The pictures depict a child’s throat with the false membrane produced by diphtheria.   The frequency of diphtheria outbreaks in the late 1800s is what led to the frequent use of the emergency trachotomy procedure to open up the respiratory passage.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.newsweek.com

First used successfully around 1832 by French physician Pierre Brettoneau, the tracheotomy became popular during the 1850s when it was commonly applied to patients with diphtheria and very severe croup.  The tracheotomy again became common during the early 1900s, when large numbers of polio outbreaks occurred in the U.S..

In a review of US cases of diphtheria I performed several years ago, I uncovered one episode of a large number of diphtheria cases recurring in the midwest, totalling over 100 cases (and/or suspected cases coded as such) between some time before 2008.

The Mumps and Whooping Cough (Pertussis) are still recurring each year in this country.   Last year and earlier this year, Measles made the headlines.  Most recently, a cluster of infectious disease cases made the news close to where the previously noted diphtheria outbreaks occurred.

Of course, this recurring theme of immunizable disease outbreaks points to the consequences of parents refusing to vaccinate their children.   The clusters in Utah may be related to a large religious community in that region, which has been into naturopathic medicine since the early 1900s.

Incidentally, naturopathy is the only accredited “doctor of medicine” program in this country that has a large number of graduates against immunization programs.  This resistance is due largely to the long history of anti-immunization beliefs professed by professors of these schools in the U.S., and their graduated physicians (NDs not MDs), licensed and able to practice naturopathy legally in 8 states (maybe one or two more since I last researched this.)  [This profession is most often linked to the unaccredited naturopathy home-schooled practitioners, who don’t undergo the same level of graduate level medical education as MDs or NDs).

This midwest diphtheria outbreak is referred to specifically on my video of immunized diseases, viewable on Youtube,

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWrApErk5byaJjbbjS6TEAAChZ7apmbzg ,

or on my page entitled “The Childhood Immunization Problem”  (https://brianaltonenmph.com/gis/population-health-surveillance/production-examples/the-childhood-immunization-problem/ — links to the videos are at the very end; the second video is of immunization refusal clusters).

I also review these diseases and how the patients appeared in a fairly lengthy presentation . . . .

as a slideshow at:

http://www.slideshare.net/brianlaltonen/immunized-diseases 

and as an autoplay this slideshow entitled “Immunizable Diseases – A Reminder of the Past” (27 min.) at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOp-KGd4hV0 

See on Scoop.it – Episurveillance