Last Updated

19 Nov 2002

Source: Newsday, November 19, 2002.

OPINION COLUMNISTS

Saving Public From The Pox

By Jimmy Breslin

The scrapbook kept by the Department of Health during the 1947 smallpox fright in New York gives fields of thought to all those who either warn or worry about an attack on someplace like the Times Square subway. The title of the area, "The Crossroads of the World," must cause insane jealousy in terrorists living in a hut in Asia.

At one time, smallpox threatened to wipe out the world. There has not been a full epidemic in about 200 years. But the reputation is so ferocious that mention of it stills a room today and is mentioned first in any discussion of terrorist attacks.

In the Health Department scrapbook from 1947, there are clippings from many papers not even here anymore, The New York Sun, PM, the World Telegram, the Herald Tribune, the Mirrror, the Bronx Home News. At that time there wasn't enough television to report.

The book opens with a clipping from the World Telegram of April 4, 1947.

"Three cases of smallpox, one of them fatal, have been reported in New York City, the first here since 1939," Dr. Israel Weinstein, Commissioner of Health, revealed today.

"Dr. Weinstein added, however:

"'The danger of a widespread epidemic is slight because our population is for the most part protected ... '

"He said anyone who has not been vaccinated since early childhood 'should get this protection at once.'

"An unidentified man who had been in Mexico for 28 years and returned to this city died in Willard Parker Hospital March 11.

"An autopsy showed he had smallpox. It was then discovered that a child, 22 months, and a man, 25, had both contracted the disease. Both are in the hospital.

"The child, Dr. Weinstein said, was a patient on the same floor as the disease carrier from Mexico. The man was on a different floor in the same hospital.

"The 220 patients and more than 400 on the hospital staff plus visitors and anyone else who had been in the hospital. were treated."

The next day, a one column headline in the same paper said, "Citywide Smallpox Vaccination Urged."

Weinstein called for "immediate vaccinations for all New York City residents who have not been so vaccinated since early childhood." The understated was giving way to nervous suspicion.

On the third day, April 6, the Daily News clip read, "The Health Department launched a large-scale drive yesterday to inoculate between 200,000 and 350,000 New Yorkers - adults - against the scourage of smallpox."

By the 12th, the Herald Tribune reported, "Every person in New York City was urged yesterday by Mayor William O'Dwyer to be vaccinated against smallpox. He made the announcement in his City Hall office after an emergency meeting with his commissioners at 4 p.m. and after he was told of a second death from smallpox yesterday. Before the current outbreak the only death from the disease in the city was in 1912.

"Starting on Wednesday, the city's 84 police stations will be thrown open to the public for free vaccinations and will be kept open from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. Later, the city's 383 firehouses will be turned into emergency vaccination stations.

"To impress on the public what is now regarded as a serious outbreak of smallpox, Mayor O'Dwyer said the wartime Civilian Defense Volunteer Organization will be recalled to duty ... at full strength, these volunteers, the air raid wardens, fire fighters, first-aid crews, communications men and women, numbered 175,000 persons. Their names were kept for such eventualities as this and they could easily be summoned. Police turning out on the 8 a.m. shift were to have fliers to be handed to the city's 13,000 doctors asking them to volunteer."

Then on April 15, The Times reported, "Another case of smallpox was reported in the city yesterday, bringing the total to eight cases and two deaths here since the first case was found on April 4. In addition, four cases in Millbrook, N.Y., are directly traceable to the contagion in New York. There are also two suspected cases in Willard Parker Hospital for Contagious Diseases here."

The city did not end the life we love, however. The Bronx Home News reported that "Sylvia Steinberg, 29, 735 Townsend Avenue, who claims she did it all to impress a gentleman friend with her efficiency and civic spirit today faced a charge of 'vaccinating' 500 persons in Tippin's Restaurant, 2068 Seventh Ave. The only flaw, police said, was that she used water instead of vaccine."

The afternoon PM said on the 17th, "A hitch in the campaign to have the city's 8 million residents vaccinated was averted yesterday when Mayor O'Dwyer, at a hastily called City Hall conference, won assurances from seven drug firms that they would provide enough vaccine to immunize everyone.

" ... Dr. Ralph Muckenfuss, Health Department Director of Laboratories, telephoned officials of three drug companies in their homes over the weekend and asked them to start maximum production. Certain companies promised deliveries of 1,000,000 units on Tuesday and a second 1,000,000 today. During Tuesday, however, only 42,450 units were received. The companies explained that the orders had been taken by 'clerks,' although they amounted to $100,000."

In City Hall, the seven drug company executives said that they didn't know when they could get the needed vaccine. O'Dwyer told them to get the vaccine and that he would leave them at that. The companies did promise 5,000,000 units within three to four days. They made good.

The city went back to the job of vaccinating millions. In the spring darkness on 168th Street in Jamaica, a memorable, orderly line for the 103rd Precinct ran for blocks and nobody left.

Other than his two public conferences, O'Dwyer's performance was muted. His health commissioner ran everything. Rather than have this grotesque megalomania of a Giuliani during the World Trade Center attack, New York handled the smallpox with the highly knowledgeable medical performance by Dr. Weinstein, who ended the exercise on May 5 by announcing that 6,350,000 persons were vaccinated.

"What might have been a major calamity has been averted," he said.