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UNDER THE STIMULUS OF GREAT EPIDEMICS.
- Source :
- Pennsylvania History; Spring2017, Vol. 84 Issue 2, p214-238, 25p
- Publication Year :
- 2017
-
Abstract
- Though Pennsylvania was a prosperous industrial state and home to a great many medical institutions, it was among the last to constitute state-level public health organs. Pennsylvania's first public health organization, the Board of Health, was founded in 1885 and was ineffectual. Its second public health organ, the Department of Health, founded in 1905, rapidly gained a reputation as the strongest state health department in the nation. Though the aims and powers of the two organizations were vastly different, they were linked by the central role that epidemics played in motivating the legislature to pass bills that founded the organizations. Chief among the outbreaks that compelled the legislature to act in the best interests of the commonwealth's health were epidemics of typhoid in Plymouth in 1885 and Butler in 1903. This article explores the link between epidemic outbreaks during a twenty-year period and the state's public health organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- EPIDEMICS
PENNSYLVANIA. Dept. of Health
TYPHOID fever
HISTORY
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 00314528
- Volume :
- 84
- Issue :
- 2
- Database :
- Complementary Index
- Journal :
- Pennsylvania History
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 122198992
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.5325/pennhistory.84.2.0214