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Show - - 'i Safeguard Other People's Children "Whenever it la necessary for the welfare of tho children to Insist that cne or more families be quarantined," quarantin-ed," says the July Woman's Home Companion, ''It Is astonishing how frequently this is taken as a personal person-al Insult by the parents. It seems to bo considered as an infringement on yW the family rights and not for a mo-a mo-a ment to be tolerated." I This article hag to do with a wide I spread ovll. It says further: I "A striking Instance camo to no- 1 tico recently In a suburban town. I For some weeks sporadic cases of 1 diphtheria had been appearing. Ev- I cry care was taken to find out tho 1 sourco of the trouble but all to no I avail. There were carriers at large, I and no ono knew who was responsi ble. So It was decided to make a systematic examination of the throats of tho school children and to send cultures of all suspicious looking cases to .the laboratory. It was found that twenty-flvo per cent ot these cultures cavo positive reaction so of course, theso children wcro quickly quick-ly banished and quarantine ordered by tho board of health. Tho nature of tho work and the necessity ne-cessity for these precautions were explained to the parents In every instance; in-stance; nevertheless, some of these tamo parents woro very angry, and tried various devices to break the quarantine. Ono of tho mothers threatened a law suit unless her child was promptly taken back to school and the sign put on her house by order of tho board of health, Immediately Im-mediately removedl 'Another mother entirely Ignored the notice sent to her, and flatly re- 9 fused to keep her child In tho house H though she knew he -was not well enough to Bend him to school. It I was several hours after this child had been sont home before, tho mother moth-er could be brought to terms. Meanwhile, Mean-while, to spite tho authorities "ho had perpetrated this outrage upon her family by barring her boy out of school, slie sent him over to one of her neighbors to play with the children. chil-dren. Two of these children promptly prompt-ly contracted diphtheria and tho jcunger one, scarcely more than a .baby, developed n malignant type and died in two duys. It would certainly cer-tainly be using a harsh expression tn say that the child was murdered, and U yet If he had been neatly shot he H would, have suffered far less." |
