Epidemic

by David DeKok

  8.1880 Federal Census, Troy, N.Y., http://www.connorsgenealogy.com/troy/Troy-H6.htm, accessed January 22, 2010; Margaret Harvey, warden of Sage College, to Jacob Gould Schurman, March 3, 1903, CUTP; Ithaca’s claim to be the birthplace of the ice cream sundae is explained at http://www.visitithaca.com/Media-Services/Birthplace-of-the-Sundae.html, accessed on January 22, 2010.

  9.“S. B. Newberry, Pioneer in Cement Industry, Passed Away Tuesday,” Sandusky Register, Sandusky, Ohio, November 29, 1922; “She Wants a Divorce and the Custody of Her Children,” Sandusky Daily Star, Sandusky, Ohio, June 25, 1901; “By His Own Hand: Son of Ambassador White Ends His Suffering,” Sandusky Daily Star, July 9, 1901; “Mrs. Clara White Newberry Gets an Absolute Divorce,” Sandusky Daily Star, August 15, 1901; “Ambassador White to Continue Work,” Ithaca Daily News, October 7, 1901.

  10.A good summary of the long Vonnegut family history in Indianapolis can be found in History and Genealogy of Lake Maxinkuckee-Vonnegut Family, which explores the lives of the families that owned cottages around the Indiana lake. http://genwiz.genealogenie.net/lake_maxinkuckee/vonnegut/vonnegut.htm, accessed January 23, 2010. Anton Vonnegut’s election as president of the Class of 1905 is mentioned in “Junior Election,” Cornell Daily Sun, October 13, 1903.

  11.Bishop, A History of Cornell, 342; “Croker Boys Quit Cornell,” New York Times, October 13, 1901; “Silver Cups for Dogs,” New York Times, February 15, 1903; “Herbert Croker Dies on a Train in Kansas,” New York Times, May 13, 1905; “Richard Croker Jr. Will Seek Estate,” New York Times, May 8, 1922.

  12.Bishop, A History of Cornell, 402; Van Loon, Our Cornell, 3.

  13.Bishop, A History of Cornell, 342–43, 403.

  14.Berry, Behind the Ivy, 50; Bishop, A History of Cornell, 341.

  15.S. Harrison, et al, a.k.a. “Merchants of Ithaca,” to President Jacob Gould Schurman of Cornell, May 9, 1902; Major William P. Van Ness to Schurman, May 10, 1902. Both letters in EC.

  16.Burt G. Wilder to Emmons L. Williams, May 3, 1902, EC.

  17.“Closing of Moving Pictures Tonight,” Ithaca Daily News, December 21, 1901; Berry, Behind the Ivy, 62; Emily Dunning Barringer, Bowery to Bellevue: The Story of New York’s First Woman Ambulance Surgeon (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1950), 56. Barringer describes her undergraduate years at Cornell in Ithaca before transferring to the Cornell School of Medicine’s main campus in New York City.

  18.John H. Selkreg, ed., Landmarks of Tompkins County, New York, Including a History of Cornell University by Professor Waterman Thomas Hewett (Syracuse, N.Y.: D. Mason & Co., 1894), 447; Bishop, A History of Cornell, 347; Barringer, Bowery to Bellevue, 51–52, 58.

  19.Eleventh Annual Report of President Schurman, 1902–1903 (Ithaca, N.Y.: published by Cornell University, 1903), xxxix; George P. Bristol to Schurman, October 12, 1902, EC.

  20.“President Takes Hand in Matter: Tells the Sophomores that Underclass Strife Must End,” Ithaca Daily News, February 25, 1902.

  21.“Freshmen Finally Have Their Feast: President Schurman Takes a Hand and Stops the Rioting,” Ithaca Daily News, March 1, 1902.

  22.“Bryan Holds Large Crowd by Magnificent Oratory,” Ithaca Daily News, March 7, 1902; “Like Ithaca: W. J. Bryan Thinks City Pretty One,” Ithaca Daily News, March 7, 1902; “Journal Methods,” Ithaca Daily News, March 8, 1902.

  23.Bishop, A History of Cornell, 346, 414.

