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

FIFTH BIENNIAL REPORT. HI
SMALL-POX.
Considering the prevalence of this disease in so many
localities all over the country, and particularly considering,
in view of the first
named fact, the defenseless condition of
our people from want of vaccination, we have been
extremely fortunate so far.
Only two cases have occurred
in our State. One was a refugee from Chattanooga to
Cherokee county in December, 1893, and the other a case
of varioloid in Wadesboro in the person of a horse drover
from Southwest Virginia. The former, rather than submit
to the quarantine which Superintendent of Health Abernathy
promptly proposed to apply, fled the county and
the State, thereb}^ demonstrating in a most satisfactory
manner the value of an active, alert health officer. The
second case, which was a very mild one, was isolated and
all persons exposed as well as numbers of others vaccinated.
In this way, by scaring a number of the unvaccinated
into that most important step, he served an excellent
purpose.
This subject of vaccination, i. e., the j3ractical question
of how to get the people vaccinated, remains one of the
most important and at the same time the most difficult
which we are called to address ourselves. Attention was
called to the prevalence of small-pox in the country and
the importance of vaccination in the December Bulletin
and again more at length in that for January. Inasmuch
as your Secretary's views were fully set forth in the latter
article it is unnecessary to take up your time with recount--
ing them beyond repeating that in his opinion nothing but
the actual appearance of small-pox in a community would
accomplish anything wortli mentioning. At the time of
the Wadesboro case I ordered one hundred vaccine
to
i:)oints.
in the hope that there might be a demand for them.
Thirty have been disposed of to date.