opened last fall.
The situation was too critical. With it, the opening of the schools
helped greatly to exterminate smallpox. Every school, public and
private, was put in the charge of a physician.... The doctors worked
with a will, and if anything was done thoroughly and conscientiously
in this city, it was the vaccination of all teachers and pupils last
fall.... Through the influence of the Chamber of Commerce the
employers prevailed on their employees to get vaccinated. Also to have
everyone of their family vaccinated. The consequence was that the
people got vaccinated by tens of thousands. Men who formerly spurned
the vaccinator from their door came now to his office.... The city
paid for 195,000 vaccinations."

In 1910 smallpox again broke out, this time in the southeastern part
of the city, and threatened to spread over the entire community. With
vivid memories of earlier horrors, the disease was met at the outset
with vigorous measures. It was discovered that in spite of the
experience of the Board of Education eight years before, and without
regard to the rule which provided that "No teacher or pupil shall
attend any school without furnishing satisfactory certificate that he
or she has been successfully vaccinated or otherwise protected from
smallpox," unvaccinated children had been admitted to the public
schools literally by thousands. By the time that 63 cases of smallpox
had been reported the Board of Health again took matters into its own
hands, entered the schools, and vaccinated 55,000 school children.
Equally vigorous measures were taken among adults and the epidemic was
checked.

Every year since 1910 there have been cases of smallpox in Cleveland.
The Board of Health no longer relies upon the Board of Education to
protect the lives of the community against the scourge. Where 70,000
children are gathered together daily for hours at a stretch, the
possibilities of spreading disease throughout the city at large
constitute a grave menace. Therefore, immediately upon the report of a
case of smallpox, the Board of Health officials exercise their right
of entry into the schools of that district, and either vaccinate or
exclude from attendance every child who could himself become a
carrier of the disease. During the present year over 1,400 children
were vaccinated in this way.

That vaccination prevents smallpox no intelligent person acquainted
with the facts can doubt. An overwhelming mass of incontrovert