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Thesis for the Degree of Ph. D.
MICHIGAN STATE UNWERSJTY
DUNCAN R. MMiESON
19.71

 

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TOWARDS A CLEANER NEW YORK

JOHN H. GRISCOM AND NEW YORK'S PUBLIC HEALTH
1830-1870

presented by

Duncan R. Jamieson

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ABSTRACT
TONRRDS A.CLEANER NEW YORK

JOHN H. GRISCOM AND NEU'YORK'S PUBLIC HEALTH
1830-1870

BY

Duncan R. Jamieson

In the years before the discovery of the germ theory, public
health was in the hands of environmental sanitarians, such as John
H. Griscom (1809-1874). For the four decades following his graduation
from medical school in 1831, Griscom actively campaigned to improve
living conditions for New York City's laboring classes who were trapped
in foul tenements and cellar residences. His concern for the poor extend-
ed to the immigrant (he was Genera1.Agent of the New York Board of
Commissioners of Emigration from 1848 until 1851) and the prisoner (he
was an active member of the New York PrisonHAssociation for twenty-
five years).

‘Most of Griscom's activity was directed towards improvement of
the health laws of New York; As a result of his efforts, the foundation
was laid for passage of the Metropolitan Health Billin 1866, a major
advancement in health legislation. Indeed, Griscom's sanitary survey
of 1842, expanded and delivered as a lecture in 1844, can be seen as
the beginnings of the agitation for improved health laws. In a broader
sense, this report is the first sanitary survey of any major American
city, and it was eight years earlier than the more celebrated sanitary
report prepared by Lemuel Shattuck.

Griseom's work fits within the scope of the humanitarian reform
carried on during the Jacksonian period. Public health reform, as seen

by Griscom, was just another manifestation of the Benthamite philosophy,

Duncan R. Jamieson

"the greatest good for the greatest number." A healthy place in which
to live was as necessary to the laborer as were higher wages and better
working conditions. Tenement-house reform was as important, if not as
popular, as women's rights or temperance. It was Dr. Griscom's conten-
tion that improvement of the working man's living conditions would
reduce crime, vice and intemperance.

In another sense, if James Penimore Cooper, speaking of man's
"wasty ways" through Natty Bumppo, is an early American environmentalist,
then Griscom can also be considered a part of the American conservation
movement. He was concerned with pure air and water, open spaces for
recreation, and cleaning up the urban scene. In short,he actively
tried to end the urban blight. He was acutely aware of the problems
which separated man from his natural surroundings, and reduced his life
expectancy in the process. Destruction of human life from pollution was
not as serious a problem in his life-time, but bad air and fetid water
killed or maimed hundreds of New York's poor each year.

The major results of Griscom's activity were improved laws--
the Metropolitan Health Act, steerage laws, tenement-house laws, and
laws providing for the registration of vital statistics--and a growing
awareness on the part of the general public that the poorer sections
of the city were becoming increasingly uninhabitable. By keeping the
problems before the public, Griscom hoped to put an end to the graft
and spoils that allowed them to grow and flourish. I

While there is a scarcity of secondary sources that deal directly
with this subject, primary material is available in abundance. There
are a number of medical journals, many of them published in New York.
These included Griscom's own writings and reviews of those writings
in addition to articles and reports from other leading sanitarians.

Griscom also wrote several books and pamphlets related to public health.

Duncan R. Jamieson
Reports and minutes from the leading medical associations, city, state,
and federal documents and the major New York newspapers also contain

a wealth of information related to New York's public health.

TowARDs A CLEANER NEW YORK
JOHN H. GRIscou AND NEW YORR'S PUBLIC HEALTH
1830-1870
By ;

Duncan R.’r Jamieson

A THESIS

Submitted to .
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of History

1971

/'\

(4;;

© Copyright by
DUNCAN ROBERT JAMIESON
1972

PREFACE

If it is true that the strength of a state rests with its
people, then all those conditions which significantly affect the
people are of importance and of consequence to the historian. Within
this context, the steadily deteriorating condition of the public's
health in mid-nineteenth century New York.City is of more than passing
interest to the historian concerned withlAmerica's cities, their health,
and the intellectual attitudes of the day.

One approach to this question is to choose a key figure and
examine his role and his contribution to the alleviation of the pre-
dicament under study. Such a figure was John H. Griscom (1809-1874),
perhaps the single most important physician-reformer in pre-germ theory
American public health. This is true because of his broad based
concern for the people of the lower classes. Whereas others made con-
tributions as important as Griscom's in some of the areas in which he
was interested, none of his associates were involved in as many acti-
vities aimed at improving the condition of the laboring classes.

In a study such as this, it is important for the reader to remember
that medical terminology, theory, and practice then in vogue is, in
most cases, no longer acceptable to the medical world. Unless speci-
fically mentioned to be otherwise, all medical concepts are those to
which John H. Griscom subscribed. Griscom's significance, then, lies
not with his treatment of yellow fever or cholera, but with his ideas
on the causes and modes of prevention of these and other epidemic and
endemic diseases. He thought, for example, that if the tenement dis-

tricts were cleaned up many of the problems faced by the poor could be eased.

1

ii

In preparing this study, I am indebted to many people. Professor
Douglas T. Miller acquainted me with Griscom and his work, and has
directed this project from the beginning. His several readings of the
manuscript and subsequent suggestions have been invaluable. Professors
Harry Brown and'Marjorie Gesner have also read the entire manuscript
with care and offered much help. Dr. Norman McCullough, of the Depart-
ment of Microbiology and Public Health, helped me in understanding pre-
germ theory public health.

