[typhoid fear]


For the Eagle.
Vassar College, Nov. 4th, 1868.
Messrs. Editors:
As exaggerated reports are in circulation
respecting the health of this institution, and
such as are calculated to occasion its friends
very needless anxiety, will you allow inc to
give through your columns an exact state-
ment of the Facts, drawn from the official re-
port of the resident physician :
In a family of over four hundred persons,
there have been under medical treatment
during" the last three weeks thirty-five cases
of every description.The large majority of
these have been from the various ailments to
which every family is at all times liable, for
the most part from different degrees of gas-
tric, pulmonic or other functional disturb-
ance, and all have yielded as kindly as usual
to proper remedies and hygienic precau-
tions.
Nine only have been ill of continued fever,
taking on a typhoid character. These were
clearly developed but not violent cases -
Three or four of them were ill enough for a
few days to occasion a good deal of anxiety
as to the possible result) but in no case has the
disease assumed a malignant form, or failed
to yield to the treatment employed. No
new cases have occurred for the last twelve
days, and all who have been sick are either
well or convalescent.
The sickness has at no time been of an
epidemic character in the College, and there
have been no cases, so far as we know, in the
neighborhood. A thorough scrutiny of' the
premises by the resident physician and trus-
tees reveals no defect in the sanitary arrange-
ments of the (Institution, nor any traceable
local cause. Every indication is, either that
that the seeds of disease were brought hither
by the individuals affected, or, where this
was not the case, that it was developed here
under general atmospheric or other condi-
tions not confined to any particular locality.
All the professors, teachers and employees
have been tree from sickness.
The regular business of the College has
proceeded quietly and without interruption,
the students as a body continuing cheerful
and in full average health.
J. H. RAYMOND,
Prest. Vassar College.‘