Health and Disease

Polio
Even as improved public sanitation eliminated cholera and typhoid by the turn of the century, it left the more potent polio virus to thrive in tenement districts. Polio was quite rare in America until a major epidemic hit New York City in 1907, killing about 2,500 people. Cases of polio in the city continued to rise until 1916, when almost 9,000, most of whom were children, came down with the crippling disease.

Although their mortality rate was relatively low, Italians had the highest incidence of polio of any immigrant group during these years. Rumors spread that the Italians had brought the disease with them from Italy and were responsible for its spread to the upper classes.

City officials believed, however, that polio was not imported, but rather the result of the ignorance and unhygienic habits of the Italians. They blamed the Italians themselves and not the unhealthy conditions in which these people were forced to live. Italians often slammed doors in the faces of well-meaning visiting nurses sent to monitor suspect neighborhoods, preferring to keep their family's ailments private. They turned to folk healers and remedies (such as amulets against "the evil eye") and quacks in their own community rather than consult with nurses and doctors in hospitals run by the city for the poor.