Legislating fear and the public health in gilded age Massachusetts

Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences

Volumn 62, Issue 2, 2007, Pages 141-170

  Teigen, Philip M ^a  

^a NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH   (United States)

Author keywords

Dogs; Hydrophobia; Legislation; Public health; Rabies; Zo notic disease

Indexed keywords

EPIDEMIC; FEAR; HISTORY; HUMAN; LEGAL ASPECT; PUBLIC HEALTH; PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE; RABIES; REVIEW; UNITED STATES;

DISEASE OUTBREAKS; FEAR; HISTORY, 19TH CENTURY; HUMANS; MASSACHUSETTS; PUBLIC HEALTH; PUBLIC HEALTH ADMINISTRATION; RABIES;

EID: 33947254523     PISSN: 00225045     EISSN: 14684373     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/jhmas/jrl016     Document Type: Review

References (129)

1. Worcester Spy, 24, 25 January 1878;
2. Springfield Republican, 24 and 25 January 1878;
3. and Boston Globe, 25 January 1878.
4. The response of the Commonwealth's medical profession equaled or exceeded that of the journalists and politicians. Between 1876 and 1881, physicians and surgeons produced more than thirty case reports, articles, news reports, and editorials about hydrophobia, most of them in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal (BMSJ). Even English neurologist William R. Gowers (1845-1915) joined in. The fourteen case reports generated during the mad-dog sensation are the subject of a separate essay.
5. "1797 - Chapter 53," in Acts and Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (Boston: Wright & Potter, 1890-98), IX, 420. Dated 19 February 1798, the Act reaffirmed colonial-era regulations.
6. On Thacher, see J. Worth Estes in Dictionary of American Medical Biography, ed. Martin Kaufman, Stuart Galishoff, and Todd L. Savitt (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1984), II, 735-36. Estes erroneously characterizes Thacher's work on hydrophobia as minor. In fact, it inaugurated a series of systematic reports on the disease (listed below in note 5) that continued through much of the century.
7. On registration in Massachusetts, see James H. Cassedy, American Medicine and Statistical Thinking (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), 194-98,
8. and Barbara G. Rosenkrantz, Public Health and the State: Changing Views in Massachusetts, 1842-1936 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972), 8-36.
9. Thomas W. Blatchford and A. D. Spoor, "Report on Hydrophobia," Tr. Am. Med. Assoc., 1856, 9, 235-336;
10. J. Lewis Smith, "Report of a Case of Hydrophobia; With Statistical Observations," N. Y. J. Med., 1855, 15, 233-45;
11. T. G. Richardson, "Report on Hydrophobia," Proc. Louisiana Med. Assoc., 1880, 3, 49-65;
12. and Connecticut State Board of Health, Registration Reports, 1848-81.
13. With twenty-first-century knowledge of rabies, we can guess that environmental dislocations, permitting the rabies virus to spill over from undomesticated animal populations into domestic ones, preceded the social dislocations. During the mad-dog scare, Massachusetts officials and the public alike were well aware that skunks, foxes, and raccoons as well as dogs, cats, and other mammals could become rabid. (This information was printed on the verso of dog licenses beginning in 1877.) However, the relationship between domestic animals, wild animals, and their environments went unstudied, or at least unexpressed, until later in the century.
14. George Fleming, Rabies and Hydrophobia: Their History, Nature, Causes, Symptoms, and Prevention (London: Chapman and Hall, 1872), [1].
15. Most historical interest in rabies has focused on Pasteur's work and the subsequent identification of the rabies virus. These subjects are succinctly summarized by K. David Patterson, "Rabies," in The Cambridge World History of Human Disease, ed. Kenneth F. Kiple (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 962-67;
16. James H. Steele and Peter J. Fernandez, "History of Rabies and Global Aspects," in The Natural History of Rabies, ed. George M. Baer, 2nd ed. (Boston: CRC Press, 1991), 1-23;
17. Rabies, ed. Alan C. Jackson and William H. Wunner (New York: Academic Press, 2002);
18. and Jean Théodoridès, Histoire de la Rage: Cave Canem (Paris: Masson, 1986).
19. Major interpretive works include: Gerald L. Geisen, The Private Science of Louis Pasteur (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995);
