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Castleberry Has The Fever.
Dr. Sanders Pronounces Disease There.
Two Persons Have Died. Every Precaution Taken to Prevent Its Spread. Health Officers Unable to Trace Infection in the Little Conecuh County Town-Balance of State Quarantined.Castleberry, Ala, Oct. 12. The Advertiser, Montgomery.
Dr. Marcellus McCreary of Evergreen, diagnoses two cases of yellow fever at this place, which diagnosis Dr. Mohr of Mobile and myself confirm.One of the patients died and diagnosis has been confirmed by autopsy. The other patient is in a hopeless condition. The channel through which the infection reached Castleberry is not known.
Prompt measures will be taken to control the outbreak. No disposition on part of the people to leave. - W. H. Sanders, State Health Officer.
This telegram was received yesterday morning by The Advertiser from Dr. Sanders very soon after the autopsy which was perfomed on the remains of the white woman who died in Castleberry Wednesday night. Since the receipt of the telegram further news came from Castleberry to the effect that the husband of the woman also succumbed during yesterday. They were both taken ill at about the same time.
Industrious investigations by Dr. Sanders and Secretary C. A. Mohr of the Alabama Board of Health, through the entire day yesterday, failed to trace the origin of the infection in Castleberry.
Chief Clerk Walter R. Brassell, of the Health Board yesterday received instructions from Dr. Sanders to put instructions from Dr. Sanders to put on a strict quarantine of the entire remainder of the State against Castleberry. This was done at once and trains which passed through the town yesterday did not pick up a single passenger in the strawberry town. It is not improbable that the whole County of Conecuh will be put under quarantine. This may be decided upon as a necessary measure on account of the fact that some few inhabitants of the infected town fled to the country round about before the arrival of Dr. Sanders and Dr. Mohr on the scene.
Safe Measures Adopted.
Official information reached Montgomery during the day that the exodus from the town had stopped and all precautionary measures had been taken to prevent a further spread of the disease. Dr. Sanders gives the assurance that before noon yesterday the house in which the couple died had been effectually screened and fumigated. It is more than likely that all the houses in the neighborhood will be fumigated and screened. The house in which the man and wife died is in the center of the town and visible from the railroad station.
On account of the singular fact that the two persons who succombed to the fever had not left Castleberry during the summer there is no end of spculation as to the source of their infection. As their home is only a short distance from the railroad some believe that a stray mosquito from one of the refugee coaches that passed through the town from New Orleans might have inoculated the woman first and the infection of the man followed.
Castleberry is a watering station on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad and Train No. 4. running through Alabama from New Orleans often stops in the town to take on water. It is possible that during these few minutes an infected mosquito stole out of a coach and began his troublous work. Yet it is a rule of the quarantine that these coaches are to be kept closed while on a stop at any place in Alabama.
In a long distance conversation with Clerk Brassell yesterday, Dr. Sanders said that he and Dr. Mohr would remain in Castleberry to try to get control of the situationi. The promise of early frosts this year makes it favorable for the fight against the disease at this time. The developments of the next few days in and around Castleberry will be watched with intense interest especially in South Alabama whose integrity has been remarkably preserved thus far in view of the great exposure since the Pensacola epidemic.
Source: Montgomery Advertiser, October 10, 1905, Transcribed by C. Anthony
