A Mild Smallpox Case Was Enough to Bar Old Town Pupils From School
One patient recovering at the Newport Hotel and one suspected case in quarantine lead the school board to suspend every old-town child — though, as patrons point out, none of them had been exposed.
The smallpox patient at the Newport Hotel is apparently about well. Her case was a very mild one. Henry Noel, the suspect, is reported as having symptoms of the disease. He is also in quarantine.
The school board has suspended the pupils from the old town from attending school, on either side, on account of the smallpox scare. As none of the pupils have been in the least exposed to the case, this action is surprising to the patrons on this side.
“As none of the pupils have been in the least exposed to the case, this action is surprising to the patrons on this side.”
With no vaccine in wide use and no way to test the exposed, a single mild case could shut a school — and the people shut out were the ones likeliest to object that the rule made no sense. The old town/new town split across the river made the quarantine a neighborhood question as much as a medical one. Newport's parents in 1908 were arguing about exactly what parents argued about in 2020: who decides, on what evidence, and why my kid.
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