Librarians at Michigan State, the University of Michigan, the
New York Public Library and the New York Historical Society were all,
very kind, as were the librarians at the National Library of Medicine
in Bethesda, Maryland, and the assistant archivists at the American
Medical Association's library in Chicago. The entire staff of the
New York.Academy of Medicine was very gracious, especially Mrs. Alice
Weaver, in the Molloch Rare Book Room. In addition to making a great
deal of material available,‘Mrs. Weaver directed me toward sources
of which I was unaware.

For patiently typing the final manuscript I am deeply indebted
to Colleen Platt.

Among other things, Merri Jamieson has helped by doing research,
reading chapters, listening to ideas, and offering innumerable suggestions.

Mostly she has helped by being a great wife.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

AJMS . . . . . . . . . . American Journal of the Medical Sciences
AMA . . . . . . . . . . American Medical Association

AMG . . . . . . . . . . American Medical Gazette

AMM . . . . . . . . . . American Medical Monthly

AMT . . . . . . . . . . American Medical Times

BHM . . . . . . . . . . Bulletin of the History of Medicine

CE . . . . . . . . . . . Commissioners of Emigration .

FLIN . . . . . . . . . . Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper

JHM . . . . . . . . . . Journal of the History of Medicine

JID . . . . . . . . . . Journal of Infectious Diseases

JLIH . . . . . . . . . . Journal of Long Island History

JPD . . . . . . . . . . Journal of Prison Discipline

MSNY . . . . . . . . . . Medical Society of New York

MSR . . . . . . . . . . Medical and Surgical Reporter

‘MVHR . . . . . . . . . . Mississippi Valley Historical Review
NAMCR . . . . . . . . . North American Medico Chirugical Review
NAR . . . . . . . . . . North American Review

NUMSR . . . . . . . . . New Jersey Medical and Surgical Reporter
MIC . . . . . . . . . . National Medical Convention

NQSC . . . . . . . . . . National Quarantine and Sanitary Convention
NWR . . . . . . . . . . Niles Weekly Register

NYAM . . . . . . . . . . New York Academy of Medicine

NYH . . . . . . . . . . New York Hospital

NYJMCS . . . . . . . . . New York Journal of Medicine and the Collateral

Sciences
iii

NYMGJH
NYMI .
NYMT .
NYPA .
WJM .

WJMS .

iv
New ;York Medical Gazette and Journal of Health
New York Medical Independent
New York Medical Times
New York Prison Association
Western Journal of Medicine

Western Journal of Medicine and Surgery

CHAPTER

I.

VI.
VII.
VIII.

APPENDIX I

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The Need for Reform: Immigration . . .
The Need for Reform: Tenements . . . .
Nuisances and Their Abatement . . . . .
Diseases--and Their Control . . . . . .

Griscom and the Metropolitan Health Bill

Griscom and the New York Prison Association

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

APPENDIX II 0 O O O O O O O O O O I O O O O O O O O

B 1311 IOGRAPHIC‘ ESSAY O O O O O C O O O O I O O O O O

20
54
96
141
192
236
274
287

290

. 294

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

Here and there may be seen a

solitary devotee, earnestly

engaged in his sanitary and

statistical labors, unaided

and alone. Wilson Jewell,‘M.D.

The office of City Inspector of New‘York City, chiefly concerned

with the public health, was established in 1807 by an act of the State
Legislature. The office remained relatively unchanged until 1842, when
the Common Council appointed a young New York physician to the post.
John H. Griscom, who had received his‘M.D. degree eleven years earlier
from the‘Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania, took
his job so seriously that he was removed from office and replaced by
one not so concerned with reform. The expulsion.was directly attri-
butable to two reports in.which Griscom outlined a plan to reorganize
the health department. For two years after his ejection Griscom gathered
evidence on the insalubriousness of New’York, which he presented to
the Common Council in 1844. The Council, however, returned the report
to its author because "they do not think it proper at this time, to go
into such a measure." Undaunted, Griscom delivered his report to an

enthusiastic audience at the Repository of the American Institute. Thus

was aired the first sanitary survey of a major American city.1

I
During the earlier part of the present century, it was generally
believed that the public health movement in the United States began with

1

2
the discovery and application of the germ theory of disease. Joseph
Lister's discoveries in aseptic surgery reached the United States shortly
after the Civil War. About this same period the American Public Health
Association was founded (1871). This was only five years after the
Metropolitan Health Bill,.America's first comprehensive health bill,
was passed by the New York.Legislature. The improvements in the sanitary
condition of the population in the years before the germ theory were
relegated to the position of "environmental sanitation." This inter-
pretation of the public health movement was challenged in the early
1940's when Iago Galdston argued that it was rooted in the humanist
philosOphy which brought about revision of the English poor laws in
the 1830's. According to this thesis, public health was:
dedicated to the ferreting out and to the removal of all
the disease producing factors, be they noxious working
conditions, long work hours, inadequate wages, bad
housing, contaminated food and water, ignorance, in-
temperance or illiteracy.
According to Galdston, public health reform first appeared in the
United States when John H. Griscom advanced changes to improve the
health of preaCivil War New YorkCity.2
Dr. Griscom was motivated in his efforts to help the poor by
several different forces, but the primary influence was that of Edwin
Chadwick, the English sanitary reformer and disciple of Jeremy Bentham.
On July 9, 1842, sanitary reform was given a lift when Chadwick presented

his Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labourinngopulation of

Great Britain to the House of Lords. It had taken Chadwick several

 

years and a "small army of local investigators" to gather the evidence;
indeed, he began working on sanitary reform in 1834 when he was appointed
a Poor Law Comiss ioner. The influence of Chadwick upon Griscom is
obvious when one considers the title of the latter's 1845 report: The