  24.“Cornell Oarsmen Sweep the River: Ithaca Crews Won All Three Races at Poughkeepsie,” New York Times, June 21, 1902.

  25.“Celebrating at Ithaca,” New York Times, June 22, 1902.

  26.“An Ideal City,” Ithaca Daily News, March 1, 1902.

  Chapter 7: The Valley of Death

  1.“Agreement Between Ithaca Water Works and the City of Ithaca,” August 25, 1902, MVC.

  2.“Cornell May Get New Water Supply,” Ithaca Daily News, October 11, 1902.

  3.“Dam Contract Let: New York Firm Gets the Job for $34,225,” Ithaca Daily Journal, September 11, 1902.

  4.“Italians to Work on Hydraulic Dam: Local Laborers Not Willing to Accept Wages Offered,” Ithaca Daily News, September 26, 1902.

  5.“Yes or No? Shall Ithaca Acquire Water Works? What Many Taxpayers Say About It,” February 22, 1902, MVC.

  6.Jerre Mangione and Ben Morreale, La Storia: Five Centuries of the Italian American Experience (New York: Harper Perennial, Aaron Asher Books, 1993), xiii, 89, 131, 133, 139.

  7.Articles about the Croton Dam strike can be found in newspapers all over the country in April 1900. Some the author consulted were: “Croton Dam Strike Extends: Entire Force of 700 Men Idle—The Superintendent Threatened,” New York Times, April 4, 1900; “Troops Ordered to Big Cornell Dam,” New York Times, April 16, 1900; “Carry Guns: Six Hundred Militiamen on the Way from New York City to Croton Dam,” Fort Wayne (Ind.) News, April 16, 1900; “They May Use Dynamite,” Davenport (Iowa) Daily Republican, April 17, 1900; “Victim Died: Young Sergeant Douglas Assassinated by Dagos,” The Evening Democrat, Warren, Pennsylvania, April 17, 1900; “The Italian Strikers Are Making Trouble for the Cornell Dam Contractors,” The News, Frederick, Md., April 19, 1900; “The Croton Dam Strike,” letter to New York Times, April 24, 1900.

  8.Frank Harvey Eno, “The Uses of Hydraulic Cement,” Geological Survey of Ohio, Fourth Series, Bulletin No. 2, September 1904.

  9.“Will Investigate Company’s Plans: People Beginning to Worry over Building Enormous Dam,” Ithaca Daily News, September 29, 1902; “Nervous Over Dam,” Ithaca Daily Journal, October 2, 1902.

  10.“Business Men Ask Aldermen to Act,” Ithaca Daily News, October 14, 1902; “The People’s Forum: The Reservoir Dam,” Ithaca Daily News, October 15, 1902.

  11.Ibid.; “How Volcanoes Work: Mt. Pelee Eruption (1902),” http://www.geology.sdsu.edu/how_volcanoes_work/Pelee.html, accessed March 1, 2010.

  12.“Surveyors Begin on New Reservoir,” Ithaca Daily News, March 14, 1902; “Have Begun Work on Big Reservoir,” Ithaca Daily News, April 19, 1902.

  13.“Working on Dam Days and Nights: Construction of Reservoir Will Be Hurried Very Fast,” Ithaca Daily News, October 7, 1902.

  14.“Will Start Work on a Second Dam: Tucker and Vinton Prepare to Build a Secondary Wall,” Ithaca Daily News, October 21, 1902.

  15.“Rushing the Work on the Great Dam,” Ithaca Daily News, November 3, 1902; “Interest in the Dam,” Ithaca Daily Journal, November 10, 1902.

  16.Arthur Weston, The Making of American Physical Education (New York: Appleton-Century-Croft, 1962), 33.

  17.Holmes Hollister to Veranus A. Moore, February 16, 1903, CUTP. Hitchcock’s reaction reminds the author of the members of Centralia Borough Council in Pennsylvania in the 1960s. Confronted with the fact of an underground coal-mine fire moving toward their town, the Borough Council members said it was not their responsibility until the fire actually crossed the line from Conyngham Township into Centralia. By that time, it was too late to save Centralia. Today, nearly all of the town is gone. (See, David DeKok, Fire Underground: The Ongoing Tragedy of the Centralia Mine Fire [Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot Press, 2009].)

