This business of anthrax

Desmond Henry

TREASURE BEACH: I still can't believe it's the same bacteria we all used to see and hear about at firsthand as rural school children growing up in the late '40s. Anthrax had its own normal day once a year, every year on our school compound.

Once a year each year owners of cattle, horse, mule and donkey in the districts around the Pedro Plains would bring their animals to the schoolyard to be vaccinated against anthrax. It was something that we looked forward to as kids, because with the usual commotion caused by "the dumb things" outside, it means very little teaching would take place inside.

It also allowed us kids to identify who were the farming bigwigs in the district, who had how many heads of cattle, and enabled us to put faces with names that we had grown to hear about. By putting one student who was "mister-know-all" at a window, he would call out the names of the famous faces as they brought their animals up for vaccination.

"See Missah Crowe from Beacon deh," or "Maass Vincent from Round Hill wid im bad bull.

"Dem seh im bull buck down a man last week, and im nearly dead." And so it went on with animals from Little Park, Round Hill, Flagaman, Beacon, Bluntas and many other districts around. It had us kids enjoying it all, and looking forward to anthrax day each year. No one, I suspect ­ not us, not the adults ­ had a full sense of the levels of danger inherent in the bacteria being vaccinated against. Because if we did, as we now do, it would have been a clear case for giving us all a legitimate one-day holiday. Darn it!

But the businesses of teaching and mass healing went on at the same time on the same compound, without any undue warnings of the deadly nature of what was taking place. In fact, we all came to believe that anthrax was a purely animal affliction without any cross-over danger to the rest of us, except of course, as a matter of prankish fun.

I remember one year a farmer brought along a particular cow that should not have been there at all. You see, that cow had a most noticeable case of 'running belly'. As she entered the schoolyard, her bowels opened up and those who have ever experienced cows with diarrhoea, know that they are not normally inhibited by such social standards like manners, courtesy or location. They will just open their spigots irrespective of where they stand, or which admiring bull might be nearby. I grew to understand what the comic meant who said: "The best way to feed the birds, is to give more corn to the horses."

'Running belly'

Anyway, on this particular day, this mother cow with the pronounced intestinal affliction, was brought to have her anthrax shot. During school recess, one of the young classes was playing chevvy chase, which meant a lot of running and zig-zagging from each other. Unintentionally one of the young student's bare feet came in contact with some of Miss running belly's deposit. To say that he slid is like saying that a sugar factory's noonday whistle is just a psssst. He sprawled like a fallen tent and was immediately nicknamed Anthrax. It was clearly a case of intestinal misfortune.

In those days there were no telephones, radios or other means of instant mass communication. The school was the community's communication centre. My dad, I remember, used to make announcements of community interest, just before dismissal in the evenings so that the children would stand a better chance of remembering the message to take home. And since those were pre-ministerial days, most of the vets and technical staff came all the way from the Department of Agriculture at Hope. And given the poor condition of the country's roads at that time, it also meant that a second visit for any one year would be most unlikely. So that turnout and participation on all anthrax days would be quite substantial.

In this context, therefore, I find it most conflicting to reconcile what happened then, with what obtains now. Is it that we were all innocently ignorant, or is it that we all mistook citro for citrus. Whatever it was, my generation sometime ago came face-to-face with anthrax, and used to look forward to its return each year, not with fear but with a sense of flair. My! How times have changed.

Have You Heard?...

A friend e-mailed me this:

Police reports are that a cell of four known international terrorists have been operating out of Kingston - Bin Stealin, Bin Killin, Bin Fightin and Bin Workin. The first three have been arrested on immigration violations.

The police say they can find no one fitting the fourth description, but are confident that since he'll be such an oddity, he should be located soon.

The Bottom Line: The old believe everything; the middle-aged suspect everything; and the young know everything.

Desmond Henry is a marketing strategist based in Treasure Beach, St. Elizabeth.

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