Health and Disease

Typhus Fever
From February until April 1892, the Lower East Side was the site of an outbreak of Typhus Fever. About 200 people came down with the sickness, characterized by high fever, delirium, excruciating headaches, pains and a telltale mulberry rash. At least 24 died.

Medical experts of the time did not know, as we do now, that typhus is contracted from infected body lice that continually bite their human hosts, sending the typhus micro-organism directly into the bloodstream. Doctors attributed the sickness to improper atmospheric conditions, lack of ventilation, dirt, malnourishment and, possibly, a "distinct poisonous germ".

Certainly, all of these conditions created the breeding ground for the lice to multiply. Whatever the living conditions however, both city officials and the New York City public at large blamed the outbreak on its carriers, Russian Jewish immigrants living on East 12th Street, Hester Street, Essex Street and the Bowery.

It had been determined that the early victims of typhus had all come from the same ship, the SS Massilia, therefore as many of its passengers as the Health Department could locate were sent immediately to the dismal North Brother Island for quarantine. People who had come in contact with them were removed as well. The majority of these unfortunate people, about 1,150 out of 1,200, arrived on the 16-acre island healthy, only to be later infected by typhus or other infectious diseases from the close quarters and unsanitary living conditions to be found there. They also had to contend with non-kosher food and the certainty of not being buried according to Jewish law should they succumb to the sickness.

Though typhus was effectively traced to the passengers of the SS Massilia, the popular association with the disease spread to all Russian Jews and to some extent to Italian immigrants as well. In actuality, typhus fever was far less prevalent in Russia than in Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Before its arrival in the Port of New York, the SS Massilia made a brief stop in Turkey, which was known to have a problem with typhus, and the sickness was probably contracted there, a fact largely ignored by city officials of the time. Therefore Russian Jewish steerage passengers arriving on any ship, from any port, were detained and inspected, while their counterparts from other parts of the world were allowed to land without delay.
Needless to say, first and second class passengers were not subjected to inspection. And when a few cases of typhus broke out among the middle classes, the Health Department did not enforce a quarantine.