Pox Peril

Recently a Connecticut bus driver came down with smallpox. His three children caught it; so did a visitor; so did a person in another house, where the infected visitor took to his bed. The bus driver's wife escaped. Reason: she had been vaccinated.

This was the first outbreak of smallpox in Connecticut in six years. Smallpox is one of the "conquered diseases," in the sense that vaccination provides positive individual protection,* but vaccination has not wiped out the smallpox virus. Last week spokesmen for U. S. medicine had their storm warnings out, for since 1934 the number of smallpox cases has grown. In States which have compulsory vaccination laws, there was less than one case per 100,000 of population. "Local option" States had six times as many; States with no vaccination laws at all, 26 times as many.

According to an article in Hygeia, the virtual disappearance of smallpox has made the public careless. Many children are not vaccinated, many adults mistakenly suppose that one vaccination will last them a lifetime. Result: lowered national immunity.

The smallpox now prevalent in the U. S. is a mild type of the disease. But a wildfire epidemic of the severe type, started by an infected immigrant, might break out in an unprotected area, kill six out of every ten it attacked. The A. M. A. News flourished this scarehead picture:

"Once the virus is in an unvaccinated body, it multiplies for from eight to 21 days before any symptoms manifest themselves. Suddenly the victim has a violent headache, backache and a rise in temperature. The pustules which follow may cause distortion of the features, so that the face is almost unrecognizable. The crusts which eventually form on the sores may take as long as 40 days to drop off, leaving a horribly pitted skin. Blindness frequently results when the inflammation involves the eyes."

Best bet: for all children, vaccination; for all adults, revaccination at least every ten years, preferably every five.

*Smallpox vaccination is one of the oldest immunizing techniques in medicine. It was first put on a practical basis in 1798 by Edward Jenner of England, who vaccinated with germs of cowpox, a cattle disease resembling smallpox. Jenner was regarded by conservative contemporaries as a murderous monster.

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