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Wednesday, March 25, 2020

Whooping Cough Kills 400 Children in North Carolina Each Year; Protect Your Children from Exposure, Says Williams, March 25, 1920

From The Mount Airy News, Thursday, March 25, 1920

Whooping Cough

By L.L. Williams, County Health Officer

In North Carolina there are every 12 months about 400 deaths and 8,000 cases of whooping cough. This disease kills more children in this state than does measles, scarlet fever and smallpox combined. With one or two exceptions, whooping cough is the most contagious disease that we have to deal with.

The general and wrong idea of people is that the younger a person is the better for them to have whooping cough. As of its danger, Dr. Osler says, “Whooping cough is a very fatal affliction, ranking one of the first among the acute infections as a cause of death in children under 5 years of age. It exceeds diphtheria and scarlet fever in gross mortality.” Statistics show that over half of all deaths that occur from whooping cough occur in children under 1 year of age, and that 97 per cent of all deaths from whooping cough occur in children under 5 years of age. It is rare after the fourth year of age for a fatal result or a serious complication to occur. Protect the children. They are helpless without your protection. They can’t understand or know; you do.

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