Recordpub.com - PORTAGE PATHWAYS: Scarlet fever formidable foe 75 years ago

By Roger J. Di Paolo

Record-Courier Editor

Students in nine Portage County school districts gained an unexpected spring break 75 years ago, but they might well have preferred to remain in school.

That's because, in addition to a reprieve from classes, they also found themselves barred from theaters, dances, athletic events, church services -- in fact, from virtually all public gatherings -- because of an epidemic of scarlet fever.

Young people in the Palmyra, Edinburg, Windham, Atwater, Suffield, Randolph, Paris, Mantua Township and Ravenna Township school districts were affected by the quarantine order issued by the Portage County Board of Health in late March 1933.

While students attending 15 other rural districts were permitted to attend classes, they were banned from taking part in outside activities. A similar ban was imposed in Ravenna, where the city schools remained open.

Dr. R.D. Worden, secretary of the county health board, stressed that health officials had no intention of waging "a campaign of fear" but had no choice but to impose the stringent sanctions because more than 200 cases of scarlet fever had been reported since the beginning of the year. He cited one school district, with an enrollment of 204 pupils, that had seen 55 cases of scarlet fever since Jan 1.

With 6,468 students enrolled in the county schools (which excluded the city districts in Kent and Ravenna), Worden said the health board feared an outbreak of up to 1,600 cases of scarlet fever. "It is in an effort to prevent (the additional) 1,400 cases that the Board of Health took its action," he said.

Scarlet fever, also known as scarlatina, is a disease caused by streptococcus, the same bacteria that causes strep throat. Victims may suffer a rash, fever, sore throat or other symptoms. Complications can include rheumatic fever, kidney ailments and pneumonia.

Because the disease spread easily, especially among children, health officials decided that closing the rural schools affected by it would help to halt the epidemic in Portage County.

The decision to ban young people from public gatherings, including church services, was necessary because "closing the schools alone has been of no avail," Worden said.

"Children from a closed school would attend church or Sunday School, go to the motion pictures, dances and other public gatherings" and expose others to scarlet fever, he said, "so that the hope of the health authorities to check the epidemic simply by closing the schools was not effective."

"Inter-township relationships" such as athletic events, musical and literary contests, helped spread the disease, he said.

The fact that most of the scarlet fever cases were "of the mild type," actually had helped fuel the epidemic, Worden said.

Because children stricken with the disease did not appear to be very ill, parents neglected to contact a physician, he said, and took no measures to deal with the ailment, including keeping sick children home from school, where they exposed classmates to the disease.

While other health scourges such as smallpox and diphtheria had been "practically eliminated" in the county because of vaccine treatments, no such treatment was available for scarlet fever, he noted.

Worden said that the Board of Health was "not unmindful of the inconvenience caused" by the quarantine and praised parents, teachers, physicians and clergy for "showing a high degree of cooperation."

The sanctions imposed by the board affected a variety of activities. Services at the Methodist Episcopal church in Palmyra were canceled because of the epidemic. Countywide scholastic tests were postponed. Mantua Township High School postponed its baccalaureate service.

As March 1933 came to a close, 219 scarlet fever cases had been reported. Paris Township School became the final school ordered to close after a single case of scarlet fever was reported there on March 30; officials said a large number of children had been exposed to the disease.

Schools in Mantua Township, Palmyra and Edinburg were allowed to reopen in early April, and children in 13 other districts were allowed to attend "local gatherings" although inter-township events and countywide competitions remained banned. In Garrettsville, youngsters from the village were allowed to go to the theater but those who lived elsewhere were prohibited.

Ravenna health officials lifted the ban on public gatherings on April 8, partly in response to a plea from the manager of the Ravenna Theatre, who complained that he was losing business to his competitor in Kent, where schools remained open because the city was largely unaffected by the epidemic.

As the sanctions were gradually lifted, life returned to normal for youngsters throughout the county. It's a good bet that many welcomed being able to return to their classrooms -- not to mention theaters and dances.