Progress update: Still very much under construction, but taking shape.

Outline

I'm looking at quarantine laws between roughly 1880 and 1900, to see how the States and federal government worked together. This era spans several epidemics (yellow fever and cholera), and the creation of a federal body (the National Board of Health). I'm curious why it failed.

First, this source is wrong. The Board was initially enacted with a sunset clause to expire in 1883, and was revived by repeal of this sunset clause in early 1883 due to its excellent performance.

My time frame ends with the creation of the first successful federal quarantine laws.

Background: Disease and Quarantine in the Late 19th Century

The 19th Century overall brought with it groundbreaking advances in medical science. Pasteur's initially radical germ theory was beginning to be accepted in the medical and public health literature by the timeframe in this project, although not universally (here is a review of its impact in Massachusetts in the early 1870s). The literature around this time reflects great hope for rapid scientific advancement in many areas including disease origins and nature. There were hot debates both about the validity of new discoveries, and how these could best be translated into frameworks for prevention and remedy. The mood was generally optimistic: 'it is believed that the country was never in better condition to resist the progress of epidemics than it is at the present time' declared the National Board of Health's Annual report for 1885. A broad movement for public health had begun in Great Britain around the 1850s, and was slowly taking off in America, with interest turning to sewers and school hygiene. Later within in my chosen time period, the introduction of publicly provided childhood vaccinations began.

Quarantine measures, a very old disease prevention technology, were being updated to reflect new understandings of the mechanics of infection. Good examples of this were in relation to cholera (which had recently been discovered to be transmitted from feces-contaminated water). See eg The Sanitarium, 1894, pp 3-4

Until the work done by Walter Reed to confirm the transmission of yellow fever by mosquitoes in 1900, the disease was assumed to be transferred either from direct contact with infected people, or to be airborne. This pamphlet in 1879 favors the latter theory, recommending quarantine measures for ships based on the new science of thermodynamics.Yellow Fever, A Nautical Disease, Its Origin and Prevention (1879)

Many of the professional sources indicate a welcoming attitude to State regulation. An example is Henry I. Bowdich, Public Hygiene in America: Being the Centennial Discourse Delivered Before the International Medical Congress, Philadelphia, September 1876 p 2. His address opined: Only the State with its great resources, with a large corps of able and earnest agents occupied in the observation of the rise and progress of disease, and in the analysis of such observations for many generations, can hope to unravel even a few of the many mysterious causes of the diseases of any nation, especially of one covering so large a proportion of the earth’s surface as the United States. Mr Bowdich went on to become one of the original members of the National Board of Health in 1879.

This attitude extended into the 1880s. Here is an address from the Army Surgeon John S Billings, President of the Sanitarian Until quite recently, very little has been done in this country towards increasing our knowledge of the causes of diseases by observation and experimentation towards that end … We have not had the statistical data, such as the registration system of Great Britain provides, nor the laboratories for experimentation in comparative physiology and pathology such as are to be found in Germany, nor the trained statisticians and scientific observers who could make proper use of these things if we had them. All these, however, will come; some of them are now here. For the most part they can only be provided by governments, their cost and the length of time required to produce really valuable results, placing them beyond the reach of individual effort.

The rise and fall of the National Board of Health

Timeline with linked sources

1878	Mississippi Valley yellow fever epidemic, approximately 20,000 dead.
1879	Original statute establishing the National Board of Health and the first annual report for the National Board of Health, for 1879
1880	Annual report for 1880; and report on Board expenditures 1880-1881
1881	Annual report and bulletin of the National Board of Health for the year ending 1881; and Expenditures report 1881-2
1882	Annual report for 1882; Congressional report on establishing a quarantine station in Texas Message from the President 1882 ; Report for 1882 Bill; State pushback on different Bill ; and Board comments on immigrant inspections 1882
1883	Repeal of sunset clause 1883; Annual report for 1883 ; and Expenditures report 1883-4
1884	Letter concerning the functions of the National Board of Health; Appropriation 1884; Annual report for 1884; the last meeting of the Board was in November 1884.Cholera epidemic in Europe was widely feared to spread to America
1885	Annual report from the National Board of Health for 1885; Administration of President Cleveland begins
1886	Letter dated 1886 concerning expenses of the National Board of Health Report of the Commerce Committee 1886
1887	Removal of Ship Island Quarantine Station; and Creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission

1892	The Supreme Court rules that the chief clerk of the Board cannot collect backpay
1893	Act repealing the National Board of Health (link to scanned copy below)

1898	Creation of Department of Public Health

The public, we may almost now say national health, is too vast and important a concern to be entrusted to inefficient boards of health and spasmodic Congressional legislation (Report to Congress in the wake of the 1878 yellow fever epidemic from the Commission as to the Causes and Prevention of Yellow Fever. Link here.)

The report notes that 32 of the States had, in 1885, boards of health or 'other forms of sanitary organization charged with the duty of devising and enforcing such measures as may serve to promote the well-being of the people'

Key points: In the mid 1880s there was a virulent cholera epidemic in Europe, and American authorities were anxious to resist its introduction as much as possible. It spread to New York (city and quarantine station) in 1892. The Surgeon General reports that this anxiety prompted the passage of the Federal quarantine Act in 1893 link, at p 265. A plain English translation of the Bill is also in the report, linked here. The Surgeon-General does not comment on section 9 of the Act, repealing the National Board of Health.

Clashes over funding were ongoing. In 1881, the annual report reveals that the Board received only 1/3 of the funds it wanted to build new quarantine stations in Virginia, Georgia and Texas (link).

