Northwest History. Alaska. Epidemics & Contagious Diseases.

• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1935
• Subjects: Point Barrow; Alaska; influenza; epidemic; Arctic Ocean; stricken village; transportation; physicians; natural immunity; flu; disease; medicine; Nome; Fairbanks; Post-Intelligencer; Northwest; Pacific > History > 20th century; Arctic; Pacific; Barrow
• Online Access: http://content.libraries.wsu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/clipping/id/90718

Prompt Help. Prompt Help THE appeal of Point Barrow, Alaska, for help in combating an epidemic of influenza has been answered promptly. Although the stricken village is on the shore of the Arctic Ocean, it has been possible through the use of aerial transportation to supply doctors, nurses and medicines. Since the world-wide epidemic of 1918, scientists have been making an intensive study of the cause and the treatment of "flu," but with only moderate success. Some of the causative agents are known, but not all. Science has not yet developed a prompt cure. When the disease strikes in centers equipped with modern hospitals and supplied with physicians and nurses, it is possible to prevent its spread to the entire population, but in outlying villages, such as Point Barrow, it searches out every susceptible individual. Detached settlements escape many of the dangers which assail persons in areas of congested population, but they have no chance to build up a natural immunity to such epidemic diseases as "flu." For that reason they suffer more severely than do the residents of large centers of population. The outbreak of an epidemic at Point Barrow may mean danger to other outposts. Fortunately swift airplanes can bring help quickly. In dispatching an airplane with a reserve supply of badly needed medicines, the Post-Intelligencer had in mind that the available stocks at Nome and Fairbanks had been depleted. Should the epidemic spread to other parts of Alaska, the reserve stock will serve a merciful and timely purpose.