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June 10, 1908

SMALLPOX PATIENTS REMOVED.

St. George Hospital Now Stans in

Five Feet of Water.

High water invaded the grounds shrouding St. George's hospital, the city's pest house, located on the banks of the Missouri river near the bridge of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railroad, yesterday afternoon. When the outbuildings began to float Dr. George P. Pipkin,in charge of the hospital, became concerned for the thirteen patients in his charge, and telephoned to the city for ambulances. The sufferers were loaded into these and transferred to the ward for the insane at the general hospital, Insane patients were distributed in other parts of the building.

At a late our last night St. George's hospital, which is a frame structure, was still intact in about five feet of water.

Labels: doctors, flood, general hospital, mental health, railroad, smallpox

May 9, 1908

RUNAWAY GIRLS ARE CAUGHT.

Returned to Smallpox Hospital After

a Jaunt About Town.

The two girls, Edna Sickler, 12, and Grace Kaufman, 13 years old, were returned to quarantine at St. George hospital near the Milwaukee bridge late last night. Edna Sickler was the first to arrive at 9 p. m., in company with her father, Edward Sickler. At 11:15 o'clock Grace Kaufman was taken back by the guard, Morris S. Sharp. Both girls escaped from quarantine where smallpox patients are confined and were gone thirty-four and thirty-six hours, respectively.

While the police were supposed to be looking for them a citizen who had seen their descriptions in Friday's Journal called up the smallpox hospital and told Dr. George P. Pipkin, in charge there, that he believed both girls were with the Kaufman girl's father at Twenty-ninth and Spruce streets.

The girls reported that they walked from the smallpox hospital to the end of the Fifth street line -- both had previously begged a nickel from their mothers -- and transferred until they had reached the vicinity of Twenty-ninth and Prospect. There, as if by prearrangement, they met Frank Kaufman, Grace's father. He took the girls with him to cut grass on Prospect avenue between Twenty-eighth and Twenty-ninth and took them home with him in the evening.

Dr. Pipkin said that Kaufman would be prosecuted for harboring a person with a contagious disease without reporting the fact. Kaufman told Sharp that the girls said they had been discharged.

Labels: children, doctors, hospitals, Prospect avenue, smallpox, streetcar, The Journal, Twenty-eighth street, Twenty-ninth street

May 8, 1908

TWO GIRLS ESCAPE

FROM PEST HOUSE.

UNFUMIGATED, THEY ARE WAN-

DERING ABOUT THE STREETS.

POLICE LOOKING FOR THEM.

ONE GIRL IS 12 YEARS OLD, THE

OTHER IS 13.

Edna Sickler and Grace Kaufman

Elude the Guards and Go Visit-

ing, No One Seems to

Know Where.

If you should meet two girls, one 12 years old, light hair, blue eyes with a squint in her right eye, wearing a red calico dress and red coat, and the other 13 years old, dark hair, eyes and skin, and wearing a gray coat and dark skirt, it might be advisable, if you are not equipped with a fumigating apparatus, for you to climb a tree or jump in a well until they have passed.

Girls of this description took French leave of St. George's hospital in the East Bottoms yesterday about noon. The city's smallpox patients are quarantined there. The 12-year-old girl is named Edna Sickler. Her home is at 6415 East Fourteenth street and her mother and two small brothers, 3 and 7 years old, are still in quarantine. Grace Kaufman is the 13-year-old. Her home is at 2307 East Eighteenth street and her mother and a sister 11 years old are still at the hospital.

"The girls have been down here nine days," said Dr. George P. Pipkin, who has charge of the hospital. "Both of their cases were very light, but they are endangering the public as they left here wearing the same clothes in which they came and were not fumigated. I have given their descriptions to all the police stations and want them returned here at once."

With five other children the two girls were playing about the hospital grounds about 11 o'clock yesterday. Telling the other children that they were going up the river bank to gather flowers they disappeared. As that is a custom, nothing was thought of the incident until the girls failed to show up for dinner at 11:45 o'clock.