Both Links in table below. 1) "An act to prevent the introduction of infectious or contagious diseases into the United States, and to establish a national board of health" 45th Congress, Session III, 1879 20 Stat 484. Although I scanned this in, google books has a publication called the Sanitarian from 1894 that is clearer, and contains the bill text at page 230.

2) "An act granting additional quarantine powers and imposing additional duties upon the Marine Hospital Service" 27 Stat 449 Ch 114, 52nd Congress, approved February 15 1893. Section 9 of this Act repeals the 1879 act above.

-- EmilyByrne - 13 Nov 2009

Court Response

_Dunwoody v United States_ 138 U.S. 578 (1892) held that Mr Dunwoody, the chief clerk and sometime secretary of the National Board of Health, could not recover money from the federal government in the absence of specific grants payable to the Board.

_Louisiana v Texas_ 176 US 1 (1900) held that there was no interstate federal jurisdiction merely because the quarantine actions of one state (Texas) hurt those of another (Louisiana). The facts of the case concerned the Texan embargo on interstate trade during the yellow fever outbreak in 1899. The Supreme Court point-blank refused to get involved.

The enaction of federal quarantine laws

Conclusions

Odds and (dead) ends

Assistant Surgeon General John Macauley Eager. (Again, after looking at the hardcopy, it's on Google books so I've attached that link.) The book as a whole is very interesting, but sadly not quite what I was looking for (I was hoping for some kind of primary source hook). In fact, the author states on page 26 'Without touching on the history of quarantine in America, which is another and interesting story, it is profitable to take another view of the further history of quarantine in Europe.'

The Australian constitution was drafted in the era under examination in this project (coming into effect in 1901).While the Australian drafters copied whole slabs of the US Constitution (sometimes without thinking it through very carefully) one of the specific heads of power they gave to the Australian federal government that is not present in the US Constitution was the power to regulate quarantine (s 51(ix)). link to pdf. I had speculated that there might have been some connection. However, Quick and Garran, which is a commentary on the Australian Constitution written in 1901 containing background of the convention debates section by section, does not give more emphasis to the U.S. examples than those in Candada or Great Britain. links. (A link with the specific page references appears in the table below)

Help Request: does anyone know a good way to find early acts of Congress? I have them in hardcopy, and am trying to find them in a public source electronic form. Answer for the use of others: Sometimes the juggernaut of google books delivers here, too. Many old annual reports of various agencies, boards and societies include the text of recent bills.

-- EmilyByrne - 4 Jan 2010

Hi Emily! I tried to add a comment in the 'comment' box but it didn't show up anywhere on the page afterwards, so I've resorted to just editing your page directly - I hope that's okay. Anyway, I'm not sure whether this is the type of thing you're looking for with regard to early acts of Congress, but it might be useful as a primary source database in any case:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/

Good luck!

Angela Chen

Hey Emily, here's a link to an article (sorry not a primary source) on race, immigration, disease and law at turn-of-century. at least points to some potentially useful federal case law and hopefully other useful directions -- Andrew http://www.jstor.org/stable/828412?seq=1

-- AndrewKerr - 05 Dec 2009

Thanks Angela! That's very close to what I was looking for, only just for a slightly later date range to cover the 1890s. But I think your link will be very helpful regardless. And thanks Andrew! I hadn't even begun to think about the role race and immigration concerns would play into this, except at a really general level. And the article is really interesting. Emily

-- EmilyByrne - 14 Dec 2009

• Quick_and_Garran.pdf: Quick, John & Garran, Robert (1901) The Annotated Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth Sydney: Angus & Robertson.

• The_early_history_of_quarantine.pdf: The_early_history_of_quarantine.pdf Eager, John M (1903) The Early History of Quarantine Washington: Government Printer.

• National_Board_of_Health_letter_expenses_1886.pdf: Letter dated 1886 concerning expenses of the National Board of Health

• Letter_1884.pdf: Letter concerning the functions of the National Board of Health 1884

• Annual_Report_1879_-Appendicies_not_included.pdf: The first annual report for the National Board of Health

• Report_on_expenditures_1880_-_1881.pdf: Report on expenditures 1880-1881

• Report_on_expenditures_1880_-_1881.pdf: Annual report for 1880

• Report_on_establising_a_Texas_Quarantine_Station_1882.pdf: Congressional report on establishing a quarantine station in Texas

• Annual_Report_1882_appendices_not_included.pdf: Annual report for 1882

• Expenditures_1881-2.pdf: Expenditures report 1881-2

• Message_from_the_President_1882.pdf: Message from the President 1882

• Report_for_1882_Bill.pdf: Report for 1882 Bill

• Pushback_on_Bill.pdf: Pushback on Bill

• Immigrant_Inspections_1882.pdf: Immigrant Inspections 1882

• Repeal_of_sunset_clause_extension_of_Board_1882.pdf: Repeal of sunset clause 1883

• Annual_Report_1883_appendices_not_included.pdf: Annual report for 1883

• Expenditures_1883-4.pdf: Expenditures report 1883-4

• Appropriation_1884.pdf: Appropriation 1884

• Annual_Report_1884.pdf: Annual report for 1884

• Report_of_the_Commerce_Committee_1886.pdf: Report of the Commerce Committee 1886

• Letter_fiscal_deficit_1887.pdf: Letter fiscal deficit 1887

• Removal_of_Ship_Is_Quarantine_Station_1887.pdf: Removal of Ship Island Quarantine Station 1887

• Creation_of_Department_of_Public_Health_1898.pdf: Creation of Department of Public Health

• Fifty_second_congress_Chap_114_1893_An_Act_granting_additional_quarantine_powers.pdf: Principal 1893 Act

• Forty_fifth_congress_Ch_202_1879_Establishing_National_Board_of_Health.pdf: The principal 1879 Act