Sanitary Condition of the LaboringlPopulation of New‘York. In it

3
Griscom referred to the "celebrated report of Mr. Chadwick. . . ."
Chadwick's influence can also be seen in the fact that Griscom used
the information supplied, upon request, by the ward missionaries of
the City Tract Society in the same way Chadwick had used the reports
of the Assistant Poor Law Commissioners. Furthermore, Griscom's
New York activity was mentioned by Chadwick in his Supplementary Report
on the Results of a Spiecal [sigl inquiry into the Practice of Inter-

ments in Towns. In this addition to his earlier report Chadwick.wrote

 

that he had received a capy of Griscom's Sanitary Condition. For
Griscom to copy Chadwick's style and then send a copy of the New York
report to him is indicative of the esteem.Griscom had for Chadwick.3

Another individual to sway Griscom toward reform was his father,
John Griscom. John Griscom the elder was a well-known educator and
reformer who took charge of his son's early education. Later, when
the son began his medical career, be commenced by reading medicine in
the offices of Valentine Mott and John Godman--both distinguished
medical men and both close friends of the elder Griscom. It is more
than simple coincidence that both Griscoms were active in prison reform
and public health. Obviously the concerns of the father for those less
fortunate were passed on to the son.4

Besides the influence of Edwin Chadwick, and his father John
Griscom, John H. Griscom was a product of his age. The beginnings of
his medical education coincided with the beginnings of the humanitarian
reform movement in the United States. He wrote his first article on the
evils of immigration when the societies in favor of peace, abolition,
temperance, and women's rights were coming to the fore. Throughout the
remainder of the pre-Civil War period Griscom continued his reform
activities while the other groups grew in prestige and numbers. While

William Lloyd Garrison sought to bring about the end of slavery and the

4

Locofocos tried to improve the condition of New York's laborers, Griscom
was involved'with reforms aimed at easing the condition of the poor,
whether they be immigrants crossing the Atlantic, prisoners in.Auburn,
or tenants in the Five Points.5

To any list of nineteenth century reform movements must be added
public health reform. It was Dr. Griscom's belief that people who were
struggling for life in some dark hovel could not be interested in
ending capital punishment. Griscom urged society to first improve basic
living conditions for the masses and then strive to improve the rights
of prisoners or women. The root of the problem was in the back court,
the flooded cellar, or the windowless apartment on the top floor of a
firetrap. Inadequate housing resulted in intemperance and in crimes
that might ultimately lead to capital punishment. The excessive rents
which were charged forced the husband to send his wife and children out
in search of work. Griscom saw a vicious cycle, and he stoutly main-
tained that if the root evil was eliminated other problems would be
easier to treat.6

Insofar as the conservation movement involved itself with the
purity of urban life, Griscom can be aligned with the early ecologists.
While men like Henry David Thoreau and JohnfiMuir extolled the beauties
of the wilderness, Griscom attempted to improve urban conditions. ‘Qggg
and Abuses of Air, his pioneering work on the nature of ventilation and
the importance of pure air to the human system, examined man's relation-
ship to his environment. Griscom clearly understood that man could
not continually pollute the earth, expecting no harmful results. It
was quite obvious to him that the problems plaguing the urbanites resulted
from careless disregard for the laws of nature. ‘Man was a part of his
surroundings, Crisco-ithought, and-not distinct from it; poor ventilation,

therefore, would have a deleterious effect on.a man's health. It was

5
nature's plan that waste from the body be separated from it, yet by
confining himself to a small, virtually airless apartment for many
hours at a time, the individual was constantly in close proximity to
his exhalations. Griscom repeatedly stated that the tenant must open
the windows of his apartment (assuming there were windows) and bring
in the air from the outside to live a full and healthy life.7
Ventilation would be of value only if the air on the outside
was cleaner and less offensive than that inside the tenement. Such
purity could be achieved two ways, according to Griscom. First, the
free exchange of air must not be impeded by tall buildings, narrow
streets and alleys, cul-de-sacs, or structures erected too close to
each other. Next, Griscom realized that it was much easier to keep the
air clean by avoiding obvious nuisances than it was to try and clean
it after it was polluted. But since the atmosphere in the poorer
‘wards was already fouled, this type of action would only work in those
areas which were not yet overbuilt. Remedial action, to improve the
condition of the overpopulated wards must be combined with careful
urban planning to avoid nuisances in the future. Only by such a two-
pronged attack could the environment of New‘York be improved.8
Improving the quality of air in lower New'York required major
changes in land use. As long as slaughter houses, pig sties, gas
works, and other noxious establishments were interspersed with residen-
ces there could be no significant improvement. Griscom suggested that
certain sections of the city be set aside for such places and that
they be confined to those areas. Slaughter-houses, for example, were
to be located near rivers where the waste‘material could be easily
removed. While the removal of nuisances from areas of dense pepulation
would ease the situation, over population was a more important, and

harder to solve, problem. Crowding reduced the quality of life in

6
direct proportion to the numbers involved. More people created more
waste which caused more pollution. To Griscom the answer was simple
enough--reduce the number of people per unit of land. Putting this
into practice was difficult at best; land values and the need of the
worker to be close to his place of employment made changing the pattern
of urban overcrowding more complicated.9
To Griscom the belief in the improvement and possible perfection
of man presented a solution to the problems of pollution and over-
crowding. The spirit of perfectionism*was evident in the various reform
movements of the day, and Griscom was probably as interested in the
perfection of man as most other reformers. Yet he was also aware of
the feelings of anxiety and concern.which were brought on by a rapidly
changing society. Griscom held that science, especially that branch
of science concerned with the health and welfare of the individual,
was moving in the direction of ulthmate perfection, but that the fears
and anxieties of the age threatened its achievement. In 1854 he said:
If in its progress towards its establishment and perfection,
true science meets with an occasional traitorous or Know-
Nothing interruption, its votaries will still move forward
on the great errand of human health and life, enlarging
its borders, and strengthening its stakes. . . .10
11
As the influx of workers to the city and the immigration from
abroad rapidly swelled the urban populations, decent housing became
scarce. Between 1830 and 1860, the population of New York.mnre than
quadrupled. Charles Dickens, in his.kmerican Notes, vividly described
the kind of housing Griscom‘was to combat as city inspector. Dickens
‘wrote of the Five Points:
This is the place, these narrow ways, diverting to the
right and left,and reeking everywhere with dirt and filth.

