Pox (66 page)

2
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Annual Message of the President to Congress, Jan. 6, 1941 (excerpt),
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/decade01.asp
, accessed March 3, 2009. Old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, compulsory health insurance, and labor regulations for men (outside of extremely dangerous industries such as mining) were dead on arrival in the United States.
Escola v. Coca Cola Bottling Co.
, 24 Cal. 2d 453 (1944). See David A. Moss,
Socializing Security: Progressive-Era Economists and the Origins of American Social Policy
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995); Theda Skocpol,
Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992).

3
In a useful short account, Jonathan Liebenau has examined the vaccine controversy as an important moment in the consolidation of the pharmaceutical industry in the United States;
Medical Science and Medical Industry
(Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), 79–88. Arthur Allen provides a brisk narrative of the episode in
Vaccine,
79–82, 92–96. A thinner account, with errors, is David E. Lilienfeld, “The First Pharmacoepidemiologic Investigations: National Drug Safety Policy in the United States, 1901–1902,”
Perspectives in Biology and Medicine
, 51 (Spring 2008): 188–98.

4
“No Vaccination in Camden's Boundaries,”
NYT
, Nov. 19, 1901, 7. “Vaccine and Antitoxin,” ibid., Dec. 8, 1901, 6. “Vaccination and Lockjaw,”
NYS
, Nov. 21, 1901, 6. F. M. Wood, “The Various Methods of Vaccination and Their Results,”
PMJ
, 9 (Mar. 22, 1902), 541–42. “The Cleveland Experiment,”
Cincinnati Lancet-Clinic
, May 31, 1902, 580–82.

5
“Rubbed Off Vaccine Virus,”
NYT
, Dec. 7, 1901, 2. See, for example, “Death Follows Vaccination,”
NOP
, Dec. 15, 1893, 4; “Death Caused by Vaccination,”
Interocean
(Chicago), Feb. 15, 1894, 3; “Parents Fear Vaccination,”
Milwaukee Sentinel
, Feb. 16, 1894, 8; “Caused by Vaccination: A School Girl's Awful Suffering,”
Bismarck Daily Tribune
, Aug. 10, 1895; “Danger in Vaccination,”
Macon Telegraph
(Georgia), Dec. 24, 1897; “Died of Virus Poisoning,”
PNA
, Nov. 17, 1899, 7; “Death Probably Due to Vaccination,”
WP
, Mar. 21, 1901, 3. See, generally, Sir Graham S. Wilson,
The Hazards of Immunization
.

6
On the implications of progressive thinking about social interdependence, see Thomas L. Haskell,
The Emergence of Professional Social Science
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977). Michael Willrich,
City of Courts.

7
Wyatt v. Rome
, 105 Ga. 312 (1898). Even after the enactment of the federal Biologics Control Act of 1902, state and local governments remained insulated from liability for unsafe vaccines. “The State is not a guarantor of the purity of such biological products and is not liable for injury caused by impure ones.” James A. Tobey,
Public Health Law,
58. See ibid., 175–76. On the regulatory environment as it existed in 1901, see Charles V. Chapin,
Municipal Sanitation in the United States
(Providence: The Providence Press, 1901), 573–98, esp. 580–84. On the growth of social intervention in American law during this period, see Willrich,
City of Courts
.

8
Walter Wyman, “Précis upon the Diagnosis and Treatment of Smallpox,”
PHR
, 14, Jan. 6, 1899, 37. “Vaccination and Revaccination,”
CMJ
, 1 (July 1902), 381. On more recent developments in U.S. vaccine regulation, see Thomas F. Burke,
Lawyers, Lawsuits, and Legal Rights: The Battle over Litigation in American Society
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 142–70; Vincent A. Fulginiti et al., “Smallpox Vaccination: A Review, Part II. Adverse Effects,”
Clinical Infectious Diseases
, 37 (2003), 251–71; and Julie B. Milstein, “Regulation of Vaccines: Strengthening the Science Base,”
Journal of Public Health Policy
, 25 (2004): 173–89.

9
“Commercial Virus and Antitoxin,”
NYT
, Nov. 18, 1901, 6.

10
A burgeoning field of social science research has shed new light on the mental strategies—or “heuristics”—that ordinary people use to understand the risks of their world. For an introduction, see Paul Slovic, “Perception of Risk,”
SCI
, new ser. 236 (1987): 280–85. For an interesting critique of Slovic's ideas, see Cass R. Sunstein, “The Laws of Fear,” review of Paul Slovic,
The Perception of Risk
(2000),
Harvard Law Review
, 115 (2002): 1119–68.

11
“Vaccinia is a specific disease, the cause of which has not been determined. We are, therefore, working somewhat in the dark.” Milton J. Rosenau of the federal Hygienic Laboratory, in
USROSENAU
, 6.

