Smallpox Quarantine Locks Down Puget Sound
Fearful of a smallpox outbreak in Victoria, B.C., local health officials in Seattle and beyond establish a strict quarantine, including the mandatory vaccination of train passengers.
Intense excitement prevails in Seattle today, following the decision to establish a quarantine against British Columbia ports to prevent the spread of smallpox. Puget Sound health officers are confident in their ability to keep the disease at bay. The steamer City of Kingston, arriving from Victoria yesterday, was met at the dock by Health Officers Dr. Sparling and a squad of police; passengers were kept prisoner on board while they underwent examination and mandatory vaccination. Similar measures are being enforced on trains arriving from the north; at the waterfront near South Seattle, Dr. Sparling boarded a train and demanded that all passengers show their arms. If vaccination scars were not less than five years old, passengers had to submit to the procedure on the spot, regardless of their protests. Meanwhile, cities from Tacoma to Whatcom have coordinated efforts to halt the arrival of potentially infected travelers and mail.
“Some who shrank from the pricking of the vaccine point tried as badly to deceive the doctor as to the age of their scars as a woman tries to deceive a census enumerator as to her age.”
Public health emergencies often trigger a tension between civic safety and individual movement. In 1892, Seattle’s rapid deployment of mandatory vaccination and vessel lockdowns mirrors the modern debates over mandates and border closures, showing that anxiety over global contagion is a recurring chapter in the city's history.
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