Such lives as are led here, bear the same fruits here as
elsewhere. The coarse and bloated faces at the doors have

7

counterparts at home, and all the wide world over.

Debauchery has made the very houses prematurely old.

See how the rotten beams are tumbling down, and how

the patched and broken windows seem to scowl dimly,

like eyes that have been hurt in drunken frays.11

Those portions of the city allotted to the working classes, as

Dickens noted, were desperately in need of improvement. Streets were
piled high with garbage and tenements were filthy and unsafe. The
slum districts bred crime, disease, immorality, and intemperance,
and, as might be expected, the life expectancy of the inhabitants was
notably shorter than in other parts of the city. Griscom devoted his
time and energy for the forty years of his public career to regions
like New York's Five Points. He reported on the poor living conditions
of those who were unable to afford decent accomodations; his activity
helped bring about theiMetropolitan Health Bill in 1866. While the
actual health bill that created the board was written by Stephen Smith
and Dorman Eaton, it was based on more than twenty years activity by
Griscom. As early as the 1840's Griscom had appealed to the Legislature
to create a more efficient health commission for New York.City and its
environs. Philip van Ingen stated, in his history of the New”York
Academy of Medicine, that in 1861 the Academy adopted Dr. Griscom's
resolution calling for a committee to approach the Legislature on the
subject of the health bill. "This was the beginning of the effort
which resulted in the establishment of the‘Hetropolitan.Board of Health."
The writer of Griscom's obituary in the‘Medical Register want even
further:

After twenty years of untiring zeal, it afforded him

great pleasure to see the passage of the present Health

Law by the Legislature, which placed the sanitary super-

vision of the city and its surrounding territory, in the

hands of medical'men.12

Filth was only one of several causes of the extremely high

‘mortality in New York City. The pre-Civil war period saw mortality

8
rates of most cities declining while New York's death rate kept

climbing. The 1850 mortality figures for four port cities were:

New York 1 death per 33.52 residents
Philadelphia 1 per 37.84
Boston 1 per 37.84
Baltimore 1 per 36.19

In 1857 the rates were as follows:

New York 1 death per 27.15 residents
Philadelphia 1 per 44. 05
Boston ‘ l per 39.88
Baltimore 1 per 36.19

The figures show the mortality rate improved slightly in Boston and
significantly in Philadelphia, while it remained the same in Baltimore
and deteriorated in New York. It was pointed out that New York had
nearly reached the death rate of 1650 London. Among the reasons for
this rise in the death rate were overcrowding, filth in the streets,
badly ventilated tenements, cellar residences, and the system of
sub-tenantage, which removed the owner from direct concern for his
buildings. A sub-landlord would pay the real owner a yearly rent, and
would then collect the rent from the tenants and take care of the
buildings. Not owning them, however, he had no concern for their up-
keep. Incompetent administrators in the Health Department were the
primary reason for the rise in the mortality rate. While other cities
gave control of the health to the medical profession, New York maintained
the spoils system and an unprofessional health department. Replacing
the alderman on the Board of Health with physicians who could stem the
rising tide of disease was Dr. Griscom's basic health reform. Only
then could the filth be removed, the rsub-landlords‘ forced to improve
the tenements, and stricter laws governing ventilation be passed.13
Throughout his forty year career John H. Griscom was associated
with many New York organisations. Among the more important was the New

York Academy of Medicine. Griscom was one of the charter masters in

9

1846 and continued his membership until his death in 1874. He also
belonged to the New“York.Association for Improving the Condition of the
Poor, and was responsible for its First Repgrt of a Committee on the
Sanitary Conditions of the Labourigg Classes in the City oe [sicl
New‘York1‘With Remedial Suggestions. He submitted reports to the
Nationa1.Medica1 Convention of 1847, having been chosen chairman of two
key committees at the 1846 meeting. This was the predecessor of the
American Medical Association, to which Griscom was a delegate and an
active'member for several years. He was elected to permanent member-
ship in the Medical Society of the State of New York in 1860. He
served as Genera1.Agent of the Commissioners of Emigration from 1848
until 1851 when he was forced to retire because of ill health. He
was one of the early members of the New'York Prison.Association, and
served in several key offices of that organization. He was a founder
of the New York Sanitary.Association, and the New York Association for
the.Advancement of Science and.Art. He was active in the New'York
Medical and Surgical Society, the New‘York Pathological Society, the
New York Physicians Mutual Aid Society, and the Social Science Assoc-
iation. One of his most important roles was President of the Third
National Quarantine and Sanitary Convention, held in 1859. Finally,
he was associated with the Juvenile Reformatory and the Home for the
Friendless.14

Membership in so many organizations involved Griscom in a mmber
of reform at one time-~notab1y prison reform, migration reform, and
improvement of the sanitary condition of New“York, which was constantly
on his mind. From 1848 until 1851, for example, he served as General
Agent for the Commissioners of Emigration. During his tenure in
office he personally visited 7,000 cases of ship fever (typhus) out

of 20, 000 that were under his supervision. Finally succumbing to

10 ‘

typhus himself he was temporarily forced to give up his work. While
he was General Agent, he was also on the Prison Discipline Comittee of
the New York Prison Association. In 1849 his book, Uses and Abuses of
_A__i_r, was published in New York. During this same period Griscom was a
member of the New York Academy's Standing Comittee on Public Health
and Legal Medicine, and its Connittee on Chemistry and Pharmacy. In
1848 he served a comittee on the question of the healthfulness of
swill milk (milk produced by cows fed on distillery slop), especially
in relation to infants and children. In 1849 he was chairman of a
special comittee to procure a charter for the NYAM and the next year
he was elected to its Board of Trustees. It was in 1848 that Griscom
presented to the newly formed American Medical Association his report
on the sanitary condition of New York City (at the preceding meeting
he had been elected to the Comittee of Public Hygiene). Hard work
and dedication are certainly indicated by his activity in this three
year period; it would also seem to indicate a definite connitment to
carrying out the humanitarian philosophy of the day.15

