Poxy Dancer

Young & lithe enough to be worth a dime of any man's dance money, Helen Abney, 1 8, taxi-danced three January nights running in a thronged Detroit hall until she was ready to drop. When she could not raise her head from her pillow one morning, she thought she was just tired. When chills & fever racked her and her bones ached, she thought she had grippe. A rash breaking out on her face suggested scarlet fever or chickenpox. When the red spots became elevated and exuded pus, there remained no doubt that dancing Helen Abney was afflicted with smallpox.

Detroit suffered a thoroughgoing scare, for closely associated with Helen Abney for three nights were 100 other young & lithe girls who taxi-danced for a living and a thousand men who danced with them. Few of the dancers dared feel safe against smallpox contagion. When schoolchildren, some had evaded the usually compulsory vaccination against this comparatively rare disease.* Practically none of the others knew that vaccination may provide protection for only five years. By means of newspapers and radio Detroit's Health Commissioner Henry F. Vaughan last week explained all this to Detroit's citizens and plenty of them got vaccinated or revaccinated, while doctors tried to keep poxy Dancer Helen Abney from being abhorrently pocked for life.

* But smallpox is by no means eradicated from the U. S. with 459 new cases last week.

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