[Guest Post by Deborah Isley, MA in History, Snoqualmie Valley Historical Museum Volunteer]
Diphtheria was among the most feared contagions of the late 19th century. Families could lose multiple children to the respiratory illness in a matter of days or even hours, posing a particular danger to those under the age of five. In the Snoqualmie Valley in 1889 and 1890, multiple diphtheria epidemics swept through the small community that still lacked a resident doctor.
Today, a vaccine for diphtheria is included among the routine immunizations provided at well-child visits in the first years of a child’s life. Therefore, we rarely hear of cases; many doctors in the United States have never seen one. In the 19th century, however, parents were terrified of diphtheria.
Even the powerful and wealthy were vulnerable. Queen Victoria lost both a daughter and a granddaughter to the disease, and former president Grover Cleveland’s daughter, lovingly known throughout the country as “Baby Ruth,” succumbed to diphtheria at the age of twelve in 1904.
Diphtheria was a bacterial disease contracted through close contact, which made it easy to spread in churches, schools, and within a family. The word diphtheria is derived from a Greek word meaning leather because of the leathery-looking plaque that would coat the back of the throat and lead to swallowing and breathing difficulties.
People observed that children seemed to be suddenly choked to death. In the late 19th century, 70% of cases were reported in children under 15, and 40% were among children under 5. The fatality rate in some hospitals at the time was 60%. Even today, in a 2011 outbreak in Nigeria, the fatality rate was 40%.
When diphtheria began to circulate in early 1889, the young children of Fall City, North Bend, and Snoqualmie suffered greatly. Although calculating fatality numbers from these epidemics is incredibly difficult given the available historical records, evidence from Fall City cemetery and other sources speak to the Valley’s general fear and grief.
Fall City residents Davis and Sarah Rutherford lost two sons on the same day that January: seven-year-old Gaery Davis Rutherford and his five-year-old little brother Melville Cullen Rutherford. Just seven months later, their two cousins, Charles and John Rutherford, eleven and four, also died of diphtheria.
In May 1889, Fall City attorney John Janicke wrote a letter to the editor of the Seattle Post Intelligencer to inform the greater community of the diphtheria epidemic’s devastating death toll. Janicke observed, “The fresh take graves near the farm yards and the sacred precincts of our cemeteries tell sad stories; every family is stricken with grief, the fell destroyer has robbed my school districts of many promising young children.”
He described how he was overcome with emotion when he witnessed the funeral of a young father who was buried shortly after the death of his only daughter. He does not name the family, but in Fall City Cemetery, there are two graves from March of that year: Thomas Robertson, age 34, and Celia Robertson, age 5.
At the same time as these epidemics, immigration into the Snoqualmie Valley was rapidly increasing with the addition of the railroad, but heartbreak awaited some of the new residents. James and Viola Allen, a young couple with two small boys, settled in North Bend in 1889. Tragically, both boys contracted and died of diphtheria shortly after their arrival.
As waves of diphtheria swept through the Snoqualmie Valley into the early months of 1890, the residents issued a plea to Seattle for medical assistance. There were no doctors in the valley at the time, and to call a physician to make the long journey from Seattle cost $60, the shocking equivalent of around $2,000 today.
G. W. Clark of Snoqualmie wrote that even if families could afford such a fee, the distance from Seattle was so great that the children would likely die before medical help arrived. “I have talked to several here about the situation, and we think to have a moral right to ask of our Queen City (which, by the way, is always liberal) the assistance of her medical fraternity and to send us a competent physician to stay until the disease abates, and for him to do all he possibly can for us.” Several prominent Snoqualmie Valley residents signed the letter.
Dr. J. B. Loughary of Seattle responded to the request for assistance but did not stay more than a few days. It does not appear that the request for a resident doctor was met at this time. Dr. Loughary reported to Seattle that the disease was widespread in the valley, and the residents were poor and desperately needed greater assistance. However, some Seattle leaders cast doubt on the severity of the epidemic in Snoqualmie or were dismissive of Valley residents’ needs.
Chairmen Gash of the county commissioners stated, “It seems incredible to me that the residents of Snoqualmie and vicinity, who are generally a very well-to-do class, can be so destitute as to not be able to employ the services of a physician when their children are dangerously sick or dying.”
Without doctors, treatment of illness primarily fell to the mothers or other women in the community. Families were advised to have a medicine chest on hand, and home healthcare manuals, like Dr. Chase’s Receipt Book, were filled with possible treatments for ailments and injuries. Dr. Chase’s book recommends around a dozen options for diphtheria, from a simple lemon juice gargle to applying a mercury chloride compound (Calomel) to the back of the throat. Many of the suggestions were possibly effective or at least harmless, but others, such as using mercury, were dangerous.
Sometimes people also used dubious “cures” advertised in the newspapers at the time. On December 22, at the height of the winter epidemic, the newspaper posted an article addressing the residents of the Snoqualmie Valley with a remedy provided by the Seattle, Lake Shore, and Eastern Railroad manager.
He claimed to have clipped the recipe from a newspaper years before and that it healed his son of diphtheria. The remedy included a tablespoon of turpentine and a tablespoon of liquid tar in a tin cup. It was then lit on fire to create a “dense, resinous smoke…making the room dark.” The smoke was supposed to break up the plaques in the back of the throat to allow the patient to cough up the “microbes” from the disease. Dr. Chase’s book also includes a similar treatment recommendation.
