The Pittsfield Epidemic of 1900, Covid-19, and ancient myths that won’t die

 

"Vertical landscapes of the High Caucasus" 
by CharlesFred is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

One time on the way to Pittsfield with my father when I was a boy, we took an alternate route on an old dirt road.  As we drove along, he pointed to a spot in the woods and announced, “that’s where the old Pest House stood, the place they put people who got sick with smallpox.” My fertile, young mind immediately conjured up scary images of a haunted house.

The smallpox epidemic, my father was referring to, broke out in 1900. According to local historian and author Larry Berkson. Pittsfield responding to it in an impressive manner, compared to our fumbling efforts today against Covid-19: “The infected houses were quarantined as was the practice in those days…Those who became infected were treated in a “special hospital” which immediately became known as the “Pest House.”^⁠1

In addition, the Pittsfield School Board placed a notice in the local newspaper declaring that State law required all school children to be vaccinated. The School Board was also charged with enforcing the law and empowered to impose severe penalties on offenders. When it was discovered that some of those quarantined persisted “in going out,” a strict watch was instituted on those premises “day and night by special police officers.” 

I came across this local history while  reading a new book, “Until Proven Safe,” by Nicola Twilley and Geoff Manaugh, an extensive treatise on quarantines. The authors would approve of Pittsfield’s response  because it employs all the elements they say are essential for a quarantine to be successful: good leadership and community support, carried out with compassion and respect. The authors assert that today, it’s imperative to be able to take effective action as Pittsfield did because “Quarantine is the best—sometimes the only—tool we have to protect ourselves against the new and truly alien. It buys us the time and space we need to respond.”^⁠2

The stakes grow higher each day with epidemics popping up like weeds: just since the year 2000, the world has been afflicted with SARS, MERS EBOLA, Zika, and now Covid-19. The trend will surely accelerate as time goes on due to increased global travel, climate change, and over-population which leads to logging rain forest interiors and disturbing remote caves.

Twilley and Geoff trace the history of quarantines since the first recorded successful one in 14^th century Italy.  Despite technological advances today in areas like testing, tracking, containment, and ventilation, the ability to quarantine is still essential: “it is a question of civility, of a politics and culture of collaboration that allow for awareness of shared responsibility in the face of an unknown disease.” “We will never have public health if we do not think of ourselves as a public.”^⁠3

Despite the success of that first quarantine in Venice, old superstitious myths persisted: “Even after the bubonic plague had burned through Europe for nearly a century, there was still no consensus on what caused it or how to prevent its spread.^⁠4“ At that time, conspiracy fanatics did not urge folks to drink bleach, but they did promote everything from  unproven medical practices “to acts of genocidal terror, such as slaughtering a city’s entire Jewish population in an attempt to appease the wrath of God.”

 I will close by examining one thread of Twilley and Manaugh’s research: the irrational nature of our human response to alien pathogens.  Specifically, I want to explore a dark history that may explain the recent upsurge in violent attacks against folks of Asian descent – and the likely reason why our former president referred to Covid-19 as the Chinese flu, his voice oozing with loathing.

The authors trace the roots of this behavior to an ancient myth that won’t die, extending back to ancient Greece and Rome. The theme of this folktale is how seemingly harmless strangers turn into monsters.”^⁠5   According to the authors, this myth created the idea of the West, defining it as “an act of isolation against a monstrous other that lurked somewhere in Eastern darkness.”^⁠6 

This medieval story was repeated so many times that it became accepted as fact, resulting in maps to being redrawn to establish this mythical boundary between West and East. Conveniently they picked the Caucasus Mountains, which, also according to myth, is the origin of the Caucasian race. In short order, “Caucasian” became the name white Europeans adopted to classify themselves in opposition to other races.

The very notion that the West – Europe – came into being in opposition to the “dark” East  reeks of racism. We need  to expose this ancient archetype that lives in our collective unconscious to the cleansing light of day. Otherwise, despots like Trump will continue to resurrect this demon, buried in their followers – and all of us for that matter – for their own nefarious ends.

xxx

¹ https://suncookvalley.com/pittsfield/2012/12_26_12/

² Twilley, Nicola; Manaugh, Geoff. Until Proven Safe (p. 17). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

³ Ibid, page 345-5

⁴ Ibid. page 25

⁵ Ibid, page 28

⁶ Ibid, page 30-31