FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37  
38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   >>   >|  
to be reckoned with was that of sanitary conditions, or rather the lack of them. The general "toughness" of things and the inconveniences of getting settled had been in the main foreseen and discounted, but the rather alarming outbreak of smallpox in the camp, and the reported filling up of the "pest-house," made matters somewhat more involved and complicated. There had been a warning in Seattle that certain vessels were bringing up persons infected with the disease, and two of the suspected ships were then being held in quarantine by the vigilant government representative, Lieutenant Jarvis, but the disease had, nevertheless, secured a foothold in the camp. Undoubtedly, however, the matter was grossly exaggerated, and there were probably more deaths from pneumonia than from any other disease. The smallpox scare, nevertheless, gave the doctors a good opening, for vaccination was strictly in order. Considering in retrospect the site of the place, the total absence of any sewerage, and the great motley crowd there herded together, Nome proved to be a remarkably healthy camp--a fact due, in the main, to the prompt measures for sanitation taken by General Randall immediately upon his arrival, and the introduction into the town, later in the season, of good water conveyed by pipes from the streams beyond. During the preceding year typhoid had been very prevalent and deaths numerous. A repetition was thus happily avoided, though, during the first days the prospects seemed indeed dismal, and the old-timers (always spoken of as "sour doughs" in Alaska) predicted that, after the rains should set in, the people were going to die like flies; and, without the least exaggeration, it certainly looked that way. I believe, nevertheless, that if the story could be told, it would be learned that more lives have been lost in that country through drowning than in any other way. Hundreds of gold-hunters, in small and unseaworthy boats, as soon as they could do so, left Nome to prospect the remoter coast and possible creeks, many of whom perished in the sudden and fierce storms which occur in the Bering Sea, and wives and mothers wondered why no letters came from Alaska. We were four or five days collecting our seventeen packages of freight, and with V---- took turns day and night waiting for the uncertain lighters to come ashore with their mixed loads of machinery and miscellaneous supplies. I believe that between us we saw and examined ev
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37  
38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

disease

 

deaths

 

smallpox

 
Alaska
 
country
 

drowning

 
learned
 

Hundreds

 

hunters

 

timers


dismal
 

unseaworthy

 

doughs

 

people

 

exaggeration

 
predicted
 

prospects

 

spoken

 

looked

 
waiting

lighters

 
uncertain
 

collecting

 

seventeen

 

packages

 

freight

 

ashore

 
examined
 

supplies

 

machinery


miscellaneous

 

creeks

 

perished

 

sudden

 

prospect

 

remoter

 

fierce

 

storms

 

letters

 

wondered


mothers

 

Bering

 

season

 

quarantine

 

suspected

 

vessels

 
bringing
 

persons

 

infected

 

vigilant