Pox (68 page)

75
Editorial favorably quoting an unnamed writer, in “The St. Louis Tragedy,”
Medical Dial
, 3 (Dec. 1901), 302. “Vaccine and Antitoxin,”
NYT
, Dec. 8, 1901, 6. “Government Control of Therapeutic Serums, Vaccine, Etc.,”
MR
, Mar. 29, 1902, 495. See “Topics of the Times,”
NYT
, Mar. 20, 1902, 8. “Vaccine Virus and Antitoxin,”
Sanitarian
, May 1902, 417. In 1898, the New York County Medical Society had sponsored a bill in the New York Senate to prevent the health department from selling its vaccine and antitoxin. Duffy,
Public Health in New York City
, 241.1.

76
“Regulation of Serum.” “Government Control of Therapeutic Serums, Vaccine, Etc.,”
MR
, Mar. 29, 1902, 495. Kondratas, “Biologics Control Act,” 17.

77
“Government Control of Therapeutic Serums,” 495. “Discussion,”
Transactions of the Homeopathic Medical Society of the State of New York for the Year 1902
, vol. 37 (Rochester, 1902), 60.

78
Woodward memorandum dated April 24, 1902, in U.S. Doc. 4407, 57th Congress, 1st Session, H.R. Reports, Vol. 9, No. 2713, “Sale of Viruses, Etc., in the District of Columbia,” June 27, 1902, 4. “Cost of Street Cleaning,”
WP
, Apr. 5, 1902, 11. “Regulates Sale of Virus,”
WP
, May 3, 1902, 14.

79
Kober memorandum dated April 16, 1902, in H. R., “Sale of Viruses, Etc., in the District of Columbia,” 4. See also U.S. Doc 4264, 57th Congress, 1st Session, Senate Reports, vol. 9, no. 1980, “Sale of Viruses, Etc., in the District of Columbia, June 19, 1902. “Virus Sale Licenses,”
WP
, Apr. 22, 1902, 12.

80
Walsh to Dr. Joseph McFarland, Dec. 4, 1901, quoted in Liebenau,
Medical Science and Medical Industry
, 85. “Cleveland Experiment,” 581. See also, in reference to a memorial from the Cleveland Academy of Medicine calling for U.S. government control of vaccine production, “American Medical Association,”
New York State Journal of Medicine
, 2 (July 1902), 194.

81
Robert N. Willson, “Abstract of an Analysis of Fifty-Two Cases of Tetanus Following Vaccinia: with Reference to the Source of Infection,”
Proceedings of the Philadelphia County Medical Society
, vol. 23 (Philadelphia, 1902), 157, 162, 165.

82
Untitled item on McFarland's appointment,
MN
, Feb. 9, 1901, 225. The significant changes were matters primarily of tone, as McFarland more resolutely stated his argument that a single make of vaccine, corrupted with tetanus, had caused the outbreaks at Camden and elsewhere.

83
Joseph McFarland, “Tetanus and Vaccination—An Analytical Study of Ninety-Five Cases of This Rare Complication,”
Proceedings of the Philadelphia County Medical Society
, vol. 23 (Philadelphia, 1902) [hereafter McFarland,
Proceedings
], 166, 171. Joseph McFarland, “Tetanus and Vaccination: An Analytical Study of 95 Cases of the Complication,”
Lancet
, Sept. 13, 1902 [hereafter McFarland,
Lancet
], 730.

84
McFarland,
Proceedings
, 168, 169. See, for example: “Death Follows Vaccination,”
NOP
, Dec. 15, 1893, 4; “Vaccination, Lockjaw, and Death,”
NYT
, May 29, 1894, 2. McFarland also implied that attempts were made to “suppress” cases “at the present time,” and perhaps also in the past. McFarland,
Proceedings
, 168.

85
McFarland,
Proceedings
, 169.

86
McFarland also considered, and rejected, the (plausible) argument that the recent introduction of shields, to cover vaccination wounds, had contributed to the occurrence of tetanus. The argument was that the shields created just the sort of anaerobic environment where tetanus bacilli thrived. But McFarland pointed out that in very few of the reported cases had shields even been used. McFarland,
Proceedings
, 171.

87
McFarland,
Proceedings
, 173, 174. McFarland,
Lancet
, 733.

88
McFarland,
Proceedings
, 174, 175.

89
USROSENAU
, 6–7. See also John H. Huddleston, “Tetanus and Vaccine Virus,”
Pediatrics
, 16 (Feb. 1904), 65–71.

90
William Osler,
The Principles and Practice of Medicine
, 4th ed. (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1901), 231. McFarland,
Proceedings
, 177. Today, the Centers for Disease Control places the normal incubation period at “3 to 21 days, usually about eight days,” adding: “In general the further the site is from the central nervous system, the longer incubation period. The shorter the incubation period, the higher the chance of death.” (
Epidemiology and Prevention of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases
, 10th ed. (2008), 72.
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/tetanus-508.pdf
, accessed February 23, 2009.)

