The Epidemic: A Collision Of Power, Privilege, And Public Health

by David Dekok

Overview

The Epidemic tells how a vain and reckless businessman became responsible for a typhoid epidemic in 1903 that devastated Cornell University and the surrounding town of Ithaca, N.Y. Eighty-two people died, including 29 Cornell students. Protected by influential friends, William T. Morris faced no retribution for this outrage.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780762760084
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	02/01/2011
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

David DeKok is a former investigative reporter for The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa., where he specialized in coverage of the utility industry for the past dozen years. He won first place reporting awards from The National Press Club, the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, and Associated Press Managing Editors of Pennsylvania. His first book, Unseen Danger: A Tragedy of People, Government, and the Centralia Mine Fire, was published by University of Pennsylvania Press in 1986 and was reissued by Globe Pequot Press as Fire Underground.Unseen Danger was reviewed in the Sunday New York Times Book Review of Jan. 4, 1987, and was the subject of a national story by Associated Press.

DeKok appeared on Fresh Air and The Diane Rehm Show to promote his first book. In 2007, he explained the Centralia mine fire in the documentary film, The Town That Was, which screened in competition at the Los Angeles and Philadelphia film festival. In 2009, heappeared at length in Episode 6 of The History Channel's Life After People series discussing Centralia, Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

Prelude: June 16, 1903 ix

Chapter 1 Ithaca and Its Kings 1

Chapter 2 The Boys Club 11

Chapter 3 Conflict of Interest 21

Chapter 4 Newsmen 34

Chapter 5 The Dam 45

Chapter 6 Lives of the Students 59

Chapter 7 The Valley of Death 70

Chapter 8 Typhoid, and How the Epidemic Began 82

Chapter 9 Denial 92

Chapter 10 Apocalypse 111

Chapter 11 The Fixer 121

Chapter 12 Going Home 142

Chapter 13 The Man Who Saved Ithaca 155

Chapter 14 The Man Who Saved Cornell University 173

Chapter 15 Retribution 182

Epilogue: Getting Away with Murder 196

Afterword: The Conquest of Typhoid 212

Acknowledgments 216

Endnotes 220

Bibliography 266

Index 275

About the Author 299

Editorial Reviews

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.

Kirkus Reviews