Childhood's Deadly Scourge: The Campaign to Control Diphtheria in New York City, 1880-1930

by Professor Evelynn Maxine Hammonds

Known as the "deadly scourge of childhood," diphtheria was a highly feared disease in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the United States. In New York City alone, thousands of cases were reported each year, with large numbers of deaths. Physicians and public health experts viewed diphtheria as one of the most difficult to treat and control of all childhood diseases. In Childhood's Deadly Scourge, Evelynn M. Hammonds describes how New York City became the first city in the United States to apply laboratory-based advances in bacteriology and immunology to the treatment and prevention of this deadly disease--the first such use of scientific medicine in a public health crisis in this country. Critical to the successful control of diphtheria, she argues, were unprecedented efforts to remove the stigma associated with the disease and provide access to treatment and preventive vaccines for the entire population at risk. By 1930, the successful immunization of thousands of preschool- and school-aged children made evident for the first time the promise and force of the laboratory in infectious disease control. Today, as the threat of AIDS and other new diseases reopens the conflict between the protection of public health and the protection of civil liberties, Childhood's Deadly Scourge reminds us that technical solutions for disease control have complex social implications.

Genres: Nonfiction

312 pages, Hardcover

First published January 28, 1999

Reviews

[Ashley]

This is an excellent overview of how New York City tackled diphtheria in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Hammonds covers a broad spectrum of the efforts to eliminate the disease: its etiology, laboratory science, development of the toxin-antitoxin procedure, and public health campaigns. Throughout the book, she uses the concept of "visibility" to discuss how an endemic disease became a serious social problem. She applies visibility to placarding, newspaper editorials, PR campaigns, and the skin test that made a person's immunity status (temporarily) visible. I thought that was an excellent way to tie together a variety of related but distinct topics.

Readers interested in the history of public health, medical science, and media will find Hammonds book both useful and interesting.