91
“Virus, Antitoxins, and Serums,”
NYT
, Apr. 14, 1902, 8. The
Congressional Record
documents no debate on the legislation. JCSP, General Correspondence, Boxes 51–54.

92
Public Law No. 244, “An act to regulate the sale of viruses, serums, toxins, and analogous products in the District of Columbia, to regulate interstate traffic in said articles, and for other purposes,” 32 Stat. L., 728, approved July 1, 1902.

93
Kondratas, “Biologics Control Act,” 17.

94
Kondratas, “Biologics Control Act,” 18–19. John Parascandola, “The Public Health Service and the Control of Biologics,”
PHR
, 110 (Nov. /Dec. 1995), 774–75. Milstein, “Strengthening the Science Base,” 176.

95
“The Best Vaccine,”
BG
, Jun. 15, 1903, 6. Barbara Gutman Rosenkrantz,
Public Health and the State: Changing Views in Massachusetts, 1842–1936
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), 123–27. “The Bacteriologic Laboratory,”
CMJ
, 2 (Jan. 1903), 37–38.

96
Kondratas, “Biologics Control Act,” 19–20. Liebenau,
Medical Science and Medical Industry
.

97
Pure Food and Drug Act, 1906, approved June 30, 1906, 34 U.S. Stats. 768.

98
“Statement of Dr. C. T. Sowers, of Washington, D.C.,” Hearings Before the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce of the House of Representatives on Bills Relating to Health Activities of the General Government, Part I (Washington, 1910), 385–86.

99
“Smallpox in New Jersey,”
PMJ
, 9 (Jan. 11, 1902), 50. “Smallpox in Camden,” ibid., 9 (Mar 1, 1902), 466.

1
“Doctors Make a Raid: Many Persons in Little Italy Are Forcibly Vaccinated,”
NYT
, Feb. 2, 1901,1, 10. None of the Caballo family members, nor Antoinette Alvena, appeared in the 1900 or 1910 census. I was unable to find any further information about them.

2
“Doctors Make a Raid.” See also “Smallpox in Little Italy,”
NYT
, Jan. 31, 1901, 2. “The Weather,” ibid
.
, Feb. 2, 1901, 3.

3
Blauvelt in “Smallpox Scare Is Unwarranted,”
NYT
, Dec. 29, 1900, 8. See also “New York Library's Record,” ibid., Jan. 9, 1901, 8; “Smallpox Scare's Hardships,” ibid., Dec. 29, 1900, 8; “Over a Thousand Vaccinated,” ibid., Jan. 18, 1901, 2; and “Smallpox Rumors Hurt Trade,”
NYTRIB
, Jan. 8, 1901, 2.

4
Blauvelt in “Army of Vaccinators,”
NYT
, Dec. 25, 1900, 4.

5
On the social and cultural history of Italian Harlem, see Robert A. Orsi,
The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880–1950
, 2d ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002).

6
“War on Disease Germs,”
NYT
, Jul. 7, 1900, 5. Jacob August Riis,
The Children of the Poor
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1902), 24. John Duffy,
The Sanitarians
, 207.

7
Dillingham quoted in “Small-Pox, Hid, Now Breaks Out,”
NYEW
, Jan. 31, 1901, 3. “Smallpox in ‘Little Italy,'”
NYTRIB
, Feb. 1, 1901, 3. “Smallpox in Little Italy,”
NYT
, Jan. 31, 1901, 2. “Doctors Make a Raid.”

8
“Doctors Make a Raid.”

9
Ibid.

10
Ibid. Orsi,
Madonna
, esp. 21–24, 35.

11
“Doctors Make a Raid.”

12
Ibid.

13
Ibid.

14
United States Constitution
, Article II, Section 1. For a concise overview of Italian immigration during this period, see Rudolph J. Vecoli, “The Italian Diaspora, 1876–1976,” in
The Cambridge History of World Migration
, ed. Robin Cohen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 114–22.

15
U.S. Treasury Department,
Immigration Laws and Regulations
(Washington, 1900), esp. 12. U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, Bureau of Immigration,
Immigration Laws and Regulations
(Washington, 1904). Walter T. K. Nugent,
Crossings: The Great Transatlantic Migrations, 1870–1914
, reprint ed. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), 27–33.

