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100 years ago in Spokane: Drugs were becoming an ‘appalling evil’ that had created an estimated 3,000 addictions in the city, and the grim toll of the summer’s polio outbreak was revealed

 (S-R archives)

A federal grand jury reported that Spokane was home to “between 100 and 200 vicious drug peddlers” and about 3,000 addicts.

The grand jury report said “these shocking conditions” were uncovered during testimony in their recent session. The grand jury had already indicted a number of dealers and addicts – but only a fraction of the reported total.

“The average citizen has no idea of the grip that it now has in Spokane, and of the increasing dimensions and tenacity of that grip,” the grand jury foreman said.

The report said that “the narcotic situation is the most appalling evil confronting the American people.”

From the health beat: Polio claimed the lives of 18 Spokane children in 1921, the city’s health office said. That was 17 more than in 1920, largely because of a surge of cases in the summer of 1921.

This was clearly a worrisome trend for Spokane parents. However, other scourges, including smallpox, scarlet fever and whooping cough, were all trending downward,

“Encephalitis lethargica,” which was commonly called sleeping sickness, took the lives of 17 Spokane residents in 1921. The deadliest diseases, however, were tuberculosis, pneumonia and cancer.

From the literary beat: Mourning Dove, a Colville tribal member, also known as Mrs. Christine Galler, had finished a a novel and was now working on a book of Indian folklore.

She had spent the last ten years researching Colville, Okanogan and Penticton legends.

She was recently elected to a life membership in the Spokane Historical Society.

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