Taming Infection

The American Response to Illness from Smallpox to Covid

Infection has written its own history of the United States, terrifying, sickening and killing more Americans that all the nation's wars put together. Taming Infection is the story of fifteen of the worst diseases to strike the United States throughout our history and how Americans brought them under control.

Some of these diseases now are associated only with far away lands. Yet, at one time, malaria afflicted most of the United States, even infecting multiple Presidents. Plague struck in San Francisco, and cholera and typhoid in New York. Diphtheria was once the great killer of American children, while smallpox infected, but luckily did not kill, both Washington and Lincoln. Thoreau, Hawthorne, Poe and Eleanor Roosevelt died from tuberculosis. Yellow fever shut down the Federal government in the then capitol of Philadelphia, forcing Alexander Hamilton to flee to an involuntary quarantine. Al Capone would succumb to syphilis while his nemesis, Eliot Ness, led the campaign against the disease in the American army in WWII. More modern afflictions, including the influenza, AIDS and Covid-19 pandemics, reminds us that infections still punish and terrify Americans.

Sadly, Americans often first reacted to these calamities with ignorance, bizarre therapies and scapegoating of minorities. Protests against vaccines predated the American Revolution, while the Anti-Mask League was formed in 1918, not 2021. Yet Taming Infection is also the story of triumphs and heroes, in medicine and public health and among ordinary citizens, that helped the United States vanquish, or at least tame, these deadly maladies. Each disease has carved its own mark in American history and among Americans; some are still carving..

Editorial Reviews

"A clearly written, information-rich guide to the impact of infectious diseases on the United States and our responses to each of them. Coodley and Sarasohn demonstrate how science and public health have had to counter fear, ignorance and hubris-along with the microbes themselves-in battles that reached a desultory climax with our misbegotten reckoning with Covid-19."

-Arthur Allen, author of The Fantastic Laboratory of Dr. Weigl

"The book is a timely and urgent reminder that the battle against deadly infectious disease must be relentless. It celebrates our victories without losing sight of the horrendous human toll exacted, and it warns us that we repeat the mistakes of the past at our own peril."

-Stephen Coss, author of The Fever of 1721: The Epidemic that Revolutionized Medicine and American Politics

"Taming Infection: The American Response to Illness from Smallpox to Covid is a wide-ranging history of pandemics in America that will enjoy newfound interest with the current pandemic struggle. This is not the first time the subject has been captured in a book, but what sets Taming Infection apart from other medical and social histories is its attention to the link between health and science findings and public policy-setting, which either embraces these recommendations or resists the notion of sweeping social change.
It uses examples of the fifteen worst diseases to strike the United States as touchstones for discussing these connections, blending history with social and health issues to consider the evolution of American epidemics and their special challenges to public policy-makers. Readers with little medical history background might be surprised to learn that tuberculosis, malaria, yellow fever, and cholera were once endemic to the United States. Each sweeping threat introduced an unprecedented challenge to politicians and policy-makers who were in charge of regulating and directing public health responses.
Heavily footnoted, with many quotes from source materials and first-hand experiences of the past, Taming Infection offers the opportunity to reconsider the policies and experiences of the past with a new eye to managing and understanding present-day public response and health community efforts. The history documented herein is surprisingly extensive, offering many references readers will find intriguing: "Vaccination was brought to the United States by Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse in 1800. In 1801 President Thomas Jefferson vaccinated his own family, neighbors, and some visiting Mohican Indians and arranged to import cowpox from England. Jefferson wrote Jenner, "Medicine has never before produced any single improvement of such utility. You have erased from the calendar of human afflictions one of its greatest." Jefferson also devised a way to preserve the vaccine from heat by insulating it in water."
From how diseases spread, whether in civilian or military circles, to how vaccinations were developed, disseminated, and promoted, Taming Infection is more than a medical history. It offers many social inspections of how treatments were not just created, but promoted among various populaces. This dual attention to social analysis will particularly intrigue students of social issues history and development: "Historian David Jones observed, "One dramatic aspect of epidemic response is the desire to assign responsibility, From Jews in medieval Europe to meat mongers in Chinese markets, someone is always blamed... stigmatization follows closely on the heels of every pathogen." The result is a wide-ranging history that should appeal to a broad audience, from students of social issues and healthcare to those involved in political science studies and the process of developing disease protections. Heavily footnoted, peppered with authoritative source material references, and strong in photos, charts and graphs, Taming Infection is highly recommended for library collections strong in medical history, social examination, and political science and public policy alike."

-D. Donovan, Midwest Book Review

Gregg Coodley, MD

Taming Infection

The American Response to Illness from Smallpox to Covid

Editorial Reviews