20. Patrice Debré, Louis Pasteur (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998; French edition, 1994);
21. Lise Wilkinson, Animals and Disease: An Introduction to the History of Comparative Medicine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992);
22. A. P. Waterson and Lise Wilkinson, An Introduction to the History of Virology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978);
23. and Sally Smith Hughes, The Virus: A History of the Concept (New York: Science History Publications, 1977).
24. Scholars examining cultural responses to the disease include: Harriet Ritvo, The Animal Estate: The English and Other Creatures in the Victorian Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), 167-202;
25. Bert Hansen, "America's First Medical Breakthrough: How Popular Excitement about a French Rabies Cure in 1885 Raised New Expectations for Medical Progress," Am. Hist. Rev., 1998, 103, 373-418;
26. Kathleen Kete, "La Rage and the Bourgeoisie: The Cultural Context of Rabies In the French Nineteenth Century," Representations, 1988, 22, 89-107;
27. Robert Haas, "Might Zora Neale Hurston's Janie Woods be Dying of Rabies? Considerations from Historical Medicine," Lit. Med., 2000, 19, 205-28;
28. and John D. Blaisdell, "With Certain Reservations: The American Veterinary Community's Reception of Pasteur's Work on Rabies," Agric. Hist., 1996, 70, 503-24.
29. Harold C. Ernst, "An Experimental Research upon Rabies," Am. J. Med. Sci., 1887, 93, 321-41.
30. On Ernst (1856-1922), see John Harley Warner in American National Biography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), VII, 559-61.
31. Robley Dunglison and Richard J. Dunglison, A Dictionary of Medical Science (Philadelphia: Henry C. Lea, 1874), 1106.
32. The best window into pre-Pasteurian thinking about hydrophobia and rabies is Otto Bollinger's essay, "Die Wuthkrankheit," in Handbuch der chronischen Infectionskrankheiten, ed. Christian Baeumler, Arnold Heller, and Otto Bollinger (Leipzig: F. C. W. Vogel, 1874), 503-73.
33. This constitutes volume 3 of Handbuch der speciellen Pathologie und Therapie, ed. Hugo von Ziemssen (1874-83).
34. For Boston physician Arthur H. Nichol's English translation see note 16 below. Contemporaneous with Nichol's 1875 translation is the valuable but less known essay by Charles P. Russel, "Hydrophobia in Dogs and Other Animals," New York Department of Health, Annual Report for 1874-75 (1876), 717-63.
35. Many of the ideas used here are drawn from Abner Cohen, Two-Dimensional Man: An Essay on the Anthropology of Power and Symbolism in Complex Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974).
36. Massachusetts, Commonwealth Secretary, Registry and Return of Births, Marriages, and Deaths for 1876 (Boston, 1877), lxxix;
37. and ibid. for 1887, cx-cxi.
38. Sanford Hanscom, "A Case of Hydrophobia," BMSJ, 1877, 96, 458-61;
39. Springfield Republican, 19 January 1877;
40. and Boston Globe, 20 January 1877.
41. Massachusetts, General Court, House Journal for 1877 (Boston: Massachusetts General Court, 1877),
42. and "Legislative Package for Chapter 167 of 1877 Acts and Resolves," Massachusetts State Archives, Boston, Massachusetts.
43. Boston Globe, 8 March 1877.
44. The nineteenth-century American Spitz no longer exists, although it may be an ancestor to some modern breeds, such as the Pomeranian. (See Walter Hutchinson, Hutchinson's Dog Encyclopaedia [London: Hutchinson & Company, 1935?], 1753-60.) Dog breeds are plastic, subject to continuous reconfiguration and redefinition over time; their names, however, remaining relatively stable. The historical bifurcation of referent and sign has led to unnecessary quarrels over the identity of specific dogs.
45. Boston Globe, 8 March 1877.
46. Otto Bollinger, "Hydrophobia," trans. Arthur H. Nichols, in Cyclopedia of the Practice of Medicine, ed. Hugo von Ziemssen (German edition) and A. H. Buck (English edition) (New York: William Wood & Co., 1875), III, 431-512;
47. Boston Globe, 8 and 9 March 1877;
48. and Boston Journal, 7, 8, and 9 March 1877.
49. Boston Globe, 8 and 9 March 1877;
50. Boston Journal, 7, 8, and 9 March 1877.
51. Boston Globe, 5 April 1877.
52. Massachusetts, General Court, Acts and Resolves for 1867 (Boston, 1867), chapter 130.
