The 1946 smallpox experience in Seattle.

TOURING the early months of 1946, the City of Seattle recorded 28 cases of smallpox, 8 of which were fatal. Seattle and King County combined (Seattle is in King County) had 51 cases, of which 16 (31.6 per cent) were fatal. This area and, for that matter, the whole state had had no cases during the previous seven years, the last reported being 5 cases in Seattle in 1939. Years before that a number of cases were reported each year, the last with a great number being 1925 when 495 cases were reported, but with no deaths. Never before 1946 had Seattle had such a virulent form of the disease, previous outbreaks having been of the mild form. The 1946 experience, with a mortality rate of 31.6 per cent, was most serious. The clinical types varied from the mild discrete through moderately severe discrete, severe discrete, confluent, and haemorrhagica pustulosa to haemorrhagica vera . Of the cases, 47.8 per cent were the severe type; 30.8 per cent of these were equally divided between the haemorrhagica pustulosa and the haemorrhagica vera type.