Paul Minor

Delving Into Yester~Year

Local historian and writer Paul Miner takes items from The Republican’s Yester-Year column to develop an interesting, informative and often humorous article.

To the Editor:

“Danville Doings” of January 12, 1882, reported Court Week had livened up the town. Sleigh bells had been heard day and night during the snow. “Pretty well authenticated” rumors of wife beating led The Republican to threaten publishing the identity of “the guilty brute” if it happened again.

Someone “with a strong proclivity to kleptomania” was stealing coal and firewood on the town’s “west end.” The Republican warned, “somebody’s stove may be expected to explode.”

Anyone not getting vaccinated was “not only contrary to the order of the Board of

Health, but is entirely out of style.” I believe that would be the smallpox vaccination. A town dressmaker reportedly was coming out with a new style of dress “with a loop in the sleeve called the ‘vaccination flow,’ which is intended to accommodate what is supposed to be a sore arm.”

A sore arm is a minor inconvenience compared to a good case of smallpox (a variola virus), which disfigured, blinded and even killed. Three out of every 10 infected died.

Some time ago, I premised that if the smallpox vaccination had only in recent times become available, some would reject it, just as with the Covid vaccination today, particularly given social media influencer exertions. However, I did not expect a similar rejection back then.

But in mid-1886, Henry Bergh announced smallpox, cancers, tumors “and other forms of disease” were caused by vaccination.

Bergh founded the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. He also had a hand in preventing cruelty to children. I found nothing in that influencer’s background to support his anti-vaxxer claim.

Neighboring Illinois reported the “malignant” disease had reached “alarming proportions,” across 48 counties in January 1882. The state’s board of health, “pushing matters vigorously,” had managed to get the public to “generally vaccinate.” That adverb could apply to today’s situation. Some will, some won’t. Half a million Illinois schoolchildren had been vaccinated in 35 days. I found surprising parallels. In January 1882, a Cumberland, Maryland, woman contracted smallpox. She was quickly quarantined. The news spread and “there is as much excitement as if the ten plagues of Egypt and a threatened Red Sea drowning were imminent.” Patient Zero could not be found; he could have been a contaminated railcar seat. The city council required everyone to be vaccinated, reasoning preventive rather than remedial care was less costly and far less injurious to the local economy.

An ordinance authorized doctors to vaccinate anyone without proof of vaccination, and to charge them a quarter. Other laws already were in place, including provisions for those without that quarter. Refusal to be vaccinated triggered fines of $5-$10. Two months later, the virus scare affected Noblesville business “of all sorts.” The Rainstown correspondent reported in May 1883 that some young men who had taken to visiting Lizton “with a regularity which was remarkable” now avoided it “with a willingness which is comical . . .

“It is all right, boys, to be afraid of the smallpox which now prevails at our neighboring village.”

Amo was blamed for the June 1883 “base falsehood” rumoring that Pecksburg’s vicinity had a case of smallpox.

The Brown Township trustee advised in December 1881 that “wholesale vaccination” should occur during the schools’ holiday adjournment. The month before, Earlham College in Richmond was closed due to the virus. Bellville reported “the vaccination squirm goes wriggling along” in January 1882. Vaccination reactions, “some seriously,” occurred in Hadley in March 1882. Meanwhile, farmers claimed they could not furnish butter, despite calls for it.

That month, “a writer on vaccination” avowed that smallpox could be “entirely driven from the face of the earth by vaccination, revaccination, and re-revaccination at proper times.”

Addison Coffin of Hadley was more concerned with soul sickness in July 1885. “Do the parents of Hendricks County want their children educated under the influences of evolutionary atheism and the soul-destroying virus of natural religion?”

Paul Miner Lizton