In the spring of 1894, fear of one of America’s most dreaded diseases swept through a New York institution housing hundreds of troubled boys.
What began as what appeared to be an ordinary case of chicken pox soon triggered an emergency response from city health officials.
When doctors discovered that thirteen-year-old Abraham Voorhis was actually suffering from smallpox, alarms sounded across Randalls Island. With 500 boys living in close quarters at the House of Refuge, authorities rushed to quarantine the patient, disinfect the grounds, and vaccinate every inmate before the highly contagious disease could spread through the institution.
500 Boys In Danger
RANDALLS ISLAND, New York. — Dr. Doty, chief of the Bureau of Contagious Diseases, this morning officially announced that smallpox had broken out in the House of Refuge on Randalls Island.
There are 500 inmates of the institution, all boys, whose ages range from twelve to twenty years. Dr. Doty hopes, however, to prevent any great spread of the disease, and this morning sent a corps of men to the island to thoroughly fumigate and disinfest the House of Refuge and vaccinate every inmate.
The first patient to be stricken with smallpox in the institution is Abraham Voorhis, a lad of thirteen. He had been confined to the hospital ward for the last three days, ill with a disease believed to be chicken pox.
Last night, however, he developed suspicious symptoms. The physicians isolated him in a room over the hospital ward, and promptly notified the Board of Health Office.
Inspectors responded and pronounced young Voorhis’s illness smallpox. Late last night he was removed to North Brother Island.
The inmates of the House of Refuge were vaccinated very thoroughly four or five months ago, but in view of Voorhis’s illness, today’s vaccination was ordered as a matter of precaution.
Source: The Evening World. New York, N.Y. March 20, 1894.