16
William Pencak, “General Introduction,” in
Immigration to New York
, ed. William Pencak et al. (Philadelphia: Balch Institute Press, 1991), xiii. Mary Elizabeth Brown, “ ‘. . . The Adoption of the Tactics of the Enemy': The Care of Italian Immigrant Youth in the Archdiocese of New York During the Progressive Era,” in ibid., 109–10. Alan M. Kraut,
Silent Travelers,
esp. 51–52.

17
Sean Dennis Cashman,
America in the Age of Titans: The Progressive Era and World War I
(New York: NYU Press, 1988), 155–57. See also William J. Rorabaugh et al.,
America's Promise: A Concise History of the United States
(Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2004), 400. Nugent,
Crossings
, 31–33. On steerage journeys from Asia to San Francisco, see Robert Eric Barde,
Immigration at the Golden Gate: Passenger Ships, Exclusion, and Angel Island
(Westport, CT: Praeger, 2008).

18
Journalist quoted in Nancy Foner,
From Ellis Island to JFK: New York's Two Great Waves of Immigration
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 31; ibid., 29–32.

19
“Carriers by Water—Their Relations with Passengers,”
CLJ
, 52 (Jan. 25, 1901), 66. U.S. Treasury Department, Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service,
Handbook for the Ship's Medicine Chest
, by George W. Stoner, 2d ed. (Washington, 1904), 24. “U.S. Quarantine Laws and Regulations,” in
USSGPHMHS 1894
, 242. 29th U.S. Congress, 1st Session, H.R. Doc. No. 182, “Surgeons on Packet Ships,” Apr. 6, 1846, 2. See “Smallpox at Sea” [from London
Times
],
NYT
, Aug. 4, 1891; “Pestship in the Offing,” ibid., Aug. 29, 1896, 9.

20
Excerpt from
Annual Report of the Commissioners of Immigration, State of New York
(1868), in
Immigration: Select Documents and Case Records
, ed. Edith Abbott (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1924), 44, 45, 46. For an earlier (1845) call for a law requiring surgeons aboard immigrant ships, see “Surgeons on Packet Ships,” 3.

21
Congressional debate on “A Bill to Regulate the Carriage of Passengers by Sea,” in Abbott, ed.,
Immigration
, 54, 53. 47th Congress, 1st Session, H.R. Doc. No. 118, “Introduction of Contagious and Infectious Diseases into the United States,” Mar. 13, 1882, 2. “Vaccinating Immigrants: A New Move by the National Board of Health,”
WP
, Aug. 31, 1881, 4. On the 1878 law, see U.S. Department of State,
Commercial Relations of the United States with Foreign Countries
(Washington, 1887), vol. 2: 1865–1866.

22
“Report of the Health-Officer of the Port of New York,”
SCI
, 13 (Apr. 19, 1889), 304. “Vaccination of Immigrants,”
MR
, Nov. 11, 1882, 550.

23
F. Scrimshaw to William Tebb, May 7, 1883, in William Tebb,
Compulsory Vaccination in England: With Incidental References to Foreign States
(London: E. W. Allen, 1884), 48. On New York, see “An Act for the Protection of the Public Health,” in Department of State,
Commercial Relations of the United States
, vol. 2: 1929–30. On Boston, see
O'Brien v. Cunard Steamship Company
, 154 MA 272 (1891). California had long had such a policy for San Francisco, but it only applied to ships with smallpox aboard or ships arriving from an infected port. See “Health and Quarantine Regulations for the City and Harbor of San Francisco,”
CALBOH 1890–92
, 192–98.

24
See Jimmy Casas Klausen, “Room Enough: America, Natural Liberty, and Consent in Locke's
Second Treatise
,”
Journal of Politics
, 69 (2007), 760–69.

25
O'Brien v. Cunard Steamship Company
, 154 MA 272 (1891). This accounts draws upon the records from the case—including the plaintiff 's list of exceptions and the briefs from both sides—in Massachusetts Reports, Papers and Briefs, SLL.

26
O'Brien v. Cunard Steamship Company
, 154 MA 272 (1891).

27
O'Brien also claimed that the vaccination had been negligently performed, causing an eruption of blisters over her body. The Supreme Judicial Court absolved the Cunard Steamship Company from any responsibility, insisting that under the federal law steamship companies had done all that was required when they provided a competent medical practitioner; “[t] he work the physician or surgeon does in such cases is under the control of the passengers themselves.”
O'Brien v. Cunard Steamship Company
, 154 MA 272, 276 (1891).