The Great Inoculator by Gavin Weightman

Author:Gavin Weightman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Yale University Press

12

Saving the Nation

In the autumn of 1778 an English physician, John Haygarth, began a lively correspondence with doctors in both Britain and America who were interested in finding a way of overcoming the danger of inoculation spreading smallpox. Haygarth had circulated in the form of an Inquiry some ideas he had about the nature of smallpox infection and how it spread. Was there anywhere that might give a clue as to how the disease could be eliminated, he wondered. The answer came in a letter from a Dr Benjamin Waterhouse in Rhode Island, New England. Haygarth commented: ‘At the time, I did not know, that smallpox had been excluded from any civilised country in the world: and was not a little rejoiced to learn . . . that what I conjectured to be practicable had actually been accomplished for a long series of years in Rhode Island.’1

Dr Waterhouse was born in Rhode Island just off the New England coast. It was an island then (later incorporated into the State of Rhode Island) 14 miles long and 7 miles wide. The main town, Newport, was busy with trade and shipping, but it was a tight-knit community which was able to monitor outbreaks of disease and take steps to control its spread. However, like some other counties in colonial America, it was opposed to inoculation. It kept smallpox at bay with a system of strict quarantine and isolation.

Those in the colony who wanted to be inoculated went south, principally to New York and Long Island. When they returned they had to discard the clothes they had worn while infectious. If anyone was suspected of suffering from smallpox they were visited by an inspector. If they were judged to have the disease they were taken away from their family by overseers to an island called Coaster’s Harbour.

Dr Waterhouse, a professor of medicine at Harvard, recalled:

Formerly they carried the sick person in a box, in the form of a large chest, big enough to contain a small bed. The cover was perforated with holes sufficient to give the patient air. The box was put on an easy sledge and drawn by a horse, attended by the overseers to the shore, when the box and sledge together were put into a boat and in a few minutes the patient was in his hospital. When the inhabitants found that this formidable apparatus did more mischief, especially to timorous minds, than the disease itself, they dropt the use of the box and substituted a sedan chair.

If someone was found with an advanced case of smallpox, and it was thought not safe to move them, the whole street in which they lived was boarded up, warning advertisements put in the newspaper, and guards placed to prevent anyone coming near to the house. Dr Waterhouse made the point that these draconian regulations were regarded more as a popular custom than ‘the restraints of the law’. The fact that the colony was free of epidemic smallpox when the disease raged elsewhere was reason enough for people to accept the regulations.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.