1893-1894 - The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Al'l'KXDIX. 171
doue. It will make' them conspicuous, they say; it will
produce the impression upon the community that they
have a pest in the house, and they would be shunned by
their neighbors. Now to illustrate : There was a case of
scarlet fever in Raleigh, and the doctor told the mother of
the child that had the fever that she must not let her children
associate with other children, and by no means to let
them go to school. She said it was not scarlet fever, and
that she would not keep her children from school. He
knew his woman, and so he went to the principal of the
school and told him that scarlet fever was in the family,
and not to admit any of the other children.
But notwithstanding
the fact that he had expressly forbidden these
children going to school, they went the next morning, and
if he had not taken the precaution to warn the principal
they would have spread the disease broadcast over the
town. Still she insisted that it was not scarlet fever, and
went .so far as to permit her neighbor's children to visit her
children. The result was that two of them became sick,
and one of them died.
nothing in the world but homicide.
It was, not considering the motive,
That is a harsh word,
but it was nothing less, and yet this woman was warned of
the danger of letting her children associate M'ith other
children.
Now I was talking to this same doctor about an
epidemic that we have had down in
one of our neighboring
villages—about typhoid fever. I remarked that the
people ought to boil their water if they insisted upon drinking
the same well water. He agreed with me, but added
that they would rather die than boil their water. And there
are a great many people who would die before they would
boil their drinking water. It is lack of faith : it is a
want of faith, and what we are trying to do, ladies and
gentlemen, is to increase 3'our faith in the efficacy of these
measures that have been enacted by the State entirelv and