Smallpox!

June 1, 1895, Saturday Evening Press 

With all the controversy lately surrounding parents not vaccinating their children against measles, let's hearken back over 120 years ago to a major health crisis- smallpox. Vaccination had been established since the late 1700's to help prevent new cases, but of course, there was no guarantee that all would or could be vaccinated.  The case illustrated in the article above shows just how seriously this disease was taken.  To think of fencing off one's house today with guards to keep people out would likely be a civil liberties case for the courts!  

The reference in the article to a smallpox epidemic the previous year relates to an attorney named Peter Grossman, who while running a campaign to be justice of the peace, failed to notify health authorities that his son had contracted the disease.  Evidently he continued his campaign while keeping the boy's condition a secret and it was thought he spread the disease throughout the town despite not displaying any indications that he was himself ill by it.  The sad story continues in that his son later died from the disease and Peter fled the town in the dark of night, leaving his family behind.  He later came back, though the outcome of that was not evident to me in my research.  Next week, I will run down those articles and publish them on the blog.  Journalism of the time did not tip toe around such stories, unlike today when he would have had the word "alleged" pinned to his name from the start.