Goes For The Board Of Health

To the Editor of The Register : Sir - I ti your last is?ue you spe k of the "absurd fear" of small-pox on the part of people who evinoe no alarm at diphtheria. Yiu are mistaken, I think, as to the fast. There is a fear of diphtheria as general as that about small-pox, but though as muuu feared beeause dangeroug, it. is not aloathsame disease, and neilher board of health nor the unaoimons demands of our people ini.-t upoi] pest housea for all patients effl u!ed wiih dijihtberia as they do for the other disease. Th comparison therefore is eniirely irrelevant and the lear of smallpox as both infectious and loathsome is instiiictive and irrepressible, not ab-urd. The rernoustranoe to eïtabhshinir a rendí zrous for small-pox cases on Mannst. wuhin twenty feet of one resiilence and scarcely the distance of a single block Irom a dozen others, it is true, was by a "few" but it was unanimous as far as it was possible (in the short time allowed) to ak tbr signatifres and I feel sure that a just regard for the public health ou?ht not 10 ignore the reepectfnl objeciions of a few, when as in this o;tse, they happen to be all. And does our honorable board of health juslify its ill advised if uot inexcusable location of the pest house on Mannst. beeause perchance one of the objectors to exposures to amall pox did tot report a case of diphtheria? I cali attention to this matter at this time beeause I_thDk that our citizens should demand óf the board of health that they take a Hule more time and exercise a much better judgment in establishing a pest house. The selection of a valley so near and directly west of Main st., and from whence the prevalent winds can distribute the germs of this most irifcetious disease into the heart of our ci:y (ascendiDg as it does toward the east) would geem to be a flagrant violation of the more recent theories of diseae, and tends to increase tbe danger ustead of legsening it. It is very greaily to be des-ired in order that there may be no more such ill advised haste and indiscreiion, that the city council take early steps to provide some suitable place for the care and treatment of all cases where the public safety requires this lation.