Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Measles and pertussis
I know these are the one we are talking about and are most familiar with, but the real bogeyman is diphtheria. It can turn fulminant in a matter of hours. The pesudomembrane at the back of the throat suffocates you. If you survive and get better, there's still myocarditis and the other fairly common sequelae to deal with.
Graveyards have multiple family members that died within days of each other, and not just children. Your immunity from childhood vaccination wanes in adulthood if not boosted.
The Kershaw family lost 8 children in 17 days:
https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/923lxm/this_is_a_picture_of_a_gravestone_commemorating/
The Lawson family lost 5 children in 4 days:
https://metro.co.uk/2018/01/22/haunting-photo-shows-vaccinations-good-thing-7250940/
The Rev. Roland Sawyer wrote of the 1735 epidemic in his history of Kensington. "Between June 1 and Dec. 1, 1735, there died over 40 children under 10 years of age. Seven families lost 27 children, everyone dying who was taken sick. The first 8 months of 1736 we lost near 40 more, or near 90 the first 15 months of the plague." By 1738 so many Kensington children succumbed to diphtheria "there were few children left to die." Sawyer notes statistics of other years when "throat distemper" savaged the town — 1745 — 16 children died; 1747 — 48-52 children died; 1760 — 22 children died.
https://www.seacoastonline.com/story/news/local/exeter-news-letter/2008/06/27/history-in-focus-diphtheria-epidemic/52363287007/
It's highly contagious and moves fast. Children just died on the way to the hospital. Diphtheria was known as the "Strangling Angel" of childhood.
And the diphtheria toxin is so toxic, you need the anti-toxin to have a good chance of surviving. If there are outbreaks, will it be limited? Will American doctors know how to recognize it? You don't intubate a bad airway with pseudomembrane. This illness was why the medical field finally got on board with cricothyroidotomy, where they just cut a hole in the neck to bypass the airway. Children started surviving it, then.
But a cricothyroidotomy is hard to do with the "bull neck" you get with fulminant diphtheria. You can't find the anatomic landmarks.