News Items from The Kansas City Journal ~ Old News That's New to You from Vintage Kansas City.com

December 5, 1909

PNEUMONIA EPIDEMIC HERE.

Other Infectious Diseases Are

Prevalent Throughout City.

Pneumonia is quite prevalent throughout the city, and physicians say it has reached serious proportions. The severe and variable weather is a promoter of the malady. During December there were forty-two deaths from pneumonia. This is twelve more than for December of 1908.

Smallpox is another cold weather affliction, but thus far the city has been quite free from its ravages. Yesterday the second smallpox case since June 7, 1908, reached the attention of the health authorities. The victim was a white man and he was taken to the hospital for the treatment of infectious diseases from a house on Harrison street, between Seventh and Eighth.

Measles is another malady that is demanding the attention of the health authorities. It had its inception in the northeast part of the city, and has been steadily spreading.

Labels: Harrison street, health, illness, smallpox

March 2, 1909

IF THE DOCTORS CAN AGREE.

Smallpox Quarantine at Liberty, Mo.,

Will Be Raised.

There is a disagreement among the doctors of Liberty, Mo., over whether the smallpox quarantine should be raised. It was a very mild form of smallpox in the first place. To settle the dispute, Dr. W. S. Wheeler of the health and hospital board, who has had a great deal of experience with contagious diseases, was asked to come to Liberty and give his opinion. Dr. Wheeler will leave for Liberty this morning.

Labels: board of health, doctors, Liberty, smallpox

February 18, 1909

SMALLPOX EPIDEMIC

SPREADS IN LIBERTY.

ALL PUBLIC PLACES THERE

HAVE BEEN CLOSED.

Investigation by Secretary of State

Board of Health Shows Condi-

tion to Be Serious -- Twen-

ty New Cases.

LIBERTY, MO., Feb. 17. -- Twenty new cases of smallpox; six more residences quarantined; four fraternity houses under quarantine; high school, ward schools, churches, skating rink and theaters ordered closed; house-to-house canvass to be made, and all suspected places placed under temporary quarantine; outgoing mail from quarantined places refused at postoffice; laundry work from William Jewell college refused and students now doing their own washing.

Briefly, this is the smallpox situation here tonight.

Under orders from Governor Herbert S. Hadley, Dr. J. A. B. Adcock of Warrensburg, Mo., secretary of the state board of health, came here today and investigated, it having been alleged that in reality students and citizens were suffering from an aggravated form of chickenpox. When Dr. Adcock arrived he held a conference with Dr. F. W. Matthews, county member of the state board, Dr. Bert Maltby, city physician, and Mayor C. F. Murray.

The William Jewell gymnasium, which is being used as a pesthouse, was visited, and the smallpox diagnosis in every case was confirmed.

STUDENTS DO LAUNDRY WORK.

The Swan Laundry Company of Liberty, the only one here, refused bundles from the gymnasium today, even though thoroughly fumigated. The boys are washing their clothes in the bathrooms.

A. Z. York is a painter and paper-hanger, at whose wife's boarding house the initial case of smallpox was discovered. It was learned that he, too, had developed the disease, and his home was promptly quarantined.

The disease was discovered in six more residences today and the houses quarantined. The four fraternity houses here also were placed under quarantine. At the Sigma Nu chapter house Dr. Adcock examined ten students and found that eight had the disease.

Drs. Adcock, Maltby and Hooser visited four places in two hours and there discovered twenty cases of smallpox that had not been reported. Eleven of the new cases are students and nine are citizens. Five had just broken out yesterday and today.

Following the investigation, a meeting of physicians and citizens was called by Mayor Murray.

Dr. Adcock suggested the immediate closing of the high school, all of the ward schools, all churches, the skating rink and the theaters. All these places will remain closed until the city physician and his assistant raise the quarantine.

Tomorrow Drs. Maltby and Hooser will begin a house to house canvass of the entire town. The physicians are of the opinion that the college may be able to open in two weeks. After tonight the postoffice here will refuse all mail from quarantined places.

