From 1910: Middletown Child Paraysis Victim

The following are extracts from an article published exactly 100 years ago today, appearing in the Hartford Courant on September 5, 1910 (Labor Day that year).

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First Case in Town of the Disease

The first case of the dreaded infantile paralysis in this city resulted fatally early Saturday evening, when the 2-years-old son of Mr. and Mrs. Concetto Augeri died at the home of its parents at No. 19 Green court. The child had been sick for two days, but the doctor was not called until about twenty-four hours before death. Dr. G.G. Petrocelli was suspicious from the first that the child had the disease, and later examination proved this to him conclusively. He immediately reported the case to Dr. Thomas P. Walsh, city health officer, and a strict quarantine was placed on the house. A special policeman was detailed at the house, also, and no one was allowed to enter or leave. The child was buried an hour after death, and the house thoroughly fumigated. The occupants are still under quarantine. Two older children in the family will not be allowed to go to school until September 19, although school opens this week. The father of the dead child works at the Russell Company, and also keeps a store in his house. Green court is very thickly populated with Italian families who have a number of children. The Johnson Street School is nearby, and as the majority of the Italian children go here, an epidemic would make great havoc. City Health Officer Walsh, in conversation with a "Courant" reporter, said that he did not anticipate any spread of the contagion, for the reason that the disease was discovered in plenty of time, and the precautions taken accordingly.

Common Council Meeting.

The monthly meeting of the common council, which was to have been held tonight, has been adjourned until Tuesday night, because of the holiday. There is a good deal of routine work to be done, and with promised new business, the meeting will probably be a long drawn out affair. There is a possibility of something new in the matter of the Hale water board shortage. Committees are to make reports relative to the matter of new applications for building permits; regarding damages and benefits from the Woodward avenue extension; in reference to the recommendations concerning the business methods of the water board.

Labor Day Events

Athletic events will form the chief attraction for Labor Day. This morning at Mansfield Park, Fisher's Jewels will play a Trolley League game with New London. In the afternoon at 3:30 o'clock, the Jewels will cross bats with the crack Collinsville nine. At 1:30 o'clock there will be a big track and field meet on Andrus Field, Wesleyan. There are a large number of entries for the handsome prizes and an interesting meet is in prospect.

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From our 2010 perspective, the quarantine enforced by the police, the fumigation, and the mildly hysterical reassurance of the reporting, following a death from polio virus seems excessive. However, it was only two years before this article that Carl Landsteiner demonstrated that the causative agent for infantile paralysis was polio virus. Moreover, in the first decade of the 20th century, summer-time epidemics of polio were common in cities.

The virus is spread from person to person, primarily via the fecal-oral route. Polio is gone from Middletown as a result of childhood immunizations, but the disease still occurs in poorer parts of the world. If vaccinations can be delivered globally, the disease could be eradicated.