Dr. McIntosh Explains Quarantine Rules for Richmond County, 1922

"Quarantine Regulations" by Dr. W.R. McIntosh, from the March 2, 1922 issue of the Rockingham Post-Dispatch

In order that every person in the county may have a better understanding in regard to their duty in reporting contagious diseases to the quarantine office, I request that this article be published.


Sections 7 and 11, chapter 263 public laws of 1917, require the following named diseases to be reported to the county quarantine officer by a physician, parent or house holder, or a school teacher, within 24 hours after obtaining reasonable evidence that a person is afflicted with one of the diseases.

Whooping cough, measles, diphtheria, scarlet fever, smallpox, infantile paralysis, typhoid fever, typhus, Asiatic cholera, bubonic plague, yellow fever, cerebro-spinal meningitis, ophthalmia neonatorum, German measles, septic sore throat, and chickenpox.

When a physician is consulted professionally concerning a case it becomes his duty to report. When no physician is consulted, it is the duty of the parent or house holder to report. When a teacher has reason to suspect that a person residing in his or her school district has either of the diseases, or when any child is absent from school because of what may be one of the diseases, it is the duty of he or she to report it.

When a case of any of the mentioned diseases occur and is not promptly reported, some one has failed to comply with the requirements of the law, and if a case is reported to me and I fail to comply with the requirements of the law I lay myself liable for not having performed my duty.

So let us keep up the fight against disease, and let’s each and every one enter whole heartedly in the effort to save our people so far as possible from sickness and death.

Every reasonable and right thinking person in Richmond county will be glad to comply with the requirements of the law, in regard to this matter, and those who are not willing to do so will be forced to do so by the authorities.

       --Respectfully yours, Dr. W.R. McIntosh, Quarantine Officer for Richmond County