Overview

This riveting story of the typhus and cholera epidemics that swept through New York City in 1892 has been updated with a new preface that tackles the COVID-19 pandemic. Winner, 2003 Arthur J. Viseltear Prize for Outstanding Book in the History of Public Health, American Public Health Association In Quarantine! Howard Markel traces the course of the typhus and cholera epidemics that swept through New York City in 1892. The story is told from the point of view of those involved—the public health doctors who diagnosed and treated the victims, the newspaper reporters who covered the stories, the government officials who established and enforced policy, and, most importantly, the immigrants themselves. Drawing on rarely cited stories from the Yiddish American press, immigrant diaries and letters, and official accounts, Markel follows the immigrants on their journey from a squalid and precarious existence in Russia's Pale of Settlement, to their passage in steerage, to New York's Lower East Side, to the city's quarantine islands. This updated edition features a new preface from the author that reflects on the themes of the book in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. At a time of renewed anti-immigrant sentiment and newly emerging infectious diseases, Quarantine! provides a historical context for considering some of the significant problems that face American society today.

Full Product Details

Author:   Howard Markel (Director, The University of Michigan)
Publisher:   Johns Hopkins University Press
Imprint:   Johns Hopkins University Press
Edition:   updated edition
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 1.90cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.386kg
ISBN:  

9781421443669

ISBN 10:   142144366
Pages:   288
Publication Date:   26 April 2022
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

"Figures and Tables Preface to the First Edition Preface to the Updated Edition: Revisiting Quarantine! Introduction: The Concept of Quarantine Part I. Averting a Pestilence The Typhus Fever Epidemic on New York's Lower East Side Chapter 1. The Russian Jews of the SS Massilia Chapter 2. The City Responds to the Threat of Typhus Chapter 3. The Results of the Quarantine Part II. ""Cholera May Knock, but It Won't Get In!"" Cholera, Class, and Quarantine in New York Harbor Chapter 4. Awaiting the Cholera: ""Choleria!"" Chapter 5. ""Knocking Out the Cholera!"" Part III. Legislating Quarantine Attempting to Restrict Immigration as a Cholera Preventive Chapter 6. Maintaining the Quarantine Chapter 7. The Doctors' Prescription for Quarantine Chapter 8. The Congress Responds Epilogue: ""The Microbe as Social Leveller"" Notes Index"

Reviews

Quarantine! unites the best of the two worlds of social history and clinical history in a narrative style so personal and at times gripping that a reader forgets that the book is meant primarily to be a scholarly text . . . Markel is as much spinning a complex yarn as he is writing a scrupulously researched chronicle. -- New Republic A remarkable book, uniting the best of the two worlds of social history and clinical history and yet so gripping in narrative style that it kept me fascinated until the very end. Markel is to be congratulated on his ability to write engagingly for a wide variety of readers, while making a major scholarly contribution to the field that continues to be enriched by this work and his example. --Sherwin B. Nuland, MD, author of How We Die Beautifully written and thoroughly researched . . . This is a fine piece of history with a timely and thoughtful message; it deserves a wide readership among both health care professionals and professional historians. -- New England Journal of Medicine Insightful . . . fine and well-written. -- Journal of American History Markel does the best job I have seen of depicting the experience of the quarantined--as well as explaining something of the political and etiological/prophylactic debates that framed and legitimated the quarantine itself. Along the way he makes substantive contributions to Jewish history, urban history, and public health history. --Charles E. Rosenberg, author of Our Present Complaint: American Medicine, Then and Now One of the major strengths of the book is the balance between the social construction of disease and the biological realities of illness . . . Quarantine! therefore provides an important cautionary tale not only for historians, but also for medical professionals who need to deal with modern epidemics in a rational and humane manner. -- New York History Skillfully explores the social, cultural, medical, and political issues surrounding the quarantine of East European Jewish immigrants during the typhus and cholera epidemics in 1892 New York. -- Library Journal With vivid brush strokes Markel sketches in many of the colorful personalities who figured in his tale . . . Quarantine! is a fascinating and moving account. -- Pakn Treger

