Smallpox Returns to Walla Walla
City and county officials establish a new health board as cases emerge at the local pest house.
The story, cleaned up
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The new county health board is contending with several new cases of contagion, principally smallpox, which has developed within the past week. County Health Physician Stiles this morning said that there were eight cases in the city and county, five of these being confined in the pest house. One case in the country developed day before yesterday and two city cases are said to have come to light yesterday afternoon. 'I anticipate no resurrection of the smallpox epidemic,' Dr. Stiles said this morning, 'though of course there may be a few cases reported once in a while. It is only natural after the city and county undergoing such a siege as prevailed last year and the first three months of this year. The patients at the pest house are getting along nicely.' The Walla Walla county health board became operative yesterday under the new state law passed by the last legislature putting the health affairs of counties into the hands of a board appointed by the county commissioners of each county. Commissioner Cornwell is chairman, Auditor Honeycutt, clerk and Dr. Stiles, county health physician.
“I anticipate no resurrection of the smallpox epidemic, though of course there may be a few cases reported once in a while.”
Public health infrastructure in Walla Walla has evolved significantly since the early 1900s, but the challenge of managing infectious disease in a growing community remains a persistent civic thread. The 'pest house' era highlights a stark period of isolationist policy that has since given way to modern integrated health departments.
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