53. Massachusetts, General Court, House Journal for 1877, 150-440,
54. and Senate Journal for 1877, 98-320;
55. Boston Globe, 5, 6, 24, and 25 April 1877.
56. Massachusetts, General Court, Acts and Resolves for 1877 (Boston, 1877), chapter 167,
57. and Massachusetts State Board of Health, Annual Report for 1877 (1878), xxviii-xxx.
58. Massachusetts, Commonwealth Secretary, Registry and Return of Births, Marriages, and Deaths, 1877 (Boston, 1878), lxxix.
59. Massachusetts, General Court, House Journal for 1878, 33-461,
60. and Senate Journal for 1878, 26-366.
61. Massachusetts, General Court, Senate Journal for 1878, 68.
62. Massachusetts, General Court, House Journal for 1878, 101, 133, 143, 148, 200.
63. Springfield Republican and Boston Globe, 13 February 1878.
64. Pittsfield Sun, 6 March 1878.
65. Worcester Spy, 19 March 1878;
66. Boston Globe, 19 March 1878;
67. and Massachusetts, General Court, Senate Document 124 (18 March 1878).
68. Massachusetts, General Court, House Journal for 1878, 33-461,
69. and Senate Journal for 1878, 26-366.
70. Massachusetts, General Court, House Journal for 1879, 149-363,
71. and Senate Journal for 1879, 103-259.
72. Gerald L. Geison, "Louis Pasteur," in Dictionary of Scientific Biography, ed. Charles Coulston Gillispie (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1974), X, 400-6,
73. and Bruno Zanobio, "Adelchi Negri," ibid., 15-16.
74. Charles E. Rosenberg, Explaining Epidemics and Other Studies in the History of Medicine (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 293, 286.
75. S. Kern, A Cultural History of Causality: Science, Murder Novels, and Systems of Thought (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004), 2.
76. Richard A. Shweder et al., "The 'Big Three' of Morality (Autonomy, Community, Divinity) and the 'Big Three' Explanations of Suffering," in Morality and Health, ed. Allan M. Brandt and Paul Rozin (New York: Routledge, 1997), 119-69;
77. Owsei Temkin, "The Scientific Approach to Disease: Specific Entity and Individual Sickness," in Scientific Change: Historical Studies in the Intellectual, Social and Technical Conditions for Scientific Discovery and Technical Invention, from Antiquity to the Present, ed. A. C. Crombie (London: Heinemann, 1963), 629-58;
78. and Charles E. Rosenberg, "What is Disease? In Memory of Owsei Temkin," Bull. Hist. Med., 2003, 77, 491-505.
79. A. P. Waterston and L. Wilkinson, An Introduction to the History of Virology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 54.
80. Shweder et al., "The Big Three of Morality," 122-23. See note 37 above.
81. Boston Globe and Boston Journal, 8 March 1877.
82. "Rabies and Hydrophobia (Proceedings of the Springfield Society for Medical Improvement)," Boston Med. Surg. J., 1878, 98, 82.
83. "Dogs and Hydrophobia," Boston Med. Surg. J., 1878, 98, 216.
84. Claudius M. Jones, "A Case of Hydrophobia," BMSJ, 1878, 98, 236;
85. and Robley Dunglison, Dictionary of Medical Science (Philadelphia: Henry C. Lea, 1874), 517, 829.
86. Samuel L. Abbot and Reginald H. Fitz, "A Case of Hydrophobia of Doubtful Origin," Boston Med. Surg. J., 1881, 104, 150.
87. Charles E. Banks (1854-1931) was the exception (Boston Med. Surg. J., 1879, 100, 288-92).
88. Melancthon Storrs, "An Interesting Case of Hydrophobia and a Question of Diagnosis," Med. Record, 1877, 12, 418-21.
89. Boston Globe, 11 April and 5 June 1877.
90. Our Dumb Animals, 1877, 9, 80, 85, and 100.
91. Thomas Watson, "Hydrophobia and Rabies," Littell's Living Age, 1878, 21, 220-31;
92. and Popular Science Monthly Supplement, 1878, 2, 218-31.
93. Physician to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, as well as the author of the classic Lectures on the Principles and Practice of Physic, Watson was one of the most respected medical authorities in Great Britain and the United States.
94. (Norman Moore and Anita McConnell, "Sir Thomas Watson," Oxford Dictionary of National Biography [New York: Oxford University Press, 2004], LVII, 674-75.)
95. The Board's statement also appeared on handbills, posters, and in the Board's Annual Report for 1877 (xxvii-xxx), besides being issued on dog license papers. Although the Board hesitated to ascribe hydrophobia to a specific poison or germ, its minutes for 16 May 1877 and 11 October 1878 show germ theory on their agenda ("Massachusetts State Board of Health Minutes, 1869-1914," Massachusetts State Archives, Boston, Massachusetts).
