The Epidemic of 1916: A Mini-Essay

     In the summer of 1916, the counties surrounding New York City closed their doors to outsiders. From Hoboken to Hastings-on-Hudson, communities shuttered their homes and businesses, signs were posted on the outskirts of towns forbidding entrance to children under sixteen, and armed police officers patrolled the streets and railroad stations for fleeing New Yorkers.[1] Given strict orders to search every vehicle, local police were advised not to allow anyone with children outside the bounds of the massive city. The Big Apple was in quarantine, they were told, and the epidemic primarily afflicted children, specifically those under the age of five.[2] Despite the state's best efforts, conditions continued to deteriorate. By August, the outbreak had spread to Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.[3] The Health Department began to issue travel certificates for unaffiliated individuals, yet communities were not impressed and cities within the newly infected states started adopting the xenophobic stances of Hoboken and Hastings-on-Hudson: children were forcibly removed to isolation hospitals, thousands of cats and dogs - believed to be the carriers of the disease - were exterminated, and public spaces were boarded up and denied access to anyone under the age of sixteen.[4] In afflicted towns, the media, building upon claims made by the New York Times, transformed Italian immigrants into scapegoats for the outbreak and society retaliated against them with violence and ostracization.[5] By October, the death toll reached 27,000, with New York City possessing 2,400 of that number.[6] All efforts, including dowsing the city with disinfectant and slaughtering over 72,000 feral animals, proved useless.[7] The entire situation reads like the basis for a gripping science fiction tale; however, it's gleaned from the pages of history. What occurred in 1916 was the nation's first serious outbreak of poliomyelitis and it's effects haunted the country well until mass integration of the Salk vaccine in the 1950s. Although the epidemic has faded from public memory (the nation's rising concerns over its entrance into World War I quickly overshadowed the rising panic), the event, which parallels the occurrences seen in contemporary horror films, proves that truth is far more fascinating than fiction.

Works Referenced

Dobson, Mary. Disease: The Extraordinary Stories Behind History's Deadliest Killers. New York: Metro Books, 2007.

Oshinsky, David. Polio: An American Story. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
____________________
[1] Oshinsky, 21.
[2] Dobson, 163-164.
[3] Oshinsky, 21-22.
[4] Dobson, 163-164.
[5] Oshinsky, 20-21.
[6] Dobson, 162.
[7] Oshinsky, 21.