| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 105.5

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 105.5 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Evelynn Maxine Hammonds. Childhood's Deadly Scourge: The Campaign to Control Diptheria in New York City, 1880–1930. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 1999. Pp. ix, 299. $39.95.

One of success stories of early twentieth-century medicine is the conquest of diphtheria in New York City, where in the 1880s it was endemic and the sixth leading cause of death. Diphtheria affected both rich and poor, striking hardest at young children. By 1930, its virulence was gone, and the mortality rate had dropped from 184 per 100,000 people to fewer than three. The battle began in the laboratory, but it would demonstrate eventually both the power and the limitations of science in disease control. 1

Evelynn Maxine Hammonds tells the story in this book. Its heroes are two men in public health who worked tirelessly to use the new bacteriological science coming out of Europe to improve the health of their city. Doctors Hermann Biggs and William H. Park enthusiastically embraced the new science, but they had to overcome the resistance of practicing physicians and educate the public before they could be successful. . . .

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