Quarantine! unites the best of the two worlds of social history and clinical history in a narrative style so personal and at times gripping that a reader forgets that the book is meant primarily to be a scholarly text . . . Markel is as much spinning a complex yarn as he is writing a scrupulously researched chronicle. -- New Republic A remarkable book, uniting the best of the two worlds of social history and clinical history and yet so gripping in narrative style that it kept me fascinated until the very end. Markel is to be congratulated on his ability to write engagingly for a wide variety of readers, while making a major scholarly contribution to the field that continues to be enriched by this work and his example. --Sherwin B. Nuland, MD Markel does the best job I have seen of depicting the experience of the quarantined--as well as explaining something of the political and etiological/prophylactic debates that framed and legitimated the quarantine itself. Along the way he makes substantive contributions to Jewish history, urban history, and public health history. --Charles E. Rosenberg Beautifully written and thoroughly researched . . . This is a fine piece of history with a timely and thoughtful message; it deserves a wide readership among both health care professionals and professional historians. -- New England Journal of Medicine Insightful . . . fine and well-written. -- Journal of American History One of the major strengths of the book is the balance between the social construction of disease and the biological realities of illness . . . Quarantine! therefore provides an important cautionary tale not only for historians, but also for medical professionals who need to deal with modern epidemics in a rational and humane manner. -- New York History Skillfully explores the social, cultural, medical, and political issues surrounding the quarantine of East European Jewish immigrants during the typhus and cholera epidemics in 1892 New York. -- Library Journal With vivid brush strokes Markel sketches in many of the colorful personalities who figured in his tale . . . Quarantine! is a fascinating and moving account. -- Pakn Treger

A remarkable book, uniting the best of the two worlds of social history and clinical history and yet so gripping in narrative style that it kept me fascinated until the very end. Markel is to be congratulated on his ability to write engagingly for a wide variety of readers, while making a major scholarly contribution to the field that continues to be enriched by this work and his example. --Sherwin B. Nuland, MD Markel does the best job I have seen of depicting the experience of the quarantined--as well as explaining something of the political and etiological/prophylactic debates that framed and legitimated the quarantine itself. Along the way he makes substantive contributions to Jewish history, urban history, and public health history. --Charles E. Rosenberg Quarantine! unites the best of the two worlds of social history and clinical history in a narrative style so personal and at times gripping that a reader forgets that the book is meant primarily to be a scholarly text . . . Markel is as much spinning a complex yarn as he is writing a scrupulously researched chronicle. -- New Republic Beautifully written and thoroughly researched . . . This is a fine piece of history with a timely and thoughtful message; it deserves a wide readership among both health care professionals and professional historians. -- New England Journal of Medicine Insightful . . . fine and well-written. -- Journal of American History One of the major strengths of the book is the balance between the social construction of disease and the biological realities of illness . . . Quarantine! therefore provides an important cautionary tale not only for historians, but also for medical professionals who need to deal with modern epidemics in a rational and humane manner. -- New York History Skillfully explores the social, cultural, medical, and political issues surrounding the quarantine of East European Jewish immigrants during the typhus and cholera epidemics in 1892 New York. -- Library Journal With vivid brush strokes Markel sketches in many of the colorful personalities who figured in his tale . . . Quarantine! is a fascinating and moving account. -- Pakn Treger

Author Information

Howard Markel, MD, PhD, is the George E. Wantz Distinguished Professor of the History of Medicine and the director of the Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan. He is the author of numerous books, including The Secret of Life: Rosalind Franklin, James Watson, Francis Crick, and the Discovery of DNA's Double Helix and When Germs Travel: Six Major Epidemics That Have Invaded America and the Fears They Have Unleashed.

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