Later in his career, in 1864, Griscom was again active in many
different reforms. During that year he was one of a team of three men
sent to inspect sixty-eight prisons in western New York. This was also
the year he wrote his article on the "Phys iological and Dietetic
Relations of Phosphorus." The Citizens Association, a group concerned
with the ilprovement of the public health, called upon Dr. Griscom to
aid in the struggle to make New York a healthier place in which to live.
During the late spring he took an active part in the NYAM discussion of
typhus andspinal meningitis. Finally, he was an active participant at
both the American Medical Association meeting and the meeting of the

Medical Society of :the State of New York. He was also a practicing

ll

physician, with a family practice that would have kept him fairly busy
by itself. In this year, as in most years of his adult life, Griscom
was actively campaigning for the rights of others in many different
areas. 15

Dr. Griscom's proposed reforms were always based on his under-
standing of medicine and medical science. In pre-germ theory days (it
can be safely said that Griscom never heard of Joseph Lister or the
germtheory) diseases were thought to be caused by the mountains of filth
that daily grew 1atget. Griscom, .. did his associates, thought that
while the effluvium that rose from the noxious emanations of swamps was
bad for the health of the masses, the general filth of the streets
was infinitely more harmful to health:

. At all seasons of the year, there. is an amount of sick-
ness and death in this, as in all large cities, far
beyond those of less densely peopled places . . . proving
conclusively that the congregation of animal and vegetable
matters, with their constant effluvia, which has less
chance to escape from the premises, in proportion to
the absence of free circulation of air, is detrimental
to the health of the inhabitants.

Small pox, cholera, typhus, diarrhoea, dysentery, and malaria were
among the diseases that arose from the miasma of putrefying garbage

in the street, from the filth that collected in the hallways, from the
human excrement that oozed from privies located in already filthy
courtyards, and from the rank air of poorly ventilated apartments.
(Yellow fever, Griscom thought, could not arise in New York unless

the seeds were first introduced from the South.) Consumption, the most
canon affliction of the tenement dweller, was caused, so the miasmists
thought, by the codained evils of dampness and vitiated air. The
miasmist theory included the "shears of fate ," a theory applied to

many of the zymotic (epidemic) diseases. One shear represented

atmospheric conditions, which when combined with the other shear of

12
filth in the streets, created the proper environment for all manner
of diseases. Griscom accepted the shears analogy in some cases
(cholera) and rejected it in others (yellow fever).17

Griscom argued, then, that the answer to the problem of urban
disease was a thorough cleansing of the tenement districts and a con-
centrated effort to maintain cleanliness. By today's standards, of
course, such action would only be peripherally helpful-~the real answer
would be control of the micro-organisms that directly resulted in the
various diseases. Such clean-ups however did deprive the more pre-
valent diseases of breeding grounds. Also, Griscom was close to the
truth when he urged drier surroundings for consumption victims. His
real significance, however, goes deeper than this; it rests on Griscom's
basic assumptions that every human being, regardless of his station
in life, was entitled to a clean, healthful place in which to live,
work, and raise a family. Underlying all this, Griscom demanded that
the laboring classes be treated with dignity, which included clean
ships for immigrants, spacious airy apartments, parks and trees, and
for those who broke the law, a place of confinement where they could
be rehabilitated and not broken in body and spirit. Among public
health reformers of the day--John Bell, Isaac Wood, Wilson Jewell,
Elisha Harris, and Lemmel Shattuck to name a few--Griscom was the only
one who took a broad view of the subject, and dealt with man in his
several relations to society.

Though an active lecturer, Griscom's most useful tool was the
written.word. Of his style Samuel Francis wrote: "as a writer‘he is
full, bold, statistical, and at times facetious. He is successful in
making his hearers understand that which he has comprehended." Francis
‘might also have said Griscom was prolific; in his career he published

over 110 articles, books, letters, official reports, and reviews. Be

13
was also a witness before two important legislative comittees--one
on public health convened by the State of New York, the other on
imigrant shipping convened by the United States Congress. With few

exceptions, his printed letters were editorials to the New Jersey

 

Medical and SuLLical Reporter, under the pseudonym "J. Gotham, Jr."
His writings are on varied subjects, from theories on the Gulf Stream
to the'evils of swill milk; but most of them fall under the heading of
medicine and public health. In his article on Dr. Griscom, Samuel
Francis was very incomplete in recording the work of Griscom; fewer
than half of Griscom's articles, reviews and reports are among those

listed.18

III

Virtually nothing is known of the early life of John H. Griscom.
He was born August 14, 1809, in New York City, the son of John and
Abigail Griscom, both strict adherents of the Friends Church. The
boy's mother died when he was six, the victim of puerperal fever after
giving birth to her eighth child. Young Griscom was primarily educated
in his father's schools, except for the year the elder Griscom was in
Europe (1818), when he went to his uncle's school in New Jersey. The
elder Griscom's schools were run on the monitorial system, and young
John was a teacher there before he graduated in 1827.