Fearing that some accident had happened them the mothers went in search but got no trace of them. Then the matter was reported to Dr. Pipkin who, with Morris S. Sharp, a guard, made a search in the immediate neighborhood. That, too, was fruitless. Sharp then took the wagon and drove toward town. From a man working near the Crescent elevator in the East bottoms he learned that the girls had passed there, seemingly in a great hurry to reach the Fifth street car line, just about noon. Then the matter was reported to the police.

From the mothers Dr. Pipkin learned that both girls had been given a nickel in the morning. They wanted to buy a candy at a little store nearby, they said. The doctor also learned that the girls had taken particular pains to wash up in the morning, and one of them complained that her dress was not clean.

Sharp came to the city and went to the girls' homes, but they had not shown up there. When he went to a flat near Twenty-eighth and Wabash avenue, where the Kaufman girl's father worked as janitor he was informed that Kaufman had been gone two days. Mr. and Mrs. Kaufman are separated. When informed that her husband had gone, sh said she feared that the girl was with him. The father and three sisters at the Sickler girl's home said they would inform Dr. Pipkin if Edna came home.

Men at the smallpox hospital are watched very closely, but it has never been deemed necessary to place a guard over children. They have always been given as much freedom as possible as it was known to be good for them. These two girls are the first to ever run away from the institution. The police believe the girls are still in the city and hope to land them back at the hospital today.

Labels: children, clothing, doctors, East bottoms, Eighteenth street, health, hospitals, smallpox, Twenty-eighth street, Wabash avenue

April 9, 1908

SMALLPOX CLOSES

THE PARK SCHOOL.

PRINCIPAL CRIPPEN IS TAKEN

WITH THAT DISEASE.

He is Sent to the Pest House -- One

Pupil Had Smallpox and Was

Permitted to Return to

School Too Soon.

The Park school, located at Twenty-fourth street and Central avenue, Kansas City, Kas., has been closed by the board of education on account of the prevalence of smallpox there. In the school are six teachers and 200 pupils. The step taken by the board was the first announced last night.

About three weeks ago Marguerite Gardner, 11 years old, was taken down with the disease, but little attention was paid to the matter by the authorities of the school, it is said, so when she reported for classes two weeks later she was admitted by the principal, C. I. Crippen, and allowed to take her accustomed place among the scholars. Several members of the Wallenberg family, living in the vicinity, were also affected, but they, with the exception of a grown daughter now working in a Kansas City, Mo., department store, were quarantined in the home.

Wednesday, April 1, Principal Crippen became violently ill while hearing a class at the school. He was taken at once to his home at 2313 North Fifth street, where the attending physician pronounced his case smallpox and he was removed to the pest house. Then it was the school board decided totake measures preventing the further spread of the disease in the Park school, so without waiting to inform the board of health the assistant principal was instructed to close the doors until it could be thoroughly fumigated.

"In my mind, action in this matter was not taken soon enough," said W. J. McCarty, a teacher who lives near the Park school last night. "Matters of this kind should be taken under the advisement of the school board as soon as reported, and should be reported by the principal without a moment's delay.

"It is evident that Marguerite Gardner was allowed to return to school too soon. Perhaps that was her parent's fault, perhaps the blame rests on the principal, the board of eduation or the board of health, if they knew of the cases. I understand all the affected ones are improving."

This is the first school to be closed because of smallpox in Kansas City, Kas., for several years. District 44, where it is located, is an outlying one. Yesterday afternoon all the class rooms were fumigated after a careful cleansing with lye water, and they will be fumigated several more times before the close of the week. Members of the school board say pupils may return there next Monday for recitation.

Labels: children, health, Kansas City Kas, schools, smallpox

February 10, 1908

HE WOULDN'T BE VACCINATED.

So David Kelley Was Arrested and

Spent the Night in Jail.

Rather than be vaccinated along with a crowd that the police and assistant city physicians rounded up last night at the Helping Hand institute, David E. Kelley, a tinner from Minnesota, allowed himself to be arrested and spent the night in the police holdover. He said that he had a family dependent on him and considered it dangerous to be vaccinated.