  18.Veranus A. Moore and Emile M. Chamot to Jacob Gould Schurman, February 19, 1903, CUTP; statements of Elias J. Durand, Herbert H. Whetzel, and James M. VanHook, collected by Moore and Chamot, CUTP; water case transcript, Williams testimony, November 22, 1905, Vol. 6, 205–6, Collection #3088, MVC.

  19.“Advertisements and Instructions to Bidders,” p. 9, August 12, 1902, MVC. The specifications for the dam are included in this document, which in turn is incorporated into the contract between Ithaca Water Works and Tucker & Vinton.

  20.“Cornell University’s Needs,” New York Times, October 26, 1902.

  21.“Magnificent Plan for the Campus Adopted by Trustees of Cornell,” Ithaca Daily News, October 27, 1902; Eve M. Kahn, “Pragmatic Vis
ionaries,” Traditional Building, February 2007.

  22.Cornell University today lists Raymond Starbuck as the head football coach for 1902, but the Cornell Alumni News of October 15, 1902, identifies William J. Warner, team captain, as holding that position. Starbuck was one of the recent Cornell graduates who assisted Warner.

  23.Lars Anderson, Carlisle vs. Army: Jim Thorpe, Dwight Eisenhower, Pop Warner, and the Forgotten History of Football’s Greatest Battle (New York: Random House, 2008), 3, 19–21, 38; Waterman Thomas Hewett, Cornell University: A History, Volume 3 (New York: The University Publishing Society, 1905), 308–10.

  24.J. A. Wood to Jacob Gould Schurman, president of Cornell University, April 16, 1903. Wood cites passages from his son’s diary in the letter. CUTP.

  25.Andrew Newberry to Clara White Newberry, October 26, 1902, ADW.

  26.“Work Progresses on Treman Houses,” Ithaca Daily News, November 2, 1901.

  27.Minutes of the Executive Committee, Cornell University Board of Trustees, November 18, 1902, EC.

  28.Dr. Edwin O. Jordan, “The Typhoid Epidemic at Ithaca,” March 14, 21, 28, and April 4, 1903, Journal of the American Medical Association, 913; “Snowfall Heavy for This Season,” Ithaca Daily News, December 5, 1902; Andrew Newberry to Andrew Dickson White, December 7, 1902, ADW.

  Chapter 8: Typhoid, and How the Epidemic Began

  1.“Koch’s Name for Institute,” New York Times, April 28, 1912.

  2.Hermann M. Biggs, M.D., “Robert Koch and His Work,” Review of Reviews, September 1901, Volume 24, 324–27.

  3.Ibid., 325.

  4.“Die Bekämpfung des Typhus,” from Gesammelte Werke von Robert Koch, Zweiter Band, Erster Teil (Leipzig: Verlag von Georg Thieme, 1912), 296–305, translated by the author. The German word for typhoid, confusingly enough for English speakers, is typhus, while the German word for the very different disease English speakers call typhus is Flecktyphus. The author has long wondered whether the death of Anne Frank, long attributed to typhus, was actually due to typhoid and misunderstood by the English troops who liberated the Bergen-Belsen camp in 1945.

  5.Sedgwick, Typhoid Fever, 298–99, 300–303; Frederick P. Gay, Typhoid Fever Considered As a Problem of Scientific Medicine (New York: The MacMillan Co., 1918), 53; Sedgwick, 303–4; Gay, 53.

  6.Edwin O. Jordan, “The Typhoid Epidemic at Ithaca—Preview,” Journal of the American Medical Association, March 14, 1903, 267–68. The “per 100,000” statistic does not mean a city necessarily had that many people. Rather, it is a convenient way to compare apples-to-apples when judging the impact of typhoid or any disease on one city versus another.

  7.“Osler Finds Nerves Chief War Problem: Typhoid Virtually Conquered through Lessons Learned in Other Great Conflicts,” New York Times, July 9, 1916.