After graduation, the younger Griscom entered the office of
John D. Godman to study medicine. He stayed there until Godman, a
professor of anatomy at Rutger's Medical College, was forced to retire
because of ill health. Griscom then studied in the office of Valentine
Mott, a leading New York surgeon, also a professor at Rutger's. In
addition to this private study, Griscom enrolled for the standard two

courses of lectures at the Rutger's Medical School. (It was customary

14

for the young man seeking medical education to study in the office of
a practicing physician and then complete his education by attending a
medical college. There were, of course, many physicians who never
bothered with the medical school and entered practice after "interning"
in an office. Further, there were any number of irregular practitioners,
or quacks. The regular student would attend two courses of lectures;
there was too mmch to digest in just one term and the shortage of
trained instructors made it necessary for the student to take the same
courses twice.) Griscom did not receive his M.D. degree from Rutger's
as political maneuvering closed the school before he could graduate.19

After leaving Rutger's, Griscom entered the Medical Department
of the University of Pennsylvania. During the first half of the
nineteenth century the Pennsylvania medical school was the "most
influential school in the country." He attended two full courses of
lectures at Pennsylvania. Their lecture program began the first Monday
in November and ended early the following March. To be admitted to
their medical department it was necessary to be twenty-one years of age,
and to have been the private pupil of a practicing physician for at
least two years. Students received instruction in six basic areas:
"anatomy, institutes and practice of physic and clinical medicine,
materia medics and pharmacy, chemistry, surgery, midwifery and the dis-
seas of women and children." In addition, the student was expected
to attend at least one course of clinical instruction at an approved
institution. Finally, he prepared an original thesis on a medical
subject and defended it before the faculty. Griscom's thesis on the
"Apocynum Cannabinum" was printed in the American Journal of the
Medical Sciences. He dealt with its use as a diuretic and hydragogue
cathartic in the cure of dropsy, and the article was later "quoted

as authority in WOOD & BACHE'S Dispensatory."20

15

From March until the new term began in November the young medical
student did clinical work at New York Hospital. He worked with some
of the leading physicians and surgeons of the day, including David
Hosack, Joseph M. Smith, Thomas Cock, Stephen Brown, and F. W. Johnston.
Upon graduation he was a resident physician at New York Hospital for
six months; then in 1833 he left to become the assistant physician to
the New York Dispensary, becoming the dispensary physician in 1834.

He refused, at that time, to fill the chair of chemistry at Columbia
College, in.Waahington D.C. In April of that year he delivered a
course of lectures on natural philosophy and chemistry in New‘York.
The lectures were "repeated the following years, in consequence of
their favorable reception."21

Unable to establish a private practice Griscom bought the "good
will" of a retiring physician.who had practiced in New*York's Seventh
Ward. This was a family practice, the most respectable type a
physician could undertake. He was contracted to treat the illnesses
of families for a pre-determined period of time, at the expiration of
which the contract could be renewed. It was during this period that
he married a daughter of the artist Rembrandt Peale. They had nine
children, eight of whom survived infancy.”

For two years after he purchased the practice, Griscom continued
his lectures on chemistry. In 1836 he was elected Professor of Chemistry
at the College of Pharmacy in New York, resigning in 1838. He continued
to lecture on varied subjects throughout his career; indeed, a number
of his articles and papers were first presented to the public in the

form of lectures.23

IV

With the passage of the Metropolitan Health Bill in.1866,

Griscom seemed to slow down; his major concern was finally fulfilled.

16
The year before its passage he had been quite ill, and had sailed to
Europe to rest and recover. (Even though the trip was for rehabilitation,
he made observations on the hospitals of Paris and London and studied
their treatment of cholera.) During the rest of the decade his activity
lessened, until 1869, when he wrote his last pamphlet, On the Physics;
Indications of Loggevigy. He continued to see patients until 1873 when
his name appeared in the Medical Register with no office hours listed,
indicating he had gone into retirement. He died the following year,
in the Bloomingdale Insane Asylum, a part of the New York Hospital,
with which he had been associated for many years. The death certifi-
cate mentioned anaemia and intestinal hemorrhage as the causes of
death, although at least one obituary mentioned softening of the brain.
As the death certificate was filled out inaccurately, there is no way
to ascertain how long he was a patient at Bloomingdale. Griscom left
an estate valued at less than $10, 000 to his widow and children. He
was quietly buried in the New York Meeting section of the Friends

Cemetery in Brooklyn. 24

CHAPTER I MES

1Johu Duffy, a ill-tog of Public Health in New York Cig,_1625-
1866 (New York, 1968), 297. Samuel W. Francis, "Biographical Sketches
of Distinguished Living New York Physicians ,"jgee, XV (Aug. 4, 1866),
118-22.

21ago Galdston, "Emanism and Public Health," 3m, VIII (July,
1940), 1034- 36. In 1924 a biography of William T. Sedgwick appeared,
entitled A Pioneer of Public Health. The authors wrote that when
Sedgwick began his career in the 1870's "the modern public health
movement was still in its infancy." They went on to state that only
in England had the foundations been laid. The pre-Civil War period
was described as the period of the sanitarian who was "almost wholly
concerned with the problems of the non-living environment. " This is
only partially true, because Griscom, who was a sanitarian, was inti-
mately concerned with man in relation to his environment, whereas
imediately after the discovery of the germ theory, public health
was predominantly interested with physical problems, and not with man
in relation to his environment. As Galdston pointed out, however,
the pendulum was swinging back toward the center where science and
humanism would be joined. Galdston, "Humanism," assim. E. 0. Jordan,
G. C. Whipple, C. E. A. Winslow, A Pioneer of Public Health (New Haven,
1924), 3-13.

3Edwin Chadwick, Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labour-
_gg Papulation of Great Britain, ed. by M. W. Flynn (Edinburgh, 1965),
1,47. John H. Griscom, J_T1_le Sanitary Condition of the Laboring Popu-
lation of New York, with Slgggtions for its Impgovement (New York,
1845), 21. Edwin Chadwick, A Sjelementary Report on the Results of a
Spiecal |sic| Inguirz into the Practice of Interment in Towns (London,
1843), 122, 253- 54.

