A Splinter, a Week of Pain, and a Fatal Case of Lockjaw
Five-year-old Willie Williamson died at a Commercial Street lodging house after a tiny wound in his foot turned to tetanus.
Willie Williamson, five-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. William Williamson, died of lockjaw at the Famous lodging house on Commercial Street yesterday afternoon. The immediate cause of death was lockjaw, which had been brought on by a sliver in the left foot. The little boy had suffered from the wound for about a week.
“The immediate cause of death was lockjaw, which had been brought on by a sliver in the left foot.”
Before routine tetanus vaccination, a splinter could become a death sentence; this small item records a medical reality that is now almost unthinkable in Seattle. The lodging-house setting also hints at the transient rented rooms that housed many working people in the 1890s.
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