96. R. A. Joyce, "Ritual and Symbolism, Archaeology," in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, ed. Neil J. Smelser and Paul B. Baltes (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2001), XX, 13371;
97. "Ritual," Random House Dictionary of the English Language, 2nd ed. (New York: Random House, 1987);
98. Elizabeth S. Evans, "Ritual," in Encyclopedia of Cultural Anthropology, ed. David Levinson and Melvin Ember (New York: Henry Holt, 1996), III, 1120-23;
99. Mary Douglas, Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology (London: Routledge, 1996);
100. and Cohen, Two-Dimensional Man, 1974.
101. "Legislative package for Chapter 167 of the 1877 Acts and Resolves," Massachusetts State Archives, Boston, Massachusetts.
102. Ibid.
103. Boston Journal, 7, 8, and 9 March 1877.
104. Boston Globe, 6 April 1877;
105. Pittsfield Sun, 7 March 1877.
106. Jon P. Mitchell, "Ritual," in Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology, ed. Alan Barnard and Jonathan Spencer (London: Routledge, 1996), 490-93;
107. Elizabeth S. Evans, "Ritual," in Encyclopedia of Cultural Anthropology, ed. David Levinson and Melvin Ember (New York: Henry Holt, 1996), 1120-23;
108. and John D. Kelly and Martha Kaplan, "History, Structure, and Ritual," Ann. Rev. Anthropol., 1990, 19, 119-50.
109. Blair v. Forehand, 100 Massachusetts Reports 136 (1868),
110. and Cozzens v. Nason, 109 Massachusetts Reports 275 (1872).
111. Boston Globe, 15 February 1877;
112. Massachusetts Weekly Spy, 3 March 1877;
113. Pittsfield Sun, 3 April 1877;
114. and Springfield Republican, 4 June 1877.
115. Daily and weekly papers often included stories about the family value of dogs. Our Dumb Animals (published by the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) was filled with such stories and images about dogs as intimate family members. On the place and influence of this Massachusetts reform movement, see Bernard O. Unti, "The Quality of Mercy: Organized Animal Protection in the United States, 1866-1930" (Ph.D. diss., American University, 2002, 185-226).
116. Gilded Age newspapers, especially New York ones, published extensive coverage of dog shows. New York's Westminster Kennel Club's annual show (first held in 1877) was the richest, largest, and most durable in the United States, but by no means the only one. Charles Hallock's Dog Fanciers Directory and Medical Guide (New York: Orange Judd, 1880) provides a list of dog shows in the United States in the 1870s. This slim volume also describes of how extensive dog breeding, showing, and selling had become after the Civil War.
117. Thorsten Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (New York: Macmillan, 1899), 141.
118. Bernard O. Unti, "The Quality of Mercy." See note 59 above.
119. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes nicknamed Boston the "Hub of the solar system." It became "Hub of the universe" in the twentieth century. See Thomas H. O'Connor, Boston A to Z (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 169.
120. Watt's estate was probated at $91,000 in 1925, about $910,000 in 2001 dollars. This brief account of the Boston dogman is based on research in newspapers and city, state, and federal archives in preparation for a biography.
121. Watson, "Hydrophobia and Rabies," 220. See note 49 above.
122. United States Bureau of the Census, Compendium to the 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880 censuses.
123. United States Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970 (1975), I, 54, 49;
124. and P. Uhlenberg, "A Study of Cohort Life Cycles: Cohorts of Native Born Massachusetts Women, 1830-1920," Popul. Stud., 1969, 23, 41 (the figure for 1880 is estimated).
125. Blair v. Forehand, 136-45, see note 57 above;
126. Morewood v. Wakefield, 133 Massachusetts Reports 240-2 (1882).
127. Massachusetts, General Court, Acts and Resolves for 1969, Chapter 207.
128. Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: Analysis of Concept[s] of Pollution and Taboo (London: Routledge, 2004, 1966), 77-78.
129. This historiography is indebted in part to Louis O. Mink, Historical Understanding, ed. Brian Fay, Eugene O. Glob, and Richard T. Vann (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987), especially "Narrative Form as a Cognitive Instrument," 182-203.