Labels: doctors, fraternal organizations, Herbert Hadley, Liberty, smallpox

February 16, 1909

PEST HOUSE DETECTIVES

LAND TWO PRISONERS.

MAN WHO BROUGHT SMALLPOX

TO LIBERTY CONFESSES.

Student Who Dared Germs to Catch

Him Placed in Solitary Con-

finement -- Now for

Fumigation!

Smallpox is still raging at William Jewell college, and The Journal's correspondent, the only vaccinated newspaper man in Liberty, and the only correspondent woh is right at the seat of war, or, to be more exact, right in the pest house, got busy last night nad sent a startling story via fumigated long distance telephone, the only fumigated long distance telephone in the world.

Readers of The Journal need have no fear in reading this column, as all type is sterilized before going to the press room.

"Hello! Is this Liberty?" said the Kansas City Journal's smallpox expert at the Kansas City end.

"That's the name of the town," said The Journal's vaccinated staff correspondent, "but technically speaking, this is not Liberty, not Independence, either. This is the quarantine station."

"Good. How is everything at the pesthouse?

NEIGHBORS DOING WELL.

"Well, the neighbors are doing about as well as could be expected. The big news? Hold your ear close to the 'phone.

"The detective bureau got busy today and achieved two distinct victories. Landed the fellow who brought the malady back here after the holidays. Name, Sanford E. Tilton, residence, Allendale, Mo. Came back to college January 5. Showed symptoms on January 17 and on January 23 purchased a pair of eye-glasses."

"What's the significance of the eye-glasses? Wanted to see his finish?"

"No, sore eyes is one of hte earlier symptoms of smallpox. Investigation by our expert sleuths disclosed the fact that the suspect had purchased the eye-glasses after a few days' confinement. Doc, the family physician out here, rounded him up today and we wrung a complete confession out of him. He's not dangerous, but we have him with us. He likes it, too. No doubt that he's the fellow. He sat right next to one of the other fellows who was one of the smallpox pioneers.

LOOKED FOR TROUBLE, GOT IT.

"Yes, another one. Put down this name. Henry Weber, home, St. Louis, admitted to the bar, but still studying. Wanted to catch the smallpox. Came down here when Doc was taking his morning constitutional, crept inside and dared the pox to attack him. Made his getaway.

"What happened?"

"Hold your breath. Doc got indignant, went to the fellow's room, locked him in and announced that he is to be kept in solitary confinement for one week."

"What's that, feed? O, yes. They're feeding him through a crack."

"Had another recruit today. He plays first cornet and when he was brought in he was immediately assigned to the orchestral quarters. lays well and the band concert today showed great improvement. Don't wish anyone any bad luck, but we did need a first cornet.

ANTISEPTIC BATHS ARE ON.

"Basketball was cancelled today and the warmest exercise was the antiseptic bath. This is to be a daily feature until the official fumigation, which is to be inaugurated next Thursday.

"Feature of the band concert for Thursday morning will be 'Hot Time in Old Town Tonight' and 'Smoke Up Some More."

"School will positively reopen next Monday, and Doc (don't forget to mention Doc Hooser's name, he's a D. D. and an M. D. and a real fellow) thinks we'll all be at liberty, literally as well as geographically, by the end of the week. And, by the way, twenty students beat it out of town when the smallpox was first discovered and went home, but that's all been fixed. They're all in a little quarantine of their own at the instigation of the local college officials, who notified the police in the towns where these fellows live to keep 'em confined.

"The first band number is about on. So long."

Labels: doctors, Liberty, smallpox, telephone, The Journal

February 15, 1909

SMALLPOX VICTIMS

DISCUSS LIFE OF JOB.

SYMPATHY AT LIBERTY FOR

THE BIBLICAL CHARACTER.

William Jewell's Afflicted Students

Keep in Touch With the World

Via Telephone -- Love

Letter Relayed.

"Hello! Hello! Is this Liberty? The gymnasium of William Jewell college, I mean?"

"You mean the pest house, don't you?" said the man at the other end. "You do? I thought so."

