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Show PLAGUE OF LONDON RECALLED I I BY EPIDEMIC WHICH HAS I ; SWEPT OVER THE COUNTRY 1 Dr. McGillicuddy, Who Is in Ogden Representing the U. S. l! I Public Service, Gives an Interview Which Should Shake " H the Careless Out of Their Boots and Bring Strict Com- L pliance With Health Rules. H Thero has been considerable difference differ-ence of opinion, even among well informed in-formed opinion in Ogden, during the epidemic, with regard to the restrictions restric-tions imposed by tho board of health and the publication of the health regulations. reg-ulations. What has often been forgotten for-gotten during tho course of debate on the subject is tho frank statement of doctors whose busy days aro eaten up with calls for help from those' who are in the grip of the disease is that the more you know about this disease the more abominable, hateful and loathsome you deem it to be, and the 'more you will be willing to work and pray for its disappearance. One Ogden doctor a few nights ago. very tired after these many weeks of response to calls for help, said: "Doctors are supposed to be used to the sight of suffering, and the oncoming on-coming of death, but frankly, this disease dis-ease !gets me.' I hate it with a consuming con-suming hatred. It is horrible. It arouses tho fighting spirit In me more than any disease I have ever observed." observ-ed." The local physician's opinion was very strongly corroborated by Dr. McGillicuddy, Mc-Gillicuddy, assistant surgeon U. S. Public Health service, who is here in the city "helping out" In the present crisis. The federal doctor speaks out of a wealth of experience of many years In the handling of epidemics and from a rich knowledge gained in U. S. army service. The man who speaks about "the flu" and treats this disease lightly as a thing that can be "bucked" or "shaken off" or "worked out" would change his mind if ho listened to the doctor's vividly viv-idly forceful languago with regard to the awful character of this disease In its epidemic form. The Black Death. "To describo It as influenza is merely mere-ly to describe It, and not to define Its exact nature," says the doctor. "It is a hybrid disease, caused, not by the presence of one specific bacillus merely, mere-ly, but by many In combination. That is why, when you listen to recovered patients telling of their symptoms, hardly any two of them tell the same 'story. In one person one bacillus pre-1 pre-1 dominates, in another another and so I on. In ono community I -worked in a llttlo timo ago every cause showed the predominance of the pneumococcus, and that community was remarkable because there was little influx of the population from other places. Here In Ogden there are 'all sorts and conditions con-ditions of tho disease, from the light form to tho most hatefully malignant which is like nothing known to medical medi-cal sclenco but what tho people of the seventeenth century called 'the black death,' and which all readers of Pepys Diary will remember when they called to mind his story of the plague of London. Lunns Break Down. "In the malignant form, the patient does not die from pneumonia that Is merely to describe the death. The 1 lungs certainly break down, but the lungs break down because every tissue j of tho body is broken down. The red blood corpuscles are broken down and the body in every part of them becomes saturated, and what actually happens can not be better described than that ' the patient drowns internally. In these cases, no matter where a surgeon might cut the body while conducting , an autopsy, he would release a str.eam ( of liquified blood, of a dark bluish color. Patients who die from this malignant ma-lignant form of the disease show evidences evi-dences a few hours after death of being be-ing dead for at least two weeks and, therefore, any people who treat this disease lightly are worthy of any well Informed person's severe Judgment and of the city's heaviest penalty." Word of Chcor. Dr. McGillicuddy went on to sny that the regulations put in force by the city of Ogden and Weber county are proving prov-ing splendid aids in overcoming the epidemic and spoke highly of an early morning visit to the new emergency hospital where he found everybody in good spirits, sixteen patients bright and happy and well cared for, and preparations going forward under Nurso Swainston's supervision for the care of fifty patients. Asked as to what household remedies reme-dies should bo kept handy in case a doctor might not bo procurable, Dr. McGillicuddy said: "In every home there ought to bo a quantity of quinine, of calomel, and of epsom salts. On the first sign of trouble, trou-ble, lot tho patient go to bed, and get all the organs of tho body working, cleaning out the bowels, flush tho kidneys, kid-neys, get up a good sweat and KEEP WARM IN BED. Don't try to keep warm at Ihe stove, becauso you have a light attack. Get into bed and stay there, and, when tho doctor comes, he will recognizo that you started the cure." "Don't think that tho health officials are a lot of born fools," said the doctor. doc-tor. "This is tho, greatest scourge that ha sever afflicted not only America, but tho world, and commonsonso obedience obed-ience to tho safeguards Imposed at this moment, and instant departure for bed when you feel ill, aro the means that hard working doctors and curators of tho publlo health are wisely using to rid tills city of Its plague." Not wishul lo detain the doctor too long from his duties and yet desirous of publishing a good word of hope, the reporter wont on: "What are the conditions for securing secur-ing a speedy end to the presence of the malady?" "Rigid obedience to the laws of health for the individual, and implicit obqdienco to tho oity regulations, these will help us to win out." In tho quicksilver mines of California, Califor-nia, whither the doctor was sent to quell the epidemic which had laid low 350 men out of tho 800 employed, tho doctor found tho camp in an awful state, for in addition to the- sick men tho only doctor on duty -was suffering of tho disease. With th6 aid of tho military force guarding tho camp, a hospital was built and all tho worst cases taken there. Tho work of the hospital was finished within forty- eight hours ofit s commencement and ' H within a week the hack of the epldem- it H ic was broken down. M H "Of course," said the doctor, "not a il soul was admitted from the outside. U Ogden's difficulty, as I said ye3terdav, ( is due to its being the Junction of five i railroads. People are constantly com- l H ing from the outside. But if every fam- ! H ily in town becomes" a family of kindly- 1 hearted detectives who see to it that ?; the quarantine laws are obeyed, wo '; I shall be singing the song of triumph ! before long. Our worst enemy is our tj H old friend the devil whose name is r Carelessness and his near neighbor Ii and ally is the man whose only view j II of a city's life is gotten through the ftj magnifying power of his own greed." Hi I |
