"Quarantined" Keep OUT sign on the house

[Sourdough]

I am the oldest of eight children, and it seems like back in the 50's we had our sharecropper slave/Tennant farmer rental home Quarantined a lot of the time. Do you still ever see that in America. My guess is 50% of the winter months, year after year, there was a Quarantine sign on the front door. Whooping Cough was the worst. As I remember those of us "NOT" infected could leave the house, and go to school, but other people could not enter. I don't remember all the different diseases we had, Chicken pox, Measles, Whooping Cough. I remember sometimes, food was brought and left on the porch so there must have been full quarantine at some point.

At other times only one bedroom was quarantined.

I bring this up because many of you have never experienced this, and there may be value to considering the impact, both real, imagined it could have, or will have. I remember that some parents would not let there children play with us even after the quarantine was lifted.

[Ken]

I'm getting some of those signs printed up today. Sure beats "Do Not Disturb."

[Rick]

I've not seen any of those in decades. No one should have to go through that today if they are getting their kids vaccinated. Most of the those diseases can be avoided.

[Sourdough]

I've not seen any of those in decades. No one should have to go through that today if they are getting their kids vaccinated. Most of the those diseases can be avoided.


Much of what people do, for preparation is mental " What If " exercises. The more drills you can get your mind wrapped around the gooooder. What if the only store in town was quarantined, or the only gas station.......? Or the neighbor who's garage has all the Bug'Out stuff for both families is quarantined.

The Pandemic is coming...not if.....but when.

[Rick]

I actually agree with you. Viruses are wonderfully adept at mutating and some, like the "common" cold, do so at a dizzying pace. So it would seem reasonable to conclude that a mutated virus could suddenly appear (not at all unlike H5N1) and, given our ability to move around the world, spread like wild fire.

The most hopeful thing in all of this is the advances currently being made in viral research.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29337897/

I only meant that the examples you listed should not be a threat to us unless parents stop having their kids vaccinated, which could very well happen since the diseases are no longer a threat. Crazy circular logic, huh?

[trax]

Kind of serendipitous timing on posting this, Hope. Just over the last couple of days I've been giving some thought to the sicknesses that killed or permanently debilitated people, especially children, and how some of them seem to be making a comeback. Rick's posting on vaccinations notwithstanding (I agree, Rick) I recently heard of a six year old child dying from scarlet fever. Doesn't it start with strep? Tuberculosis is on the rise in many areas.

I think that we've become too spoiled in a relatively sterilized--for wont of a better word--society. People have taken good health for granted for the last several decades because they could. Symptoms are too often not taken seriously enough and illnesses escalate (vis the scarlet fever) Two nights ago I was talking with a young lady who had a flu or cold and was complaining about the diarrhea that accompanied it. I automatically told her "drink lots of water". She said she didn't like too. She lives alone, if a person alone in an apartment gets weak enough from sickness...... I pointed out that diarrhea is the number one killer of children around the world. The dehydration sets in and a lot of places they don't have potable drinking water. It didn't seem to faze her any. Things our generation and previous generations knew we had to do, right?

[tennecedar]

A person that does not heed sound advise on combatting dehydration deserves the headache that come with it. Other than that lesson learned, i hope no ill will to her or anyone. my $.02

[Sourdough]

I do not remember all the different things we children passed around, for sure there was Ringworm, pinkeye, Tapeworms, other worms, chicken pox, whooping cough, yes scarlet fever, maybe even hoof & mouth.

We were raised in what would be now called a filthy, almost third world environment, This was in the 40's and 50's. We kids washed once a week, even if we did not need it, and co-bathed, the two oldest boys took a bath together, then in different water the two oldest girls took a bath together, and so it went. Water was heated on the stove.

We were not pig's, this was how all of the poor rural farm families lived back then, and everyone worked from 4:30 AM till 7:PM.

Average thirty-two cows needed milking before school and after.

What I find most interesting is that I have rarely been sick in the last 50 years, will go 20 or 30 years without flu or cold, and can drink water that would send most American's to the emergency room.

[Ole WV Coot]

I had everything that went around before I was a teen. I don't remember them much except staying in a dark room when I had some kinda measles. Don't remember ever seeing a quarantine sign or school closing. By the time we were teenagers we had had everything we could get. Our big fear was polio and after every spring flood we were bussed to the health dept. for our typhoid shots and whatever else. No choice if you went to school.

