Poliomyelitis Records 1916

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Poliomyelitis Records 1916

http://www.amphilsoc.org/mole/view?docId=ead/Mss.Ms.Coll.33-ead.xml

The Board of Health in New York City joined with scientists from the Rockefeller Institute to study the poliomyelitis epidemic that struck the city during the summer of 1916. Using a small army of nurses and public health professionals, they canvassed the city for all reported cases of the disease, assessed conditions that might contribute to its spread, and enforced quarantine. The records collected by the Department of Health in New York City during the poliomyelitis epidemic of 1916 were gathered by nurses who canvassed every neighborhood in the city to determine which children were stricken, the conditions that may have contributed to the disease, and whether a quarantine was in force.

29.5 Linear feet

American Philosophical Society

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SNAC Resource ID: 6632293

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New York (City). Board of health.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6kb6b56 (corporateBody)

A devastating disease, poliomyelitis attacks the motor nerve cells in the spinal cord, often leading to permanent paralysis or, in the most severe cases, death. The pathogen causing polio was identified by Karl Landsteiner in 1908 as a filterable virus, but the carrier of the virus and mode of transmission remained topics for heated debate for many years. Although it was known to strike the wealthy as well as the poor, in the popular imagination, the disease was indelibly associated...

Flexner, Simon, 1863-1946

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Simon Flexner was a physician, administrator, professor of pathology at the University of Pennsylvania, director of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (1901-1935). From the description of Papers, 1891-1946. (American Philosophical Society Library). WorldCat record id: 122535412 Rufus Ivory Cole served as the the director and physician-in-charge (1909-1937) of the Hospital of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, the first hospital in the United States d...

Rockefeller Institute.

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In 1892, the physician and medical administrator Simon Flexner began research on cerebrospinal meningitis, a meningococcal disease with an untreated mortality rate between 70 and 90%. Experimenting on monkeys, Flexner developed a promising serum treatment for the disease by 1903, which he used extensively during the epidemic outbreaks of meningitis in New York City in 1904-1905 and 1907. For several years, Flexner kept his serum under his close supervision, with the result that the Rockefeller I...