"Do It Now!" Yakima, Wash, and the campaign against rural typhoid.
In 1911, Yakima, in western Washington, suffered a typhoid epidemic that turned the nation's attention to a crisis in public health. The response exemplified the ideals of the "new public health" as a more proactive, scientific, federal commitment to the problems of rural America. A US Public Health Service investigation led by Dr Leslie Lumsden found a typhoid mortality rate of nearly 5 times the national average. The cause was bad sanitation. Typhoid rates dropped dramatically as the community adopted pragmatic solutions. Lumsden helped organize a "Do It Now" sanitation campaign and one of the country's first city-county health units. Yakima provided a model for other rural areas and small towns across the country. This episode in one of the country's most productive fruit-growing regions raised serious questions regarding the geographic dynamics of disease. For Lumsden and other like-minded health officials, the countryside represented a dangerous reservoir of disease, a particular threat to the nation's agriculturally dependent urban populations. Yakima showed that the country needed a more comprehensive public health system that addressed urban and rural problems.
Casner
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Department of History, Boise State University, Boise, Idaho 83725, USA.
D000383:Agriculture / Q000266:history; D004196:Disease Outbreaks / Q000266:history* / Q000517:prevention & control; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D011635:Public Health Administration / Q000266:history*; D012423:Rural Health / Q000266:history; D012499:Sanitation / Q000266:history*; D012941:Social Responsibility; D014435:Typhoid Fever / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000266:history* / Q000517:prevention & control; D014861:Washington / Q000453:epidemiology; D014881:Water Supply / Q000266:history / Q000592:standards