  8.In a letter of May 26, 1902, to the minister of spiritual, educational, and medical affairs, Koch wrote that his original vision for cost-sharing by municipalities and regions had proven unworkable because of the amount of work that needed to be done to fight typhoid. He asked for “substantially higher funding” and an immediate advance of fifty thousand marks. This letter is also included in Koch’s Gesammelte Werke.

  9.Koch, Gesammelte Werke, 296.

  10.Ibid., 299.

  11.They were the villages of Waldweiler, Schillings, Heddert, and Mandern.

  12.“Typhoid or Enteric Fever,” The Encyclopedia Britannica Dictionary of Arts, Sciences and General Literature, with American Revisions and Additions (Chicago: The Werner Company, 1894), 678.

  13.Koch, Gesammelte Werke, 920.

  14.Gay, Typhoid Fever Considered as a Problem of Scientific Medicine, 6–7, 40.

  15.For example, see Gay, 27, 45, 53. The Indian research is published in “Symposium: Typhoid Fever,” Journal of the Indian Academy of Clinical Medicine, Vol. 2, Nos. 1 & 2, January-June 2001, 11–12. One tends to find typhoid research today in the countries where the disease is still a problem.

  16.David D. Stewart, M.D., Treatment of Typhoid Fever (Detroit: George S. Davis, 1893), 4–5; William P. Mason, Water Supply (Considered Principally from a Sanitary Standpoint) (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1901), 70; Edwin O. Jordan, M.D., A Textbook of General Bacteriology (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Company, First Edition, 1908) 274–75.

  17.Water case transcript, testimony of Gardner S. Williams, November 22, 1905, Vol. 6, 225–26, MVC.

  18.Caterina Rizzo, et al., “Typhoid Fever in Italy, 2000–2006,” Journal of Infection in Developing Countries, Vol. 2, No. 6, December 2008, 466–68.

  19.John Murray, A Handbook for Travelers in Southern Italy (London: John Murray, 1883), 94; J. Burney Yeo, M.D., “On Change of Air,” The Nineteenth Century: A Monthly Review, Vol. 26, July-December 1889 (London: Kegan, Paul, Thench & Co.), 206.

  20.George A. Soper, Report on an Epidemic of Typhoid Fever at Ithaca, N.Y., 1903 (submitted to Dr. Daniel Lewis, commissioner, Department of Health, State of New York, Albany, N.Y., June 30, 1904), 440; “Public Health: City’s Death Rate for 1901 Has Been Low,” Ithaca Daily Journal, December 21, 1901.

  21.“Testimony of Olin Landreth,” Report of the Joint Committee of the Legislature to Investigate What Disposition Should Be Made as to the Sites at Yorktown, Westchester County. Transmitted to the Legislature March 12, 1918 (Albany: J. B. Lyon Company, Printer), 288–89.

  22.Rev. William E. Griffis, Journal, May 18, 1901, Ithaca, to August 1, 1904 [accession 2074], William Elliot Griffis Collection, Alexander Library, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J.

  Chapter 9: Denial

  1.“Students Return to Take Up Work,” Ithaca Daily News, January 2, 1903.

  2.“Salmonella Infections,” Merck Manual Home Edition, Second Edition, 2004, http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec17/ch190r.html, accessed May 2, 2010; Ronald L. Huckstep, Typhoid Fever and Other Salmonella Infections (Edinburgh, Scotland: E&S Livingstone Ltd., 1962), 35; Whipple, Typhoid Fever, 12.

  3.Edwin O. Jordan, M.D., “The Typhoid Epidemic at Ithaca, Part 2,” Journal of the American Medical Association, March 28, 1903, 848–49.

  4.Landreth, 291; Sampurna Roy, M.D., “Typhoid Fever,” Histopathology-India.net, 2009, http://www.histopathology-India.net/TyFev.htm, accessed May 3, 2010; Edwin O. Jordan, M.D., “The Typhoid Epidemic at Ithaca, Part III,” Journal of the American Medical Association, April 4, 1903, 914.

