The Smallpox Scare of 1880
When a woman was quarantined in the local pest house for suspected smallpox, local doctors sparred over whether her condition was actually a common venereal disease.
There are said to be excellent reasons for disbelieving that the last patient taken to the pest house was afflicted with the smallpox. She was broken out with sores, but they are said to have been those of an ordinary venereal character, and that she had carried them for weeks. Two of the town doctors have examined her since her confinement in the pest house. One of them is quite sure the disease is not smallpox, while the other is positive it is not. Unless she is proof against the disease, she is pretty sure to take it where she is now. Thus there is doubt as to the existence of even the germs of smallpox in our city, and our people may rest easier in consequence.
“Thus there is doubt as to the existence of even the germs of smallpox in our city, and our people may rest easier in consequence.”
Public health panics and the stigmatization of disease—particularly those linked to morality or 'vices'—have deep roots in Seattle. This 1880 report mirrors modern anxieties about contagion, isolation, and how local authorities manage the vulnerable during health crises.
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