Cape Breton's Magazine

They were just afraid to bring the kids for these inoculations. Anyway, at Christmas time, a man who was working on one of the Navy construction jobs in Sydney came home for Christmas. And he wasn't sick or anything like that. And about 10 days after he came home, two little girls in the house came down with diptheria. They sent for me that one eve? ning. Of course when we went in the door, we both smelled diptheria--there's a char? acteristic rotten smell to the damn dis? ease that gives you the diagnosis before you see the patient. And we went in. And these two little girls were in horrible shape. One of them obviously wasn't going to make it; the other one might. We had no antitoxin or anything like that to treat them with. I had to send to Sydney, and they did send down antitoxin. But when we went into the thing, we found out that the night before, they had had a community card game in that house, and 43 people were at the card game, and every one of them had gone in to talk to these two little girls, so every one of them was exposed to diptheria. And the chances of any of them being immunized were almost nil. So we spent all the next day and late that night, going from house to house to find out what went on. The next day we went down, and we got a blanket quarantine put on that community--nobody could go out of it, and nobody could come in. We in? voked the full force of the law on that-- we didn't want it spreading to other com? munities. The next day, the little girl died, the one that I thought was going to die. The other one began to get better. And by that time we had some antitoxin to help her along, and she did get well. Fortunately, there were no kids at this card game. They were all adults. And two adults came down with it. I suppose all the others would have the bugs in their throat. But they didn't get sick. You see, a lot of adults would have been exposed in their younger years, probably, because an epidemic at the turn of the century wiped out 60 kids in that community. And that gives you an idea of what diptheria could do in a community then. As soon as Marie could get over the roads in the spring, she went down and organized the clinics again. And by the time we had 3 clinics 3 weeks apart, we had 1100 kids inoculated. One didn't get inoculated--his people were conscientious objectors--which was a bad loophole. So they didn't get their kid inoculated. At Christmas time, the grandmother came back from being in Nortii Sydney, and 10 days later, this young fellow came down with diptheria, and so did she. So we had lots of antitoxin--I wasn't going to be caught without antitox? in that year. We had plenty of it, and we WELCOME TO THE NEW Norma's Diner Friendly service and a comfortable atmosphere complement our full course menu?? which offers char-broiled steaks and seafood OPEN FOR BREAKFAST AT 7 A.M. - 7 DAYS A WEEK Whycocomagh on the Trans-Canada Highway, Route 105 Overlooking the Beautiful Bras d'Or Lakes - LLOYD MacDONALD SALES Our 25th Year KINGS ROAD - SYDNEY Toll Free 1-800-565-9427 "Service Is a Feature, Not a Promise" Gape Breton Woolen Mills Mill store and Gift Shop Yarn Made on the Premises * Local Handcrafts A Large Variety of Hand Knit Sweaters OPEN YEAR ROUND: Mon. - Fri., 9 - 5 JUNE TO OCTOBER: Mon. - Sat., 8-6 Drop in, or write for shade cards and price lists. MAIL ORDERS WELCOMED Cape Breton Woolen Mills Ltd. R. R. No. 1, Irish Cove, Cape Breton, Cape Breton Offshore Fabricators Limited Steel fabricating plant, - Automatic "MIG" welding P.O. Box 1644 Sydport Industrial Park Sydney, Nova Scotia Canada BIP 6T7 Phone: (902) 564-5461 Telex: 019-35296 Contact: JOHN J. CAMPBELL ?? Computerized/phot profile burner - A large variety of machine shop equipment Nova Scotia BOA IHO (902) 828-2776 A lot depends on what we do --a lot of lives -- and a lot of jobs! WE MEET THE CHALLENGE (10) I