12
USCB 1900
, Vol. I:
Population
: Part I:
Population of States and Territories
, 1900, 430, 513, 549. Ibid., Vol. 8:
Manufactures: States and Territories
, 556.
NJBOH 1901
, 152.

13
“Camden's Lockjaw Panic,”
NYS
, Nov. 16, 1901, 4. The
Sun
mistakenly reported the family surname as Ludwig. See U.S. Census Bureau,
Twelfth Census of the United States
(1900): Schedule No. 1—Population: Camden, New Jersey, Supervisor's District No. 6, Enumeration District No. 63.

14
NJBOH 1901
, 371.
NJBOH 1902
, 39–42.
PBOH 1901
, 14–18, 37–48. “Smallpox Situation in Philadelphia and Camden,”
MN
, Nov. 30, 1901, 867–68.

15
“Camden's Lockjaw Panic.” “Smallpox,”
MN
, Oct. 26, 1901, 667. On sore arms during this epidemic, see F. M. Wood, M.D. [city physician of Camden], “The Various Methods of Vaccination and Their Results,”
PMJ
, 9 (Mar. 22, 1902), 541–42; Alexander McAllister, M.D. [of Camden], “The Cause of Sore Arms in Vaccination,”
Transactions of the Medical Society of New Jersey, 1902
(Newark, 1902), 153–57.

16
NJBOH 1901
, 371–72.

17
“Vaccinated Boy, Tetanus Stricken, May Recover,”
PNA
, Nov. 11, 1901, 1. “Five Victims of Lockjaw,”
NYT
, Nov. 17, 1901, 3. W. J. Lampton, “Tetanus Epidemics” (letter to the editor),
NYS
, Nov. 21, 1901, 6. George Miller Sternberg,
Infection and Immunity: With Special Reference to the Prevention of Infectious Diseases
(New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1903), 272–78, esp. 277. William Brown, “Tetanus in Toy-Pistol Wounds,”
BRMJ
, 1 (1934): 1116–17. See also Frederic S. Dennis, ed.,
System of Surgery
(Philadelphia: Lea Brothers & Co., 1895), vol. 1, 426–27; William Hallock Park and Anna Wessels Williams,
Pathogenic Micro-organisms: Including Bacteria and Protozoa; a Practical Manual for Students, Physicians and Health Officers
(Philadelphia: Lea Brothers & Co., 1905), 222. The contemporaneous accounts of the unfolding Camden tetanus outbreak that were published in newspapers, medical journals, and the Camden Board of Health's official report, contain a number of discrepancies (including some conflicting dates, different spellings of the victims' names, and differing ages for the children). I have been able to locate most of these children in the 1900 census. In my own account, I have wherever possible used information that I have been able to confirm in at least two sources. For the Camden Board of Health report, which appears to contain a few factual errors about the cases, see “Official Report of the Camden Board of Health Concerning the Cases of Tetanus Which Occurred in Patients Who Had Been Vaccinated,” Nov. 29, 1901, reprinted in
Bulletin of the North Carolina Board of Health
, 16 (Dec. 1901): 112–18. (Hereafter: “Camden Board of Health Report.”)

18
Mrs. Brower and Dr. Kensinger quoted in “Vaccinated Boy, Tetanus Stricken, May Recover.” Dr. Kensinger's name is mispelled as “Kinsinger” in this newspaper story. On the Brower family, see
Twelfth Census of the United States
(1900): Schedule No. 1: Population, Camden, NJ, Supervisor's District No. 6, Enumeration District No. 77.

19
“Camden's Lockjaw Panic.”
Twelfth Census of the United States
(1900): Schedule No. 1—Population: Camden, NJ, Supervisor's District No. 6, Enumeration District No. 77. “Camden Board of Health Report,” 114.

20
“Another Death from Lockjaw,”
NYTRIB
, Nov. 14, 1901, 6. “Camden's Lockjaw Panic.” “Vaccination and Lockjaw,”
NYT
, Nov. 14, 1901, 2. “Vaccination Leads to a Boy's Death,”
PNA
, Nov. 14, 1901, 3.
Twelfth Census of the United States
(1900): Schedule No. 1—Population: Camden, NJ, Supervisor's District No. 6, Enumeration District No. 73. “Camden Board of Health Report,” 114.

21
“Camden's Lockjaw Panic,”
NYS
, Nov. 16, 1901, 4. “Vaccination Claims Another,”
NYTRIB
, Nov. 15, 1901.
Twelfth Census of the United States
(1900): Schedule No. 1—Population: Camden, NJ, Supervisor's District No. 6, Enumeration District No. 59. “Camden Board of Health Report,” 114.