“John H. Griscom, Memoir of John Griscom, l..L._D. (New York, 1859),
158-59, 167-82, 219-22, 228-31. Francis, "Distinguished," 118. The
Griscom family were Quakers, and the Friends had some influence on the
doctor, but how much is debatable. In their article, "Pietism and Public
Health: A Note on John H. Griscom and Robert M. Hartley," _Jm_, XXIII
(Jan. , 1968), 16-35, Charles E. and Carroll S. Rosenberg contend that
public health reform got under way because of the religious backgrounds
of Griscom and Hartley. While this is in part true, in reference to
Griscom at least his scientific training and the activity in England
were of more importance than his Quaker background. Griscom's reforms
were always within the bounds of his scientific training; he never,
for example, argued in favor of higher wages to improve the living
conditions of the laborer because this was not within the scope of
his work.

5John H. Griscom, "Notice of a Malignant Disease Generated on

Shipboard by Filth, Imperfect Ventilation, etc." A148, XII (May,
1833), 272-73.

17

18

6John H. Griscom, Sanitary Condition, passim. John H. Griscom,
Anniversary_Discourse Before the New York Acadeely of Medicine, November

22, 1854 (New York, 1855), passim. John H. Griscom, Sanitary Legislation,
Past, and Future: The Value of Sanitag Reform, and the True Principles
for its Attainment (New York, 1861), assim.

7John H. Griscom, Uses and Abuses of Air (New York, 1850, 1971),
passim.

'3These concepts appear in all of Griscom's major works.

9Griscom, Uses and Abuses, 229—1.“!-

10Griscom, Anniversary Mcourse, 57-58.

11Charles Dickens, American Notes (Gloucester, Mass., 1968), 108.

12Stephen Smith, "The History of Public Health, 1871-1921," A
Half-CenturLof Public Health, ed. Mazyck P. Ravenel (New York, 1921),
5-6. Philip Van Ingen The First Hundred TYrears (New York, 1949), 115.
E. M. Purdy, Medical Register of New jerk, New Jersey, and Connecticut
for 1874, XII (New York, 1874), 275.

13Griscom, Sanita Le islation, 15, pessim. Griscom, Sanitary
Condition, 6-7.

“Francis, "Distinguished," 120-21. "John Griscom," Appleton's
Cyclopedia of American Biography (New York, 1888), Vol. III, 2.

15Francis, "Distinguished," 120. urea, Fifth.Report, passim.
NYAM, Minutes, 1848-51, assim. James Wynne, "First Report of the
Comittee on Public Health," AMA, Transactions, II (1849), 431-44.
John H. Griscom, "Hygiene of New York City," AMA, Transactions, II
(1849), 455-58.

16nrra, ggentieth Report, 174-357. John a. Griscom, "Physio-
logical and Dietetic Relations of Phosphorus," AMA, Transactions, XV
(1864), 183-202. John H. Griscom, Repy to Citizgs Association Cossa-
ittee of Qqeiry on the Sanitary Condition of New York (New York, 1864).
MSNY, Transactions (1864), 449-73. AMA, Transactions, XV (1864) , 9-40.

”Griscom, Sanitag Condition, 2-4. John a. Griscom, A niatot ,
Chronological end Circumstantial, of the Visitations of Yellow Fever
at New York with a Supplemental Report on Yellow Fever (New York, 1858),
22-23.

13rranoia, "Distinguished," 121-22. NJMSR, IX-XI (Feb., 1856-
March, 1858) .

19rraneia, "Distinguished," 118-19.

20Ibid. "Regulations of the Medical Department," Catalog of the
University of Pennsylvania (1831), 24-36. John H. Griscom, "Observations
on the Apocynum Cannabinum," AJMS, XII (May, 1833), 55-71.

leraneia, "Distinguished," 118-19.

19
22Ibid.

23%. For example, The Sanitary Condition, Sanitary Legis-
lation, Anniversary Discourse.

241"rancis, "Distinguished," 120-21. New York City, Bureau of
Records. Purdy, Medical Register, 275.

CHAPTER II

THE NEED FOR REFORM: MIGRATION

"Give me your tired, your poor,
your huddled masses yearning to
breathe free,"

Ema Lazarus

Within two years of his graduation from medical school, Dr.
Griscom was involved in the immigration question. As a result of this
interest he was chosen in 1848 to serve as the General Agent of the New
York.Board of Commissioners of Emigration, an official body charged
with the protection of the immigrant and his rights. After three years
he contracted ship fever (typhus), which forced him to resign. Then in
1854 New‘York's senior United States Senator, Hamilton Fish, asked him
to prepare testimony for a Senate investigating committee. The Act of
'March 3, 1855, to protect immigrants during the crossing, was largely
the result of Griscom's written testimony. Frederick Xapp wrote in 1870:

Much has been done since the 1820's to alleviate the
hardships connected with sea voyages. 'The liberal
legislation of Congress, which, by the Act of‘March 3,
1855, first conceded and endeavors to secure the rights
of the emigrants by giving each of them two tons of '
space, and by providing the adequate ventilation of the
ship, as well as a sufficient amount of substantial and
cooked provisions, has done much towards preventing the
‘ahmost daily occurence of sickness and privations on
board of emigrant ships.1

I

In the early 1830's, the Dutch ship "Sybille," under the command
of a Captain Thornbill, landed at New'York. Of 132 steerage passengers,
94 had died--74 of them children. The trouble had begun before the