[Sourdough]

Coot, I could be wrong but I think we (school kids) were the first to get smallpox inoculations, some time in the 50's. I have wondered how they treated Smallpox once it broke-out....? I guess just like chickenpox. Do you remember tents made of sheets over the bed, and a vaporizer steaming Vick's vapor-rub into the tent. And if you got bad you were put into a Iron lung, you never hear about iron lungs now days.

[Ole WV Coot]

Coot, I could be wrong but I think we (school kids) were the first to get smallpox inoculations, some time in the 50's. I have wondered how they treated Smallpox once it broke-out....? I guess just like chickenpox. Do you remember tents made of sheets over the bed, and a vaporizer steaming Vick's vapor-rub into the tent. And if you got bad you were put into a Iron lung, you never hear about iron lungs now days.

I think I got my smallpox in '51 and still can see the scar. I do remember having chicken pox more than once, German measles and 3 day measles and I still throw a towel over my head and steam Vick's and smell it. Had a couple of kids I knew that got polio and I don't know how they lived in those iron lungs. I can't remember what time of year our parents were really concerned about polio, I'll have to check on that one. I sure hope we never see an iron lung again.

[nell67]

Jan,1st 1974,I was quarantined for mumps,after having been vaccinated for it 3 times,once as a baby,then again when we moved to Florida and I had to redo vaccines because in the move my shot record was lost,then again when we moved back to Indiana,and my shot records were lost again. FOr 2 weeks I was not allowed to do more than go to the bathroom,looked like a little chipmunk,and it hurt like he!!.

[Sourdough]

Mumps, yea....wish I could remember all the stuff we had, we had some other fever, was it rheumatic fever. We were lucky we never got meningitis, that I think killed some kids in my school.

[nell67]

My daughter had bacterial meningitis at 2 years old,all my brothers and sisters,parents,baby sitter and her family plus my 2 sons the lump and I all had to be treated with antibiotics,we figure she contracted the bacteria from the fresh milk on the dairy farm where I worked at the time,I would bring the milk home from the dairy,and unfortunately,it was drawn off the tank before the somatic cell count came back on the lot of milk,with counts off the charts,the whole load of milk was dumped.

One of my nephews has scarlet fever at the moment because his mom and dad didn't take him to the doctor when he developed a sore throat last week,the sore throat was strep,and he needed that antibiotic,but their drugs were more important than medication for their young son:chair:

[Sourdough]

Nell, you tell such stories for a 28 year old lady.......:innocent::innocent::innocent:

[Rick]

Hope - One of the reasons you don't ever catch a cold is because there is no one around to catch it from. Come on over to my house where the 4 grandkids attend 2 different schools and the YMCA and gift wrap every virus and bacteria on three different planets and cheerfully open them at our house.

Trax - I don't know if it was common knowledge. Probably. But I remember getting a dose of coal oil and sugar for the croup. It didn't cure you but you da** sure said it did so you didn't have to take another dose. Mineral oil by the gallon. I'm pretty certain there is still some inside me somewhere. And we were de-wormed every spring with the most God awful concoction man ever put lip to. For a full minute after you swallowed that stuff all you could do was blink your eyes. You couldn't breath, move or even focus on anything much less complain. Still, we managed to survive all those dreaded diseases and our self induced injuries. Thanks in part to parents and doctors that made house calls and a whole lot of good luck, I guess.

[nell67]

Nell, you tell such stories for a 28 year old lady.......:innocent::innocent::innocent:

28??? Hopeak,the check is in the mail!

[crashdive123]

...and don't forget cod liver oil.

[LowKey]

I never caught any of that stuff as a kid. It was all around me though, my sister brought home chicken pox and measles. I never got em. Either I did and it didn't show, or I'm one of the 'lucky' ones. Even in high school when the girlfriend got mono, I didn't. (hmm...she never did explain where SHE got it.) Would suck to get that stuff at 50...especially mumps...but I don't get colds and very rarely get a flu that lasts more than two or three days.

On a side note, I don't know if the practice has changed but I put myself through college for my second career by working in two different grocery stores. Not once were we asked to submit a clean TB or Hepatitis test - or any other kind of test for that matter. Makes you wonder sometimes....

[trax]

...and don't forget cod liver oil.

Cod liver oil, castor oil, and my old man was a firm believer in a dose of sulfur and molasses in the springtime as a general cure-all. Years later I asked a doctor about that and his answer was that the sulfur, if taken in small enough doses, probably is actually good for several things....including clearing up acne!....I asked him about the molasses and he shrugged and said "help the sulfur go down?" On a side note, he didn't seem sure about the sulfur or sure about what consituted a small enough dose. I changed doctors.