Vaccination and Anti-Vaccination
One hundred years ago today … International ships arriving in NYC harbor often necessitated vaccinations against smallpox.
New York Tribune, 13 October, p. 11. Chronicling America.
The Nieuw Amsterdam was a luxury ocean liner of the Holland-America line. When it arrived in NYC with a smallpox outbreak, it was held in quarantine while the vaccinations were applied. It was not redirected to Swinburne or Hoffman Islands, as those sites–tiny, manufactured islands off the eastern shore of Staten Island–were at capacity with quarantined arrivals. (See our October 1 post about the 1920 immigration surge.)
Vaccinations were a source of anxiety in 1920, especially, apparently, for children starting the school year.
New York Tribune, 20 September p. 12. Chronicling America.
The vaccination of one prominent Brooklynite–Olympic diver Eileen (sometimes written “Aileen”) Riggin–was newsworthy.
Daily News, 30 September p. 19. Chronicling America.
Note: We last mentioned Riggin in our July 26 post about the Olympic trials.
Meanwhile, another prominent Brooklynite, Charles M. Higgins, was making it his business to inveigh against vaccinations. A successful ink tradesman, his 1920 self-published book, Horrors of Vaccination Exposed and Illustrated, claimed vaccinations were "medical malpractice."
Higgins, Charles Michael. Horrors of vaccination exposed and illustrated. Google Books.
As promised, it included disturbing illustrations:
Higgins, Charles Michael. Horrors of vaccination exposed and illustrated, p. 87. Google Books.
Note: we previously mentioned Higgins on August 27, as sponsor of the Altar to Liberty sculpture in Greenwood Cemetery.
Brooklyn’s Times Union covered Higgins’ book on October 10.
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Times Union, 10 October p. 3. Chronicling America.
The Brooklyn daily took Higgins’ book seriously, but other reports did not. A 1923 volume, Some Quasi-medical Institutions, put out by the Propaganda Department of the Journal of the American Medical Association, lacerates Higgins and his involvement in the American Medical Liberty League, which it condemns for trafficking in fraudulent medicine (22-24).
References/Further Reading:
American Medical Association. Propaganda Dept. Some Quasi-medical Institutions. Chicago: The Dept., 1923.
Higgins, Charles Michael. Horrors of vaccination exposed and illustrated. United States, C.M. Higgins, 1920.
WRITTEN BY JONATHAN GOLDMAN, OCTOBER 7, 2020.
TAGS: medicine, vaccine, vaccination, anti-vaccination, anti-vaxxer, disease, science, smallpox, quarantine, immigration, ships, travel