crumbling walls, unattended, M comfortless, and huddled together like doomed 1 souls driven to the nether pastures of perdition. ' The imprisonment of unfortunates under such b conditions is as great a crime as was ever con- i ceived in the fiendish soul of a fighting Turk or V the demoniacal bosom of a goaded Iroquois upon B tho warpath. & & H & M The Board of Health confess that the isolation hospital is now filled to its utmost capacity. Not L a single additional victim could be accommo- H dated. When the public imagines what widespread B terror would ensue in case of a sudden epidemic, H they will realize the variety of fantastic states- HP manship possesed by the men elected to guard H and enhance the municipal well-being. It is easy H to imagine several cases of smallpox breaking out HL in a large hotel or office building. If such a con- V tingency arose, involving probably the lives of H. hundreds of people, what would the Board of Hi Health do? The answer is complete in their own H confession that they would bo utterly unable to r deal with such a calamity. -H Tho Board of Health is assuredly culpable in H this matter. Heretofore the Council has been 1m- m portuned for an appropriation for the improve- 1 ment or removal or rebuilding of the pest house; H the Council has uniformally turned a deaf ear to their entreaties. The records do not show that P the matter has ever been brought to the attention V of the Council by the present Health Commis- H sioner. The condition has now reached a stage Hi so critical and so abhorrent that if the Council apathetically pursues its course of dereliction, the matter should be taken to the courts, so that the city could either be forced to build a new isolation hospital or enjoined from taking more victims to the city's den of terrors. & & This paper has already thoroughly exploited the heinous state of things at the pest house. There are no nurses at the hospital. The building build-ing is an unspeakable piece of porous construction. construc-tion. Twenty-one sufferers breathe the foul air of the same ward. The greatest sufferers are attended at-tended by the convalescing patients. The sanitary conditionss are fierce enough to wake to frenzy the lymphatic soul of a lotus-eater. The evil and outrage of placing the most critical criti-cal of the victims in the same ward with the rapidly rapid-ly recovering should be apparent even to the apathetic intellect of a municipal statesman. When the man who is practically well desires ventilation he is unable to secure it on account of the more acute sufferers. On account of the scandalous sanitary arrangements and the nature of the ailment the odor is so rampant that bricks could be floated on it, and in consequence the failure to provide separate wards for the sick and convalescing Is inexcusable and vicious. Under Un-der the condition now extant, in order to make the place habitaable even for an esthetic, blubber-bestrewn blubber-bestrewn Esquimoux, it is necessary every few moments to fumigate the apartments. & & & Wo wish to propound one query to the Board of Health: Are you aware that there is such a place on the map as that iniquitous little adobe shack which disfigures the landscape just beyond the state penitentiary? If the Health Commissioner Commis-sioner is not aware of the ghastliness of this place of horrors, he is a grossly negligent and derelict official; if he is aware of such atrocities as this journal has exploited and their menace to the public and has not called the Council's attention at-tention to the case, then he has disgraced the office he holds and should be peremptorily demoved. & & & It must bo admitted that the health board's efforts in contending with smallpox contagion have been crippled by that sinister and parni-cious parni-cious enactment of the Legislature, passed over the veto of the governor, preventing compulsory vaccination. This measure can be directly traced to the sapient sage who pro-sides pro-sides over the destinies of the Deseret News. The health board now contends that had it not been for this enactment, smallpox would now be practically an unknown contagion in the municipality. Whether this be so or not, the fact remains, and the Deseret News is herein so advised, that of the one hundred and twenty smallpox cases reported to the health board last year, one hundred and fourteen were deciples of the News' antiquated and fanatical theory and were unvaccinated. & & Panatisism and incompetency together have produced a condition, not only of municipal brutality, bru-tality, but of imminent danger to the public. With a palpably negligent health commissioner, an apparently indifferent City Council, and an isolation iso-lation hospital so squalid and loathsome that its Tiideousness rivals the aromatic putridity of a leper asylum, there is every occasion for public alarms. If the virulence of the epidemic spreads to the center of the city, the Board of Health would be forced to witness, in senile helplessness, the onward rush of the spangled hydra of smallpox. The Council should make an immediate appropriation ap-propriation to avoid the catastrophe which appears ap-pears to be impending; and if he is unable' to explain to the City Council his wanton neglect, there should immediately be lodged in the decapitation decap-itation basket the official head of the Health Commissioner. Com-missioner. ' ' |