The Health bulletin [serial] - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

22 The Health Bulletin September, 1927
which occur in rare cases during treatment,
but it was found that the ultimate
cause of these symptoms was still
unknown. It is found that they are
less frequent when glycerinated or
carbolized vaccines are used. (In N. C.
glycerinated vaccine is used.)
The desirability of autopsy and study
of the brain of every human case who
dies during treatment, or shortly thereafter,
was strongly urged. It is believed
that it is only by the study of
such brains that the cause of paralytic
symptoms can be determined.
The importance of a uniform method
in preparing statistics was found to be
essential for a final evaluation of
methods. In accordance therewith, the
doctors of this State will, in the future,
be asked for more complete information
about their patients who take the
preventive vaccine.
4. The conference recommended that
the study of the vaccination of animals,
especially dogs, be continued, but did
not think that changes in legislation,
based on the vaccination of dogs, should
be encouraged at present, and the conference
specifically stated that "dogs
bitten by animals known to be rabid
shall be destroyed even if previously
vaccinated." It is interesting that this
statement is in exact accordance with
a law which has long been in force in
this State, but which, unfortunately
is not always observed.
The conference finally concluded that
"the only measures that wall completely
eradicate rabies are, the restriction of
the liberty of the dog, unless muzzled,
to the premises of the owner, and the
destruction of the ownerless dog, and
recommends that these measures be embodied
in the legislation of the various
countries."
HELPING PROTECT THE FLOOD SUFEERERS
Since the advent of the new century
people now living, and who are
comparatively young, have been able
to note more upsetting revolutionary
changes in the process of civilization
than at any other period of a thousand
years in the world's history.
Many of us are familiar with discoveries
and inventions and advances in
the realm of medical science and in
the field of public health, all of which
are tending to considerable extension
of the span of life for the average individual.
The invention and the widespread
use of the automobile, the
radio, the aeroplane, and other everyday,
commonplace events of mighty
processes are familiar to everybody.
It may be said that the average newspaper
reader in these days picks up
his morning paper with the feeling
that the unexpected and impossible
has almost come to be regarded as the
normal. The world-wide devastating
effects of the late war, with its ten
million men destroyed as a direct
effect of the clashing forces in the
fighting area alone, has caused people
to look with complacency since then on
many calamities that a quarter of a
century ago would have made a deep
and terrifying impression on people
all over the world. The recent terrible
flood in the Mississippi Valley, on
account of its magnitude and the unprecedented
destruction of property
and the danger to helpless women and
children in such a large area of the
country, has been one of the events,
however, which has made a very deep
impression. We do not recall any
event in this country which has
caused the Surgeon General of the
United States Public Health Service
to call on all the State health departments
in the Union for assistance in
preventing a scourge of pestilential
disease following the wake of the
flood waters.
Surgeon General Gumming sent out
a call to all the State health officers
for voluntary forces to aid in the
work. The North Carolina Board of
Health along with other boards in
this section, responded as liberally as
possible.
In response to the call from Surgeon
General Gumming, acting in cooperation
with the American Eed
Cross, two physicians of the North
Carolina State Board of Health personnel
and four sanitary inspectors
from the engineering department of
the State Board of Health were dis-