116 Years Ago
The December 3, 1908 Colorado Transcript included a lengthy article about diphtheria, contributed by Dr. Garvin, the City and County Health Officer.
The characteristic feature of the disease is the peculiar membranous formation which makes its appearance usually upon the fauces or tonsils and is called diphterestic membrane or false membrane from its resemblance to the skin…. This membrane…is of a greyish white color; very tough, of a leathery consistency, and adheres to the mucous membrane beneath it with great tenacity, it being very difficult to tear it away except in shreds, and then only by laceration of the mucous membrane, leaving a bleeding surface.
Gross.
The concept of “germs” was still relatively new at that time, and there were plenty of people who considered it a crackpot theory. Dr. Garvin explained that diphtheria organisms are “so small that a row of them an inch long would contain from ten twenty thousand.”
The Health Officer was just getting to the part where he would tell us how to prevent the spread of the disease when the article was interrupted with “(Continued on Page 8)” Unfortunately, page 8 is missing from the online version of the newspaper, so we’re left without that information.
Fortunately, diphtheria is very rare in the United States these days. According to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services,
Diphtheria (dif-THEER-ee-a) used to be a common cause of both illness and death for children in the United States. In the 1920s, the United States used to see as many as 200,000 cases a year. Thanks to diphtheria vaccines, that number has dropped by 99.9%.
The diphtheria vaccine comes as part of the DTaP shot, which protects from diphtheria, tetanus, and whooping cough.
