Epidemic: a collision of power, privilege, and public health
Description
The dramatic account of a turn-of-the-twentieth-century struggle against a frightening disease?with lessons for today
The Epidemic tells the story of how a vain and reckless businessman became responsible for a typhoid epidemic in 1903 that devastated Cornell University and the surrounding town of Ithaca, New York. Eighty-two people died, including twenty-nine Cornell students. Protected by influential friends, William T. Morris faced no retribution for this outrage. His legacy was a corporation?first known as Associated Gas & Electric Co. and later as General Public Utilities Corp.?that bedeviled America for a century. The Three Mile Island nuclear accident in 1979 was its most notorious historical event, but hardly its only offense against the public interest.
The Ithaca epidemic came at a time when engineers knew how to prevent typhoid outbreaks but physicians could not yet cure the disease. Both professions were helpless when it came to stopping a corporate executive who placed profit over the public health. Government was a concerned but helpless bystander.
For modern-day readers acutely aware of the risk of a devastating global pandemic and of the dangers of unrestrained corporate power, The Epidemic provides a riveting look back at a heretofore little-known, frightening episode in America’s past that seems all too familiar. Written in the tradition of The Devil in the White City, it is an utterly compelling, thoroughly researched work of narrative history with an edge.
Praise for the author’s previous book, Fire Underground
?Enough bureaucratic villains to fill a Dickens novel.” ?New York Times Book Review
?DeKok has not only reported and written a compelling first-hand account of how an underground fire destroyed Centralia, but he even gives us an anatomy of how the disaster happened and analyzes its implications for one community, and in a sense for all of us. A thoughtful and thoroughly engrossing read!” ?Lisa Scottoline, author of Dirty Blonde, a fictional story about Centralia
More Details
Subjects
Cornell University -- History -- 20th century
Corruption -- New York (State) -- Ithaca -- History -- 20th century
Epidemics -- New York (State) -- Ithaca -- History -- 20th century
Epidemics -- Social aspects -- New York (State) -- Ithaca -- History -- 20th century
Ithaca (N.Y.) -- History -- 20th century
Morris, William T. -- (William Torrey), -- 1853-1928 -- Influence
Typhoid fever -- New York (State) -- Ithaca -- History -- 20th century
Water-supply -- Health aspects -- New York (State) -- Ithaca -- History -- 20th century
Also in this Series
Published Reviews
Kirkus Book Review
Account of one of the worst typhoid outbreaks in American history.Dekok (Fire Underground: The Ongoing Tragedy of the Centralia Mine Fire, 2009) re-creates an epidemic that ravaged Ithaca, N.Y., for four months in 1903, killing 82 people, including 29 Cornell University students. Some 1,300 others contracted typhoid but survived. In a generally engaging but overly detailed narrative, the author sets the scene by describing life in the pleasantly prosperous town of 13,000, where most students lived off-campus and drank city water in their boardinghouses. In an era before government regulation, businessman William T. Morris, owner of the Ithaca Water Works, decided not to go to the expense of building a filtration plant, which allowed water provided by his company to become contaminated. Morris "simply didn't care," writes Dekok. Investigators discovered that the typhoid bacilli entered the water supply from the excrement of immigrant Italian workers at a reservoir construction site. One or more was apparently a carrier of typhoid, for which there was no cure until 1949. Before long, one in 10 Ithaca residents were ill, the city's medical facilities were overrun and about 1,000 Cornell students fled for home. Two camps of opinion formed: One was furious that Morris had not taken steps to keep his water pure; the other (including Morris and the local establishment newspaper) insisted the epidemic was not so bad and the water company had no responsibility. In fact, courts then rarely held water companies liable for deaths caused by their water. With victims laid up in hospitals and at home, noted sanitation engineer George A. Soper ended the health crisis through aggressive disinfection of the city's boardinghouses and outhouses. Health insurance was a rarity. Cornell trustee Andrew Carnegie stepped up to cover the devastating medical costs of victims, living and dead. Morris's corporation evolved over ensuing decades into General Public Utilities Corp., which owned the Three Mile Island nuclear plant.This tale of "criminal stupidity" would have had far more impact as a long-form magazine article.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.