1879

Creation of National Board of Health, staffed by prominent sanitarian members of American Public Health Association (Billings, Bowditch, et al.) to aid southern states and localities in controlling yellow fever via standardized quarantine regulations (a condition for financial assistance), inspectors, etc. Congress funded it for only 4 years, failed to maintain public and Congressional support, competed with Marine Hospital Service for money, and was allowed to expire in 1883. The sanitarian members were more committed hygienists, seeking to sanitize the urban environment, than in yellow fever control per se. Their belief in the universality of hygienic law “clash[ed] sharply with the localistic, protectionist policies of southern boards of health.” Be that as it may, they devoted their energies to modernizing the archaic southern system of quarantine (via inspection of crew, disinfection of cargo, etc.) via simply holding ships in port for a set period of time or denying them entry altogether (Humphreys, 64-67, quoted at 67; Humphreys, 210-11). National Board inspectors, largely limited to lower Mississippi, gathered information on which localities were already infected and which were encouraging propagation of the yellow fever germ (68).