Kelley, who is about 45 years old, siad he was looking for employment. He had paid 15 cents for a bed at the Helping Hand institute only three hours before the raid.

Kelley said that vaccination had never "taken" on him, but that he once had a kind of "cow pox." He was booked and locked up for refusing to be vaccinated, on complaint of Dr. Cook, an assistant physician.

Labels: doctors, health, Helping Hand, jail, smallpox, visitors

February 9, 1908

REDUCES SENTENCE

TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS

JAMES MARKIN WILL SERVE

15 INSTEAD OF 43.

Judge Casteel Says Long Prison

Terms Are Not Good for Either

a Criminal or Society.

Markin a Burglar.

I agere with the mayor of Toledo, Brand Whitlock I think is his name, that long prison terms, except for particular cases, are not good for either a criminal or for society," delcared Judge B. J. Casteel from the Jackson County criminal court bench yesterday, after he had sliced twenty-eight years off the time a jury had declared James Markin should serve for robbing the residences of J. J. Heim and William Kenefick.

"There is no more sense in keeping a man in the penitentiary for thirty or forty years because of some crime, than in sentencing a smallpox patient to the hospital for a year, when he can be cured in two weeks. Whenever the authorities are conviced that a man has undergone a change of heart, he should be freed from prison, just as a sick man is released from a hospital when he recovers his health.

"Markin, whom a jury said should serve forty-three years for the two burglaries, is now 49 years old, I am informed. If he served his term in prison he would be dead or past 90 when the sentence expires. Ffiteen years from now he will be past 60. He ought to be old enough to know how to behave himself by that time and release should not be a detriment to society."

Phil Clear was Markin's attorney at his trials and made the appeal yesterday for the cutting down of the sentences. Prosecuting Attorney I. B. Kimbrell said that he did not favor shortening the sentences, as twelve men from over Jackson county who heard the evidence ought to have known what was a fit punishment. Kimbrell, however, asaid that he would make no recommendation other than that Judge Casteel follow his own sense of justice.

Judge Casteel presides over the criminal court of Buchanan county, at St. Joseph. He was assigned to try the Markin case by Judge W. H. Wallace when Markin filed an application for a change of venue.

Labels: crime, criminal court, Judge Wallace, Judges, Prosecutor Kimbrell, smallpox

February 6, 1908

HE IS OFFICIAL VACCINATOR.

Dr. Frank A. Denslow Will Do This

Work for Board of Health.

At a meeting of the board of health yesterday it was decided that to be within the law it would be best to have no volunteer physicians in the city's vaccinating squad. One man, Dr. Frank A. Denslow, was appointed for that special work. Chief Clerk C. H. Cook will direct his movements.

Mr. Cook, with Victor Ringolsky, an inspector and an officer detailed by the chief will accompany Dr. Denslow on all of his tours. So many cases have been turning up within the last few days from "bunk" houses in the North End that several of them, from which cases have been taken, will be visited tonight.

"As soon as a case of smallpox arises in a house, be it public or private," said Mr. Cook, "the inmates of that house shall be vaccinated at once."

It is understood that if there is any refusal on the part of landlords to admit the vaccinating squad it has the power to immediately declare the building in quarantine and keep it so until all inmates are vaccinated and the premises thoroughly fumigated.

Eugene Benton, a negro who said he lived in the East Bottoms and worked in Armour's packing house, walked into the emergency hospital late last night and asked for "some medicine for a hurtin' in my neck." When examined it was discovered that Benton was suffering from smallpox. He was sent to St. George's hospital.

Labels: board of health, doctors, East bottoms, emergency hospital, health, North end, smallpox

February 3, 1908

WALK IN WITH SMALLPOX.

Three Who Were Broken Out Asked

for Treatment.

