Tag: smallpox
Mob Tried to Burn Down New Jersey Pesthouse as Firefighters Fought Back
Orange, New Jersey, had barely finished building its new pesthouse when an angry crowd tried to burn it down. The small hospital, meant to isolate…
Smallpox Patients Refused the Pesthouse as New Cases Spread
Another smallpox case had appeared, and with it came the difficult question of where the sick should be kept. Miss Mamie Halligan, a domestic in…
Armed Guards Sealed Off Virginia Smallpox Region
Armed guards once surrounded a small mountain region of Virginia to keep smallpox from escaping. In February 1900, the Denmark area near the headwaters of…
New Rochelle Farmers Threatened to Burn Pesthouse Built for Smallpox Patients
The fight over a pesthouse in New Rochelle had turned into something close to open rebellion. In the Jerusalem Woods north of the city, health…
Yale Medical Student Trapped in Pesthouse After Volunteering to Treat Smallpox Patient
When smallpox appeared in Derby, Connecticut, fear spread almost as quickly as the disease. C.P. Cook was taken to the town pesthouse, isolated from everyone…
Smallpox Strikes New York’s House of Refuge on Randalls Island
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…
D.C. Launches Mass Vaccination Drive Amid Smallpox Outbreak
In the spring of 1925, Washington, D.C., found itself in the grip of a growing smallpox outbreak. Health officials were scrambling to contain the disease…
Smallpox Panic Stops a Philadelphia Train
At the height of the early twentieth century, a single word could bring a train, a hotel, a ship, or an entire neighborhood to a…
Smallpox Scare in Osgood, Ohio: Man’s Actions Caused Panic and Widespread Exposure
In 1907, during a smallpox scare, an Osgood, Ohio man with smallpox could not be quarantine. In complete disregard to his community, he exposed nearly…
