THE LATE EPIDEMIC OF SMALLPOX. SSI 



THE LATE EPIDEMIC OF SMALLPOX IN THE 



UNITED STATES. 



By Dr. JAMES KEVINS HYDE, 



RUSH MEDICAL COLLEGE. 



rriHE adaptability of man to his environment is one of many gen- 

 -*- eroiis provisions for his welfare. But it is a provision with condi- 

 tions. The adaptation once secure, even a temporary failure of com- 

 plete adjustment to the environment may be perilous. 



The commercial travelers of all countries are accounted, on the 

 whole, as of a healthy class; they breathe all airs, they drink all 

 waters, they consume all foods with impunity. They are rarely adjusted 

 to a single environment for any length of time. The farmer, on the 

 other hand, long habituated to his narrow circle of surroundings, 

 would often become seriously ill if for a time he should leave his 

 farm and village to breathe the air and drinlc the water and consume 

 the food that are familiars of the traveling salesman who would sell 

 a lightning-rod for the protection of the farmhouse. 



This adaptability extends to a surprising degree . toward the limit 

 of endurance of toxic agencies. The farmer whose case has been supposed 

 may year after year drink with impunity the water from a well con- 

 taminated with germs that would promptly induce typhoid fever in one 

 wholly unaccustomed to a daily dosage of the poison. But the same 

 farmer may lose his immunity if for any length of time he removes to 

 another residence and afterward, returning to his own place, makes use 

 of the contaminated water to which he was once habituated. 



The greatest peril from loss of adaptation to environment lies in 

 the changes wrought by the sudden removal of a man from his coun- 

 try home, or even from a less salubrious city residence, to a situation 

 where men are massed together in considerable number. Here a new 

 and complex problem is presented. If every man of those thus suddenly 

 congregated had recently surrendered his adaptation to a special en- 

 vironment, the chances of thus begetting disease are enormously multi- 

 plied. Such a condition is presented in prisons, hospitals, great fairs 

 (such as those at Nijni-Novgorod, Chicago and Paris), and especially 

 in the camps of soldiers. The camp as a focus of disease is more potent 

 than all others; for one reason, among others, that even though previ- 

 ously subjected to selection by physical examination, and supposedly 

 under the direction of sanitarians, the recruits are not free to select for 



