190 1 how did new york separate immigrant families when smallpox broke out?

190/kloc-0 On a Friday night in February, when residents of an Italian community in East Harlem, new york were sleeping at home, a battalion composed of more than 200 policemen and doctors quietly occupied the roof, backyard and front door of each building. Under the command of the Infectious Diseases Bureau, they went into the house one by one, woke up every tenant, scraped off a piece of rawhide with The Lancet, and scratched the wound with a small dose of smallpox virus. This is a smallpox raid, and healthy residents are being vaccinated. But for anyone with smallpox symptoms, what happened that night was even more shocking: they were immediately taken to the dock of the East River and transported to an island south of the Bronx: the Northern Brothers under the cover of darkness.

Today, north brother island is an overgrown and uninhabited bird sanctuary; From 1980s to 40s of 19, it was a prosperous center of quarantine hospitals for typhoid fever, smallpox, tuberculosis, diphtheria and other infectious diseases. According to the Atlanta Constitution, on the night of the raid in East Harlem at 190 1, the doctors just mentioned this place to an new york man, "like a monster."

Kicked open the locked door of an Italian immigrant family apartment. Two children with fever are hiding under the bed. When the police and doctors carried them out of the apartment, their mother struggled to catch them. "* * *" reported the next morning: "She fought on the sidewalk like a tiger, and her screams alarmed the neighbors in the surrounding neighborhood. Her child was finally taken away from her, and she was rushed up the stairs to her desolate home, crying. Her son Molina, who was taken away, is 4 years old and her daughter Rosa is only 2 months old.

Mr. and Mrs. Carballo were two of eight children under six who were transferred from their parents to north brother island that night. In the week of February alone, two of the 38 children came from the Italian community on the Upper East Side. When Chief Inspector Allonzot Blau Wei Erte's troops passed by, they found the baby hidden under cabinets, closets and furniture. The Times reported a similar incident in the same block two days ago: "In some cases, the father held the child in his arms and fled from the roof with the child to prevent the child from being taken away."

Finally, parents were forced to stay and let the sick children go, but they didn't know if they would ever see them again. Some people don't.

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1949 The last case of smallpox was diagnosed in the United States. By 1980, the whole world had declared the eradication of the disease. But before that, smallpox killed 300 million people around the world. From 1900 to the end of 1902, American newspapers reported the epidemic from Boston to San Francisco, and the health department made efforts to control the virus and slow its spread. Nationwide, if smallpox invades the family, individuals are not allowed to appear in public under any circumstances. Almena Closed School, Kansas. In Delaware County, Indiana, officials isolated the whole town. It is reported that students in a boarding school in Berkeley, California were infected with smallpox. Their hair was cut off and soaked in alcohol. When a child was accidentally killed by a waiter who carelessly handled a lighted cigarette, it became local news. )

It is often called a threat by * * and the media: in Bemidji, Minnesota, the Bemidji Herald reported that the Ojibwe tribe in Mille Lacs reservation "threatened the nearby white settlements" because of smallpox death. In Buffalo, new york, Buffalo messengers blamed the spread of the disease on "carelessness" in the Polish low Ian district. In new york, Italians were humiliated by public health officials: "No one knows the harm caused by these ITAs." Manhattan Health Supervisor Frederick dillingham told * * * about the raid in February. "They go from infected families to work everywhere; They take trams and hang out with people.

It is a way of life: 1793, new york established the Ministry of Health to deal with the yellow fever epidemic; In the middle of A.D. 1800, cholera ravaged new york for decades. In the last outbreak of smallpox in 1894, as many as 150 cases of smallpox were reported every month.

Therefore, since 1893, controversial state legislation has approved the vaccination of school children and excluded unvaccinated students from public schools.

After many debates, the court granted the city the right to exclude unvaccinated students from public schools, but ruled that it was unconstitutional to isolate citizens who were not infected with smallpox, and that "it would be an attack to vaccinate them against their will without legal authorization."

Although it looks idyllic, north brother island is a quarantine hospital for infectious diseases such as typhoid fever, smallpox, tuberculosis and diphtheria. (Digital History Project /Co *** o Magazine) Although vaccination reduced the smallpox mortality rate from 1/2 to 1/75, it was perhaps more important for the health officials in new york at that time. 65,438+09,065,438+0-2002, this bill may contribute to the legislation to limit the spread of diseases, which is more important than now. 19 18, scientist Louis T.Wright invented intradermal smallpox vaccine (injected through a hypodermic needle). Before that, his smallpox vaccine included cuts, scratches and an evil scar. The public knows little about it. In addition, it is reported that it has caused serious diseases. At the beginning of the 20th century, as more and more Americans were vaccinated, anti-vaccine alliances and anti-vaccine associations sprang up all over the United States.

How can the health authorities in new york persuade people to accept this procedure under such widespread fear and incomprehension, and how can they make such a thing so terrible that it only targets high-risk groups without being demonized by more and more anti-vaccine public? "The Washington Evening News reported that two young women fled the doctor at1901kloc-0/2, intending to take them to north brother island. Health Director dillingham said that Florence Lederer, 27, and her friend Nelly Riley, 24, "undoubtedly showed signs of smallpox", but they were very smart. They escaped from the apartment in Cumming Street, Greenwich Village, escaped the authorities, slept in boarding houses and hid in the "secret room of the pub" until they were arrested. They were forced to provide a list of every place they had been during their escape; Subsequently, every pub and boarding house where they took refuge was isolated, everyone on the scene was vaccinated, and every space was fumigated with formaldehyde according to regulations.

Five days later, one month before the Upper East Side Attack Week, michael murphy, chairman of the new york Municipal Health Commission, lied that the health department had forcibly entered residents' homes, but failed to vaccinate them. This is an accusation that is absolutely untrue.

A week after the attack, on February 6th, Democrats in the New Orleans Times will report a story about Clifford? Colgate? Interview with Clifford Colgate Moore. New york is indeed in the throes of an epidemic. Dr Moore claims that there are 20,000 cases of smallpox, and they are still counting. He said: "The authorities concealed the exact information about this issue, because only in 1902, a considerable number of people allowed them to vaccinate 8 10000 kinds of vaccines.

Finally, the epidemic was brought under control. From 190 1 to 1902, the number of cases decreased by 25%, and from 1903, the skyrocketing almost completely subsided. 1905, the long-awaited Supreme Court decision has arrived. In the judgment of Jacobson v Massachusetts, the city found support for its raid and island isolation when the court confirmed that "most people have the right to transcend personal freedom when the community health needs it".

The next infectious disease that will hit new york will not happen until more than a decade later: polio. A victory in Jacobson v Massachusetts will not help. As there is no vaccine at hand, city officials have to rely on isolating and expanding hospitals in north brother island. 19 16 in summer,

Polio claimed the lives of more than 2,000 victims, many of whom died in newly expanded island facilities. 90% are1children under 0 years old.