Early yesterday morning J. W. Thompson, who said he had been staying at the Metropolitan hotel, Fifth and May streets, strolled into the emergency hospital, complained of feeling sick and asked the physician in charge to treat him. It was found that he was broken out with smallpox and he was carted off to St. George's hospital.

Later in the day a man and woman came over from the Helping Hand institute to find out what was the matter with them and were declared to have the smallpox. They were sent to St. George's. The emergency hospital and the institute were fumigated.

Men from the city physician's office expect to make another vaccination raid in the North End Tuesday night. All rooming houses on West Fifth and West Fourth streets and in Little Italy will be visited and the inmates made to show scars or subject themselves to the scratcher.

Labels: emergency hospital, Fifth street, Fourth street, Helping Hand, hotels, May street, North end, smallpox

February 1, 1908

PREVENT SMALLPOX SPREAD.

Seventy-Five Men at Salvation Army

Quarters Vaccinated.

Marshalled by C. H. Cook, chief clerk of the board of health, Drs. Paul Lux and H. A. Lane and R. A. Shiras went on another vacccinating tour last nigth. Only one place was visited on account of the inclement weather. That was the Salvation Army Citadel, at 1300 Walnut street, and it was selected on account of the fact that a virulent case of smallpox was discovered there yesterday morning.

Seventy-five men were found in the smoking room and sleeping apartments at the Citadel, and all were vaccinated. One old man said he would leave the city before he would "stand for the scratch." When Patrolman August Metsinger and Victor Ringolsky, an inspector started with him to the Walnut street station, however, he changed his mind quickly.

The number 13 played an important part with the man who had smallpox at the Citadel. The number of the building is 1300, the man had room 13, had been in the room 13 days and he "broke out" on Friday, January 31, which is 13 reversed. He was sent to the St. George hospital for treatment.

A man dressed like a prosperous mechanic appeared at the board of health late yesterday and asked to be examined. It was soon discovered that he was suffering from smallpox. He had arrived here on a Missouri Pacific train from Omaha, and was en route to Boston. He was at once transferred to St. George, Kansas City's smallpox hospital in the East Bottoms.

Labels: board of health, doctors, East bottoms, health, hospitals, railroad, Salvation Army, smallpox, Walnut Street

January 30, 1908

MORE MEN ARE VACCINATED.

Health Officers Caught 157 in North

End Rooming Houses.

An impromptu vaccinating expedition was organized at the office of the board of health last night. Drs. H. A. Lane and George Dagg, Harry Heaton, a druggist; Victor Ringolsky, an inspector; and Charles H. Cook, chief clerk at the board of health, constituted the raiders.

The marauders paid their first visit to the Helping Hand annex at 308 Main street, where ninety-two men were cornered and successfully vaccinated. From there they made a rapid flank movement and succeeded in corralling sixty-five more "suspects" in 301 Main street. Patrolman Peter Campbell went along in blue and brass to represent the majesty of the law. One suspicious case was found at 308 Main street. The man is now isolated in the detention room at the emergency hospital until his case can be investigated.

Last Saturday night over 350 men were vaccinated in the North End rooming houses. It is the intention of Dr. Sanders to keep up this gait until every man in that section of the city has been rendered immune -- as far as possible. Few objected last night, and a poke in the ribs by Campbell helped them to make up their minds.

Labels: board of health, doctors, druggists, health, Helping Hand, Main street, North end, police, rooming house, smallpox

June 3, 1907

THIS CALLER HAD SMALLPOX.

Police Hustled Him Out and Sanitary

Forces Took Charge.

"He walked right in, turned right around and walked right out again."

A young man, who later gave his name as Oran Cain, entered police headquarters yesterday afternoon and made inquiry for a doctor.

"What's the matter with you?" innocently inquired Lieutenant Michael J. Kennedy.

"Smallpox!" shouted a policeman.

Then several patrolomen scooted out a rear door. The lieutenant backed away and directed the caller to the emergency hospital. Cain was promptly sent to the pest house, and both the police station and emergency hospital were thoroughly fumigated.

Labels: emergency hospital, health, hospitals, police, smallpox