Medicine: Typhoid in a Mad House

The insane asylum which segregates 2,350 befuddled souls at Cleveland is a drab assembly of dirty grey buildings surrounded by dirty grey walls, stark iron fences. There is, however, a queerly attractive serenity about the place. The violently insane are locked in steel-barred cells. The asylum’s grounds are so spacious that no clamor is audible outside the fences.

Last week that placid asylum turned into a bedlam. Typhoid fever hadappeared. Six inmates died, 125 others were stricken. Doctors and nurses worked night & day. Except for distinction of uniforms and clothes it became difficult to discern the sane from the mad. Inmates transferred from their accustomed quarters to make room for two isolation wards, stood in long lines while doctors injected one after another with typhoid serum. Bewildered men and women fainted from the hypodermic prick in their arms. Those vaccinated developed low-grade fevers, which increased their misery, but insured their protection against contagion.

One benefit may result from the epidemic: it emphasizes that Newburgh. as Cleveland calls the asylum, has proper accommodations for 1,750 inmates, contains 2,350.