February 12, 1909
SMALLPOX EPIDEMIC
AT WILLIAM JEWELL.
FIFTY SUFFERING FROM MAL-
ADY AND SCHOOL IS CLOSED.
Gymnasium a Temporary Pesthouse
and 25 Unfrightened Patients
Kill Time by Playing
Basketball.
LIBERTY, MO., Feb. 11. -- Fifty students of William Jewell college are down with smallpox and school has been dismissed.
The gymnasium has been converted into a temporary pesthouse and twenty-five of the afflicted are confined there.
Ten patients are confined in sheds on the campus and fifteen are in their rooms.
A quarantine has been ordered and no student is allowed to leave the city.
The pesthouse is guarded. Those confined there say that they are having a great time. The form of the disease prevalent among them is a light one, and they spend most of their time playing basketball, for which the gymnasium is splendidly fitted.
Baseball is practiced on the lawn outside by the invalids. Only a few are confined to their beds. The gymnasium resembles an imprisoned dormitory of school boys rather than the contagion ward of a hospital. Inmates are allowed to use the telephone and may call up their parents daily over the long distance.
Dr. T. B. Hooser and Dr. W. F. Maness, two students, are in attendance on those afflicted with the disease.
Last Friday 400 students and all the members of the faculty were vaccinated, so that everybody has a sore arm. John Green, son of President J. P. Green, is one of those taken down. He is confined at his home. All of the basketball games scheduled for the rest of the season have been given up. Many of the students who were back in their studies are taking advantage of the holiday to catch up. Others are having a good time in a social way.
