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Too Late. A Toronto physician and family friend, Dr. Ernest K. Ranney, felt so sure it was only chickenpox that he took the Orrs to stay at his parents' home. Two days later, Mrs. Orr and the two youngest children left by train for Alberta. Missionary Orr crisscrossed Toronto all week long by bus and subway, shopping in department stores, going every evening to High Park Baptist Church. He took a bus to a Bible camp to address 20 children from a dozen towns. Only after that did he learn that he and his hosts and the rest of his family in Alberta were all quarantined; doctors suspected that Jimmy had smallpox. They put the boy in isolation at Riverdale Hospital. There the diagnosis was confirmed. Too late, Orr took the unread U.S. warning card from his pocket.
Canadian health authorities alerted their counterparts in every city where Jimmy might have spread the infection. The virus is not only spread by direct contact, but may travel several feet on a patient's breath, and farther on air currents. Aerolineas Argentinas and the railroads over which the Orrs had traveled began the thankless job of trying to track down every fellow passenger and line employee who had been near the boy. At Idlewild 800 vaccinations were hurriedly given, and 3,500 elsewhere in New York City. Not surprisingly, the hardest man to find was the cab driver, who was in greatest danger because Jimmy had sat next to him. New York police promised to overlook the charge of overcharging, if only he would show up for vaccination.
At week's end, Jimmy Orr was on the mend and eating well. His case of smallpox, whether alastrim or true variola, was unusually mild; evidently, the immunity from his long-ago vaccination had not completely worn off. Vaccinated contacts could expect similarly mild cases, especially if they took the precaution of being revaccinated as soon as they learned of their danger. But for anybody with no immunity against smallpox, casual contact with Jimmy Orr still held the threat of severe, disfiguring and possibly fatal disease.
* Besides the unrelated chickenpox, Brazilians also suffer from alastrim (from alastrar, to spread), a milder form of smallpox. Alastrim is known elsewhere as amaas, Cuban itch, glass pox, Kaffir pox, milkpox, paravariola, Philippine itch, pseudovariola, Samoa pox, Sanaga pox and whitepox.