Stephen Smith
speaker
1,482 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 23 Jul
Stephen Smith’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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In a larger sense it may with justice be claimed that this incident contained the germ of health reform that has given to this entire country the most perfect system of municipal, state and national health administration in the civilized world.
The incident referred to occurred in the fifties of the last century.
New York was in the grip of the deadly typhus.
This was sometimes called the spotted fever from the dark spots which appeared on the body of its victims, and also emigrant fever, because it was brought to this country by the immigrants, especially by those who came from Ireland.
Indeed, the Irish immigrants suffered so generally and severely that the disease was sometimes called the Irish fever.
Immigration from Ireland was at that time at its flood, and the typhus was so prevalent among these poverty stricken people that the hospitals were overcrowded by them, and large numbers were treated in tents, both on Blackwell's Island and at the quarantine grounds on Staten Island.
Having completed a two years term of service on the intern medical staff of Bellevue Hospital, where large numbers of typhus cases were treated, I was placed in charge of the tents on Blackwell's Island by the commissioner of charities.
Soon after entering upon the service, I noticed that patients were continually admitted from a single building in East twenty second street.
Impressed with the importance of closing this fever nest, I visited the tenement and was not surprised at the large number of cases of fever which it furnished our hospital.
It is difficult to describe the scene that the interior of the house presented to the visitor.
The building was in an extreme state of dilapidation generally.
The doors and windows were broken, the cellar was
The cellar was partly filled with filthy sewage.
The floors were littered with decomposing straw, which the occupants used for bedding.
Every available place from cellar to garret was crowded with immigrants, men, women, and children.
The whole establishment was reeking with filth, and the atmosphere was heavy with the sickening odor of the deadly typhus, which reigned supreme.
them in every room.
The necessity of immediately closing this house to further occupation by immigrants until it was thoroughly cleansed and made decently habitable was imperative, and I made inquiries for the responsible owner.
I found that the house was never visited by anyone who claimed to be either agent or owner, but that it was the resort of vagrants, especially of the most recent and desolated.
and destitute immigrants, that they came and went without let or hindrance, generally remaining until attacked by the prevailing epidemic of fever when they were removed to the fever hospital.
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