"Well, how is everything at the pest house today?"

"Fine and dandy. Eight new patients brought in this morning, and they're doing fine. What's that? The Sunday dinner? Great, only Doc has put the lid on meat diet, and there was nothing doing in the chicken line. Smallpox patients, you know, are not allowed to eat flesh meat."

"Any excitement today?"

"Excitement? Surest thing you know. We had Sunday school at 9:30 this morning and preaching at 11."

"Who did the preaching?"

"Yours truly, the speaker, The Journal's regular correspondent at Liberty. Knew I was in the smallpox jug down here, too, didn't you?"

"Well, that is interesting; what did you preach on?"

" 'As He Thinketh in His Heart So is He.' "

"Anything else?"

JOB UP FOR DISCUSSION.

"Yes, young people's meeting this afternoon. The topic: 'What I Have Learned from the Life of Job.' Yes, and maybe we don't sympathize with that well known and popular character, too. Tee-hee."

The William Jewell college is still in quarantine, but the William Jewell pesthouse, so-called, is one of the jolliest spots in Liberty. For several days past the "gym" of William Jewell has been dedicated to Red Cross purposes, and some forty students, down with a mild attack of smallpox, have been having the best time they have experienced since the football season closed.

Information from the William Jewell "gym" must come by long distance telephone. The Journal's correspondent is among those present and vaccinated, and he is doing his little best under the difficulties.

In addition to the baseball teams, the handball flives, the quartet and band, the smallpox victims are seriously considering the advisability of establishing a detective bureau, with a view to ascertaining who is the guilty mark that brought the dread disease to Liberty.

WHO'S THE GUILTY ONE?

In times past William Jewell students, after their Christmas vacation, have brought back some funny things, but the student who brought back this fairly well developed case of smallpox probably was not trying to spring a joke. That some student did bring the malady back among his home products is nearly certain. But who did it?

The pesthouse band was not working yesterday, the day being given over mainly to religious exercises, but the strenuous and merry programme will be inaugurated again this morning.

Last Saturday night the pesthouse boys had a time that made the unafflicted on the outside world green with envy. One student delivered an oration on "The Romans in Carthage (Mo.)"; the pesthouse quartet sang several popular and classic songs and the pesthouse band made a melodic disturbance that could be heard as far east as Main street.

SHY ON FLOOR SPACE.

There have been so many beds added to the "gym" that they are shy on floor space and the basketball games will have to be abandoned. The weather may put a damper on the ball games, and as the college authorities put the ban on pinochle and seven-up, the students will be forced to chess and checkers for excitement unless the sun comes out and gets busy.

The several love-sick students in confinement are having the sorriest time of it all. They can write letters to their sweethearts afar, but as the nervous heroine has often said: "Now that I have written the note, who shall take it?"

It was Hocksaw himself who used to say: "I will take the note," but Hockshaw wasn't in quarantine.

DICTATES LETTER BY PHONE.

One young man who doesn't care particularly who knows his business dictated a letter over the telephone to a friend downtown, the friend copying the letter with violet ink and mailing it to the nerve-strained, restless maid who had been vainly waiting at the other end of the romance and wondering what had happened.

There are sixty cases of smallpox in William Jewell by actual count. It is the intention of the faculty to reopen the college a week from today and students in the "gym" have likewise been notified to get well. Reports indicate that they have been having entirely too good a time.

Dr. W. B. Hooser is in charge of the patients. "Doc," as he is affectionately addressed by every one of his patients, has had the smallpox, so that he is not in danger. He has also won the vote of every afflicted man by giving the positive assurance that there will be no pox marks on the face or body.

Labels: doctors, illness, Liberty, music, romance, smallpox, telephone, The Journal

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.

Labels: doctors, Liberty, schools, smallpox, sports

October 26, 1908

WANT NO SMALLPOX THERE.

Property Owners Meet Tonight to

Protest Against Use of Old Hospital.

Property owners in the vicinity of the old general hospital will hold a mass meeting at 2326 Holmes street tonight to protest against the proposed establishment of a smallpox hospital in the old building. The meeting will convene at 7"30 o'clock.