22
Davis quoted in “Vaccination Claims Another.” Dowling quoted in “Epidemic of Lockjaw Arouses a Whole City,”
NYW
, Nov. 20, 1901, 6.

23
“Vaccination Claims Another.” “Camden's Lockjaw Panic.” See
Twelfth Census of the United States
(1900): Schedule No. 1—Population: Camden, NJ, Supervisor's District No. 6, Enumeration District No. 73 (Warrington); ibid., Enumeration District No. 49 (Cavallo). “Camden Board of Health Report,” 114. The unnamed victim appears to have been William J. Bauer, aged seven, who according to Camden officials was the tetanus outbreak's first fatality: vaccinated October 12, he showed tetanus symptoms on November 1 and died two days later. Ibid., 113. On the Bauer family, see
Twelfth Census of the United States
(1900): Schedule No. 1—Population: Camden, NJ, Supervisor's District No. 6, Enumeration District No. 85.

24
“Lockjaw Deaths Continue,”
NYT
, Nov. 17, 1901, 6. “Five Victims of Lockjaw,”
NYT
, Nov. 17, 1901, 3. “Camden Board of Health Report,” 114.

25
“Five Victims of Lockjaw.” “Camden's Lockjaw Panic.”

26
“Ibid. Other newspaper accounts and medical journal articles intimated that a single maker had been involved in the tetanus cases in Camden, but refrained from revealing the maker's identity. On Mulford see Liebenau,
Medical Science and Medical Industry,
esp. 57–78, 80–81.1.

27
“Camden's Lockjaw Panic.” Cochran did not have many dollars to spare. The fifty-one-year-old teamster lived in a rented house on Mechanic Street, about a mile from the Delaware River, with his wife Sarah and their children. In their twenty-six years of marriage, Sarah had given birth to six children. Annie was their second to die. James was going to know who was responsible for this loss.
Twelfth Census of the United States
(1900): Schedule No. 1—Population: Camden, NJ, Supervisor's District No. 6, Enumeration District No. 59. “Epidemic of Lockjaw Arouses a Whole City,”
NYW
, Nov. 20, 1901, 6.

28
“Camden's Lockjaw Panic.” “No Vaccination in Camden's Boundaries.”
Cooper v. Shore Elec. Co.
, 63 N.J.: 558 (1899). See John Fabian Witt, “From Loss of Services to Loss of Support: The Wrongful Death Statutes, the Origins of Modern Tort Law, and the Making of the Nineteenth-Century Family,”
Law and Social Inquiry
, 25 (2000), 717–55; Vivian A. Zelizer,
Pricing the Priceless Child: The Changing Social Value of Children
(New York: Basic Books, 1985), ch. 5.

29
“Camden's Lockjaw Panic.” “No Vaccination in Camden's Boundaries.” “Epidemic of Lockjaw Arouses a Whole City.” “Tetanus Following Vaccination,”
MN
, Nov. 23, 1901, 829.

30
“Tetanus in Philadelphia,”
NYT
, Nov. 19, 1901. “Commercial Virus and Antitoxin,” ibid., Nov. 18, 1901, 6. On Atlantic City (Bessie Kessler, age nine), see “Death in Atlantic City,”
NYT
, Nov. 19, 1901. “Vaccination Proves Fatal,”
SFC
, Nov. 19, 1901, 4. On Bristol (Joseph Goldie), see “Tetanus Follows Vaccination,”
CO
, Nov. 19, 1901, 4. See also “St. Louis; Camden, N.J.; Bristol, Pa.,”
Duluth News Tribune
(Minnesota), Nov. 15, 1901, 4; “Compulsory Vaccination Exciting Camden, N. J.,”
Wilkes-Barre Times
, Nov. 20, 1901, 1. On Cleveland, see Martin Friedrich, “How We Rid Cleveland of Smallpox,”
CMJ
, 1 (Feb. 1902), 77–83, esp. 79. Joseph McFarland, “Tetanus and Vaccination: An Analytical Study of 95 Cases of the Complication,”
Lancet
, Sept. 13, 1902, 730–35, esp. 731.

31
“A Health Board Arraigned,”
NYT
, Nov. 19, 1901. “The St. Louis Tragedy,”
Medical Dial
(Minneapolis), 3 (December 1901), 301–2. “St. Louis; Camden, N.J.; Bristol, Pa.,”
Duluth News-Tribune
, Nov. 15, 1901, 4. A separate committee, appointed by the St. Louis Board of Health, later confirmed the coroner's judgment and recommended that the Health Department stop making antitoxin. The department complied. Ramunas A. Kondratas, “The Biologics Control Act of 1902,” in
The Early Years of Federal Food and Drug Control
, ed. James Harvey Young (Madison, WI: American Institute of the History of Pharmacy, 1982), 15.