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Progress update: Still very much under construction, but taking shape.
Outline |
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< | I'm looking at quarantine laws between roughly 1870 and 1920, to see how the States and federal government worked together.
There's a few reasons I chose this era: it spans a few epidemics (principally yellow fever), and the unsuccessful creation of a federal body (the National Board of Health) to regulate quarantine uniformly in cases where States failed. But in the end (around 1883, an unconfirmed source reports: link) the Board failed. I'm curious why it failed. |
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> | I'm looking at quarantine laws between roughly 1880 and 1900, to see how the States and federal government worked together.
This era spans several epidemics (yellow fever and cholera), and the creation of a federal body (the National Board of Health).
I'm curious why it failed. |
| | First, this source is wrong. The Board was initially enacted with a sunset clause to expire in 1883, and was revived by repeal of this sunset clause in early 1883 due to its excellent performance. |
| | 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. 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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> | The 19th Century overall brought with it groundbreaking advances in medical science. Pasteur's initially radical germ theory was beginning to be accepted in the medical and public health literature by the timeframe in this project, although not universally (here is a review of its impact in Massachusetts in the early 1870s). 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. |
| | 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 |
| | 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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Timeline with linked sources |
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| | | 1892 |The Supreme Court rules that the chief clerk of the Board cannot collect backpay
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Help Request: does anyone know a good way to find early acts of Congress? I have them in hardcopy, and am trying to find them in a public source electronic form. |
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> | Answer for the use of others: Sometimes the juggernaut of google books delivers here, too. Many old annual reports of various agencies, boards and societies include the text of recent bills. |
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-- EmilyByrne - 4 Jan 2010 |