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< | Progress update: Still very much under construction, but taking shape. |
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> | Progress update: Still very much under construction, but taking shape. |
| | Outline |
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Background: Disease and Quarantine in the Late 19th Century |
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< | The 19th Century overall brought with it groundbreaking advances in medical science. Pasteur's initially radical germ theory appeared to be largely accepted in the medical and public health literature by the timeframe in this project. |
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< | Quarantine measures, a very old disease prevention technology, were being updated to reflect new understandings of the mechanics of infection. |
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> | The 19th Century overall brought with it groundbreaking advances in medical science. Pasteur's initially radical germ theory appeared to be largely accepted in the medical and public health literature by the timeframe in this project. The literature around this time reflects great hope for rapid scientific advancement in many areas including disease origins and nature. There were hot debates both about the validity of new discoveries, and how these could best be translated into frameworks for prevention and remedy.The mood was generally optimistic: ' it is believed that the country was never in better condition to resist the progress of epidemics than it is at the present time' declared the National Board of Health's Annual report for 1885. A broad movement for public health had begun in Great Britain around the 1850s, and was slowly taking off in America, with interest turning to sewers and school hygiene. Later within in my chosen time period, the introduction of publicly provided childhood vaccinations began. |
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< | Until the work done by Walter Reed to confirm the transmission of yellow fever by mosquitoes in 1900, the disease was assumed to be transferred either from direct contact with infected people, or to be airborne. This pamphlet in 1879 favors the latter theory, recommending quarantine measures for ships based on the new science of thermodynamics.Yellow Fever, A Nautical Disease, Its Origin and Prevention (1879) |
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> | Quarantine measures, a very old disease prevention technology, were being updated to reflect new understandings of the mechanics of infection. Good examples of this were in relation to cholera (which had recently been discovered to be transmitted from feces-contaminated water). See eg The Sanitarium, 1894, pp 3-4 |
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> | Until the work done by Walter Reed to confirm the transmission of yellow fever by mosquitoes in 1900, the disease was assumed to be transferred either from direct contact with infected people, or to be airborne. This pamphlet in 1879 favors the latter theory, recommending quarantine measures for ships based on the new science of thermodynamics.Yellow Fever, A Nautical Disease, Its Origin and Prevention (1879) |
| | Some of my sources indicate a welcoming attitude to State regulation. An example is Henry I. Bowdich, Public Hygiene in America: Being the Centennial Discourse Delivered Before the International Medical Congress, Philadelphia, September 1876 p 2. His address opined:
Only the State with its great resources, with a large corps of able and earnest agents occupied in the observation of the rise and progress of disease, and in the analysis of such observations for many generations, can hope to unravel even a few of the many mysterious causes of the diseases of any nation, especially of one covering so large a proportion of the earth’s surface as the United States.
The rise and fall of the National Board of Health |
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> | Original- I think - Statute establishing the National Board of Health, in 1879
OK, this is strange. Here is an annual report from the National Board of Health for 1885, when it had not yet been established by the 1894 statute. I am not yet clear whether this is a different board. [ok. have this sorted out in my head now. Watch this space...]
The report notes that 32 of the States had, in 1885, boards of health or 'other forms of sanitary organization charged with the duty of devising and enforcing such measures as may serve to promote the well-being of the people'
Key points: In the mid 1880s there was a virulent cholera epidemic in Europe, and American authorities were anxious to resist its introduction as much as possible.
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| | Both Links in table below. |
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< | 1) "An act to prevent the introduction of infectious or contagious diseases into the United States, and to establish a national board of health" 45th Congress, Session III, 1879 20 Stat 484. |
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> | 1) "An act to prevent the introduction of infectious or contagious diseases into the United States, and to establish a national board of health" 45th Congress, Session III, 1879 20 Stat 484. Although I scanned this in, google books has a publication called the Sanitarian from 1894 that is clearer, and contains the bill text at page 230. |
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2) "An act granting additional quarantine powers and imposing additional duties upon the Marine Hospital Service" 27 Stat 449 Ch 114, 52nd Congress, approved February 15 1893. Section 9 of this Act repeals the 1879 act above. |