MYFBS, MAY(R - the Digital Library of Georgia

172 MAYOR'S ANNUAL REPORT.SnaU-pox still prevails in every city, town andhamlet in the United States. The disease was carriedover from 1900 and did not disappear until thelatter part of July, and there was a recrudesence inthe middle of December, but there is every reason tobelieve that the disease cannot prevail to any extent,because of a population well vaccinated—the percentagebeing over 75—and the negroes, who have aracial predisposition over the whites in contractingthe disease, rarely ever hide the disease, reportingtheir cases almost as quickly as the white, whereprompt isolation of the sick and vaccination and observationof those who have come in contact withthe disease, with disinfection of infected material andhouses, prevents the spread of the disease:The total inefficiency of other county, municipal,and in several instances of the State Boards of Health,to control the disease prevents the city from eradicatingthe disease. With the exception of severalcities in this section of the country the disease hasnot been intelligently handled to the detriment ofother cities which were sparing neither money nortime in coping with the disease. An instance of theabsolute inefficiency of a State Board of Health is inevidence when, after repeated efforts to control thedisease, the United States Marine Hospital Servicewas called upon by the State of North Carolina tosend a representative to the town of Wilson, a largetobacco market and a cotton-mill town. On the visitof that representative he found cases scattered overthe city, the disease being called chicken-pox, Cubanitch, negro mange, etc. Further, he found men andwomen with small-pox stripping tobacco and workingthe looms of the cotton mill. The products of