DIPHTHERIA

Of all the contagious diseases diphtheria is most thoroughly understood. The cause is known, its method of spread understood, and the way in which it acts to bring about the disease has been clearly demonstrated. For its prevention and cure we have certain measures. In spite of this it continues to be one of the most dreaded and fatal diseases of children. Diphtheria is an ancient disease and has appeared in destructive epidemics in Europe and America for two hundred years. It caused the death of George Washington, and the empress Josephine and her grand-child, heir apparent to the French throne, died from it. As early as 1771 it was epidemic in New York and in 1856 an epidemic in San Francisco occurred in which few children attacked by it recovered. Before antitoxin came into use in 1894, of those attacked, one-third to one-quarter died, and in hospitals often 60 to 80 per cent of the cases terminated in death. After antitoxin came into use many more recovered, but for some years now little improvement in the prevalence and fatality from diphtheria has occurred. In Chicago from 1911 to 1920, there was an annual average of 7,358 cases and 813 deaths from diphtheria. Of those dying, 63 per cent were children below school age, and 90 per cent were children less than 10 years of age.