  5.George A. Soper, “The Epidemic of Typhoid Fever at Ithaca, N.Y.,” presented September 15, 1904, to the New England Water Works Association, published in the Journal of the New England Water Works Association, Volume XVIII, No. 4, December 1904, 432, 438; Edwin O. Jordan, “The Typhoid Epidemic at Ithaca, Preview,” JAMA, March 14, 1903, 715; Jordan, “Ithaca, Part III,” JAMA, April 4, 1903, 915.

  6.Whipple, Typhoid Fever, 103; Gay, Typhoid Fever Considered as a Problem of Scientific Medicine, 58–59; Huckstep, Typhoid Fever and Other Salmonella Infections, 44, 49; Whipple, 103.

  7.“Rueteneyer (L.) on Ehrlich’s Diazo Test in Typhoid Fever,” The Medical Analectic and Epitome: A Monthly Retrospective of Progress in All Divisions of Medico-Chirurgical Practice (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1890, Vol. VII), 534.

  8.Hobart Amory Hare, M.D., The Medical Complications, Accidents, and Sequelae of Typhoid or Enteric Fever (Philadelphia: Lea Brothers & Co., 1899), 37. Dr. Julius Dreschfield’s description of typhoid symptoms from A System of Medicine, edited by Clifford Allbutt, M.D., is quoted verbatim in Hare’s book.

  9.The Standard Medical Directory of North America (Chicago: G. P. Engehard & Co., 1902), 4.

  10.Hewett, Cornell University: A History, Volume 2, 276.

  11.Hill, The Purification of Public Water Supplies, 56–57.

  12.Frederick E. Turneaure and Harry L. Russell, Public Water Supplies: Requirements, Resources, and the Construction of Works (New York: John Wiley & So
ns, 1901), 124; Hill, The Purification of Public Water Supplies, 57.

  13.Heinrich Curschman, M.D., Typhoid Fever and Typhus Fever (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Co., 1902), 425–26.

  14.Lateef A. Olopoenia and Aprileona L. King, “Widal Agglutination Test—100 Years Later: Still Plagued by Controversy,” Post-Graduate Medical Journal 2000, 76: 80–84; Luzerne Coville, M.D., “Ithaca Epidemic of 1903,” Transactions of the Medical Society of the State of New York (1905), 209.

  15.Huckstep, Typhoid Fever and Other Salmonella Infections, 70; Rueteneyer, 534.

  16.“Grippe Prevails in This City,” Ithaca Daily Journal, January 21, 1903; “Little Typhoid Found in Ithaca,” Ithaca Daily Journal, January 22, 1903.

  17.“Tie for Mayor in Ithaca: Democratic and Republican Candidates Each Receive 1,682 Votes,” New York Times, November 14, 1902; Tribune Almanac and Political Register 1903 (New York: Tribune Association), 120; “Ithaca Mayoralty Result: Close Inspection of Voting Machine Shows Democrat Received Majority,” New York Times, November 25, 1902; “Legal Notes: Question as to the Number of Votes Indicated By a Voting Machine,” New York Times, August 20, 1903; “Republican Mayor of Ithaca Resigns,” Elmira Advertiser, January 31, 1903; “Mr. Miller Wins Mayoralty of Ithaca,” New York Times, July 9, 1903.

  18.“Final Exams On at Cornell,” Ithaca Daily Journal, January 23, 1903; “University Promptly Removes All Danger,” Ithaca Daily News, January 23, 1903.

  19.Jordan, “Ithaca, Part III,” JAMA, April 4, 1903, 915; Bishop, A History of Cornell, 333; Hewett, Cornell University: A History, Volume 1, 338. A description of the Cornell Infirmary is contained in The Register of Cornell University for 1902–03.

  20.Dean and William H. Sage to the Executive Committee of Cornell University, November 30, 1897, EC.

  21.“In Loving Remembrance: Tribute to Oliver G. Shumard,” Bethany Democrat, Bethany, Mo., February 18, 1903; “Mark Twain Honored: Large Crowds at Railroad Stations Bid Him Godspeed,” Coshocton Daily Age, Coshocton, Ohio, July 8, 1902. This was a wire story carried by a number of newspapers around the country; “Class of 1902,” The Missouri Alumnus, September 1923.