A Diphtheria Scare at the Falls
A young woman's battle with a deadly disease prompts a public health warning for Spokane.
Early in the week Dr. B. F. Burch was summoned to attend Miss Hattie Warner, who he found to be suffering from a very malignant and serious attack of that most dreaded of all diseases, the diphtheria. The patient had been showing symptoms for several days, it having first appeared while the young lady was on a visit to Medical Lake. With good nursing and prompt and rigid treatment, the Doctor had the happy satisfaction of mastering the attack. We understand that this is the first case of simon-pure diphtheria that has ever occurred at the Falls, and most sincerely do we hope it may be the last. The presence of the disease, although confined to one person, should awaken the public to the necessity of exercising great caution in maintaining any kind of nuisances that tend to poison the air and germinate disease.
“The disease is one of the most dreaded in the catalogue of ailments, and is frightfully fatal among children wherever prevalent.”
Before modern vaccines and antibiotics, diphtheria was a terrifying, often fatal, scourge. This report captures the anxiety of a growing frontier town realizing that urbanization and sanitation were now matters of life and death.
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