Labels: Holmes street, hospitals, smallpox

October 21, 1908

OLD SMALLPOX HOSPITAL

WILL BE DESTROYED BY FIRE.

Abandoned Structure Is Full of

Germs of Deadly Contagious

Diseases.

St. George's contagious disease hospital, located on the banks of the Missouri near the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railroad bridge, is to be destroyed by fire by orders of the health and hospital board. It is a frame structure, and it is proposed to have the fire company stationed in the East Bottoms preside over the conflagration. The building was erected several years ago, and the board decided that it would never do to use the wreckage for building purposes again on account of fear of a spread of contagion. Hundreds of persons have been treated there for smallpox and other contagious diseases.

The floods of last spring overreached the banks, and moved the building off its foundations onto the land claimed by the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad company. Ever since then the hospital has been out of commission and the railroad company has been persistent in its demands that the structure be removed.

Reports current in the Eleventh ward, in which the old general hospital building and annexes are located, that smallpox patients are kept in the annexes are denied by W. P. Motley, a member of the health and hospital board.

"The stories have been traced down to employes who were discharged from the old hospital," said Mr. Motley last night. "We have been told that the previous administration kept smallpox patients in the annexes, but no such conditions have prevailed since the present board has been organized.

Mr. Motley was asked where the city would keep smallpox patients in the future. He replied that he could not answer the question, but that it would be taken up at the next meeting of the board.

A year or so ago, during the Beardsley administration, a movement was started to establish a contagious disease hospital on the grounds of the old hospital, but it was given up on account of protests from Eleventh ward residents.

Labels: East bottoms, flood, health, hospitals, railroad, smallpox

July 13, 1908

PATIENTS SLEEPING IN TENTS.

General Hospital Is Crowded to Point

of Discomfort.

The new general hospital is certainly a badly needed thing," said an officer at the hospital yesterday. "Look at the crowded condition of the place we are in now. On one side, not more than ten feet away from the walls of the hospital, is the city smallpox pest house, which was put here because the floods drove it out of the East Bottoms The situation of the pest house so close to the main building of the hospital has been a danger which is hard to overestimate.

"In the inclosed space in the middle of the building is the tent in which several patients from the female ward sleep nightly. These are not cases in which open air treatment has been recommended, but they must sleep out there because there is not room enough for them to sleep in the hospital.

"There is another tent on the north side of the building where male patients sleep out of doors for the same reason. The capacity of the hospital exclusive of these outgrowths is 185 patients.

"We expect to move into the new building in two weeks. It will accommodate 540 patients, and will be superior in every way to the building we are now occupying. To say that we welcome the approaching change with gladness is to speak mildly."

Labels: East bottoms, flood, general hospital, smallpox

July 1, 1908

NEW BURIAL RITE APPROVED.

Morticians Tire of Speculating in

Pauper Dead at $2.

"We have to pay our men $5 to go to St. George's hospital for a body at the dead of night and drive it to the cemetery for burial. Persons dying form smallpox must be buried at night. How many of you men would do it for $5?"

"I wouldn't do it for $6," replied R. L. Gregory, president of the board of public works.

This occurred at yesterday's meeting of the board when a representative of an undertaking establishment appeared to explain why the bid of burying the pauper dead hand had been raised from $2 to $5. He explained that in the past the burial of paupers had been a speculative proposition with undertakers. There is no money in it at $2, and the profits come in when very often relatives of impoverished deceased persons appear and give them a more expensive funeral.

"A grave costs $3; it takes fifty feet of lumber to make the box; that costs $1; then there is the excelsior for the upholstering, muslin for a shroud and material for a headboard; that counts up $1 more, making a total of $5 to bury a pauper," explained the undertaker.

It was decided to accept the new bids, $5 for burials an 75 cents for ambulance service to the several city hospitals.

Labels: hospitals, public works, Robert Lee Gregory, smallpox, undertakers

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, Boston, doctors, East bottoms, health, hospitals, Omaha, 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