There is no direct evidence that this remedy was used by Snoqualmie Valley residents during the diphtheria epidemics, but the Snoqualmie Valley Museum collection includes a medicine bottle and vaporizer from around this time formulated with tar byproducts. The company claimed that inhaling such fumes cured many illnesses, including diphtheria. The American Medical Association disputed these claims in 1908, but the “medicine” was still sold in pharmacies into the 1950s.
This is an example of a so-called “patent medicine,” or non-prescription and untested medication often created by business people, not doctors or scientists. Other “cures” for diphtheria were regularly written up in the local papers. No regulation at this time prevents the dissemination of false or even dangerous health information in newspapers.
At the time of this epidemic in the Snoqualmie Valley, doctors in Europe were formulating an antitoxin serum treatment that provided children with temporary immunity from diphtheria. While it reduced the fatality rate over the following decades, it also had a high occurrence of severe allergic reactions and people treated with the antitoxin still often died of diphtheria.
Advancements in serum antitoxin and the eventual development of the modern diphtheria vaccine in the 1920s drastically reduced the occurrences of diphtheria in the United States. Antibiotics were discovered, and by the late 1940s, penicillin was being used to treat increasingly rare cases. However, for residents of the Snoqualmie Valley in 1889, this childhood illness remained a constant and menacing threat.
An upcoming exhibit at the Snoqualmie Valley Museum will explore life in the Snoqualmie Valley from 1890 to 1910, including artifacts and stories about medical practices and everyday health challenges from the era. To learn more, stop by the new exhibit, which will be open to the public early this winter.
Bibliography
• “An Appeal for Aid: Snoqualmie Asks Seattle to Send Her a Physician.” The Seattle Post Intelligencer. Volume 17, No. 57. December 27, 1889. Page 8, Column 1. Seattle, Washington. Washington Digital Newspapers. Accessed September 18, 2024 at The Seattle Post-intelligencer 27 December 1889 — Washington Digital Newspapers.
• Bahnemann, Greta. “Quack Cures and Self-Remedies: Patent Medicine.” Digital Public Library of America. September 2015. https://dp.la/exhibitions/patent-medicine.
• “Deadly Diphtheria: the Children’s Plague.” Guest post based upon the Dittrick Museum Diphtheria Exhibit, guest curated by Cicely Schonberg, BS, from Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. Accessed September 18, 2024 at Deadly Diphtheria: the children’s plague – Dittrick Medical History Center (case.edu).
• Chase, A. W. Dr. Chase’s Third, Last and Complete Receipt Book and Household Physician on Practical Knowledge for the People. F. B. Dickerson & Co: Detroit, Michigan, 1888. Book housed in archive at the Snoqualmie Valley Historical Museum.
• “A Cure for Diphtheria.” The Seattle Post Intelligencer. Volume 17, No. 52. December 22, 1889. Page 8, Column 2. Seattle, Washington. Washington Digital Newspapers. Accessed September 18, 2024 at The Seattle Post-intelligencer 22 December 1889 — Washington Digital Newspapers.
• “Diphtheria at Fall City.” The Seattle Post Intelligencer. Volume 15, No. 63. January 20, 1889. Page 8, Column 3. Seattle, Washington. Washington Digital Newspapers. Accessed September 18, 2024 at The Seattle Post-intelligencer 20 January 1889 — Washington Digital Newspapers.
• Fall City Cemetery. Cemetery Rd, Fall City, Wa 98024, United States, King, WA 98024.
• Klass, Perri. “How Science Conquered Diphtheria, The Plague Among Children.” Smithsonian Magazine. October, 2021. Accessed September 18, 2024 at: How Science Conquered Diphtheria, the Plague Among Children | Smithsonian (smithsonianmag.com).
• Janicke, John. “Fall City Diphtheria Outbreak Letter to Editor.” 017.067.A.B. May 17, 1889. Archived at Snoqualmie Valley Historical Museum. North Bend, Washington.
• Obituary. James Allen. “Our Valley Pioneers” scrapbook. Archived at Snoqualmie Valley Historical Museum.
• Rutherford Family Genealogy. Page 20. Aisle 6, Column 3, Shelf 4. Archived at Snoqualmie Valley Historical Museum. North Bend, Washington.
• “The Snoqualmie Sickness.” The Seattle Post Intelligencer. Volume 17, No. 59. December 29, 1889. Page 8, Column 1. Seattle, Washington. Washington Digital Newspapers. Accessed September 18, 2024 at The Seattle Post-intelligencer 29 December 1889 — Washington Digital Newspapers.
• “What is the History of Diphtheria in America and other Countries?” National Vaccine Information Center. July 19, 2024. Accessed September 18, 2024: History of Diphtheria – National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC).
• Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology. “Vapo-Cresolene Vaporizer.” Accessed October 9, 2024. https://www.woodlibrarymuseum.org/museum/vapo-cresolene-vaporizer/.
[Featured Image: James and Viola Allen with their daughters, likely taken around 1905. James and Viola lost their two young sons shortly after their arrival to Snoqualmie Valley in 1889. PO.308.0095.]
