100 YEARS AGO
Monday, Oct. 7, 1918. Last week, the Saratoga Springs board of education decided to keep the city’s public schools open during the Spanish flu epidemic, but allowed parents to keep their children home to avoid contagion. Today, in the latest sign of the flu’s spread, the schools have been shut down until further notice.
“Reports received at the state department today indicate that Spanish influenza in the state is gaining rapidly, despite all known measures to check it,” according to a front page wire service report in today’s Saratogian.
Schenectady also closes its public schools, along with theaters, churches and other public meeting places, as the number of cases there passes the 1,000 mark. Saratoga Springs closed its theaters last week and limited churches to one morning service on Sundays.
In Albany, 600 new cases have been reported in the last 24 hours. The Saratogian hasn’t reported the number of cases in the Spa City, but the school board’s move strongly suggests that the epidemic is getting worse here.
School board sources tell the paper that “the action was taken as a preventative and precautionary measure and because of the fact that many parents deemed it unwise to send their children to school in view of the many cases of the epidemic that now exist here.”
The Saratoga Y.M.C.A. is also closing until further notice. “At all times when school is not in session, it is a common meeting place for Grammar and High school students, as well as for adults,” general secretary John H. Irons explains, “The association feels that the best interest of those who usually frequent the building can be best served by all of its activities being cancelled until conditions are more favorable in the city.”
In a blow to wartime fundraising, the Saratoga War Chest office at the Y building has also closed. “Persons who wish to make their payments to the War Chest this week are requested to mail them to the War Chest office,” a reporter writes.
City health officer Dr. A. Sherman Downs has ordered all local physicians to report every case of flu to his office. “While the disease is not classified as reportable by the state health authorities, the local health officer has made the request in order that information may be obtained on the actual situation in this city,” the reporter explains.
Downs insists that “there is no cause for any undue alarm,” while “it seems to be the prevailing belief among the physicians that a few days of clear, crisp weather will practically wipe out the epidemic in this section.”