20

21
passengers boarded the "Sybille." The immigrants left Wittenberg on
canal boats, where they were confined to close quarters and forced to
drink canal water for the sixty-day passage to the ship. Once on
board the "Sybilla" the conditions worsened. Immigrants were pushed,
three and four, into spaces built to hold one or two. They were never
allowed on deck. The first of many to die succumbed on the second
day of the three month voyage.2
Griscom's first interest in the plight of the immigrant resulted
from the high'mortality on board this ship. In a letter to J. R. Mitchell,
a Philadelphia physician, Griscom expressed his concern over the effects
of bad food, filth, and improper ventilation on the human system. ‘While
there was an abundance of good food (a rarity on immigrant ships), he
reported that the steerage passengers ate only bread soaked in gin and
sugar; this was fed to the children as well as the adults. Of their
condition in general, Griscom wrote:
So perfectly listless and inattentive were they to their
own situation, and so much a matter of indifference was
it to them to be living or dying, that it was found
necessary to make it the duty of the crew to go down
every morning into the steerage and after first search-
ing out the corpses, and confining them to a watery
grave, to turn their attention to cleansing the living;
to do which they were obliged to lift even the females
from their beds of filth, and endeavor to relieve their
bodies from some of the dirt with which they were covered,
though without the least assistance from the poor wretches
. themselves.3
Originally it was thought that cholera caused the deaths on the
ship; Dr. Griscom, however, was not satisfied with that explanation.
None of the symptoms associated with cholera (cramps, diarrhoea, and
vomiting) were present, although the victims did complain of intense
thirst. As an alternative diagnosis he suggested that the filthy,
vermin-infested innigrants suffered from typhus. This could have been

avoided, he wrote, if they had been allowed on deck for fresh air, if

22

their quarters had been properly ventilated, and if they had kept
themselves cleaner. In defense of his theory, Griscom noted that the
officers and crew "were in excellent health during the whole time."4

A typical immigrant ship was the "Thomas Galdston," from
Londonderry. It carried between 450 and 517 passengers, all of them
confined for the nine week passage to the area below decks. The berths
were arranged lengthwise in three rows, with two three foot passageways.
{A person was obliged to eat as well as sleep in his berth. One berth
contained husband, wife and five children; another had six women.while
the one above that held five men. "These poor immigrants were fortunate
in one respect only, for the weather was fine, enabling the hatches to
be kept open; otherwise they must have all been smothered, or ravaged
by disease."5

Passengers were booked on the "Galdston," and similar ships
by agents who chartered the lower decks from the ship owner and then
arranged to sublet the steerage to immigrant associations. The alter-
native was for the agent himself to sell the space to individual
immigrants, but in either case the captain.had no interest in the
passengers. To increase his profit, the agent packed as many people
as possible on board. The ships themselves were usually the worst
afloat: "a vessel which was not good and safe enough to be used as
a transport for goods and merchandise was, nevertheless, employed for
the conveyance of passengers." (The owners reasoned that immigrant
shipping had fewer financial risks than cargo transport, because if the
immigrants were lost there were no owners demanding compensation, and
investigations were rare.6

On the early immigrant ships the conditions were equal to those
of the eighteenth century slave ships. The lower deck, where the

immigrants were confined, was less than five feet high. While the

23
average'mortality on immigrant ships was ten percent, some ships lost
twenty percent, and there were instances where thirty percent of the
passengers died before the ship left port. The immigrant shipping act
of 1819 did little to improve conditions or lower the mortality. Then
in the 1830's the situation worsened when ships were built specifically
to carry steerage passengers.7
' Throughout the nineteenth century, New‘York reigned supreme as

the immigrant's chief port of entry. Between 1820 and 1860 two-thirds
of all innigrants entered through New York; after the Civil War the
flood through Gotham reached four-fifths of the total. .Although many
immigrants entered the United States via Canada and the Saint Lawrence
River valley, New'York, Boston, and Philadelphia were the three main
entry ports for the East; in 1840 eight-five percent of their total came
through New‘York. (In 1842 Griscom reported that 75,000 immigrants
reached New‘York, which was an increase of twenty percent from 1840.)
Most iamigrants saw New York City as their goal, realizing that it was
in some way connected to the "promised land." There were cases where
captains bound for other ports were forced to first land their immigrant
cargo at New‘York.bafore being allowed to complete their voyage.8

The percentage of mortality among the New York bound passengers
was considerably higher because their numbers created more overcrowding.
Three hundred and twelve ships carried 96,500 passengers in the last
three months of 1853. From cholera alone nearly 2,000 deaths were
reported among forty-seven ships carrying 21,857 passengers. The
ships with the most overcrowded conditions were the ones with the highest
mortality.?

Griscomnreported on the passage of a particularly bad ship. On
December 22, 1848, the steamer "Londonderry" left Sligo bound for Liver-

pool and the United States. The 190 steerage passengers were confined

24

in an ‘area eighteen by twelve by seven feet high, and, because there
was a gale blowing, the crew nailed a tarpaulin over the hatch, "thus
hermetically sealing the aperature [sic], and preventing the possibil-
ity of any renewal of the exhausted atmosphere." Finally, after shrieks
for help went unheeded, one of the male passengers tore a hole in the
canvas and managed to crawl out. He sulmnoned a mate, who brought a
torch to the hold, but the air was so foul it i-ediately went out,
as did a second. After the tarpaulin was removed, and the crew went
below; "they were appalled by the discovery that the floor was covered
by dead bodies to a depth of some feet. Men, women and children were
huddled together, blackened with suffocation, distorted by convulsion,
bruised and bleeding from the desperate struggle for existence which
preceded the moment when exhausted nature resigned the strife. " In
all seventy-three were dead--more than one-third of the steerage.10

The close quarters in the steerage combined with the length of
the voyage made cleanliness almost impossible. On some ships the
captain would occasionally allow the passengers to string clothes linee.
Aboard the "North America" the crew went below and forced a steerage
family to take all their belongings on deck where the dirty things were
thrown overboard. At least twice in the first month of the same voyage
the captain ordered the steerage fumigated with tar. All too often
the steerage was never disinfected from one voyage to the next.11

Restrictions on the use of water added to the filth. Generally
three quarts per person per day were provided for drinking and bathing.
Since the only place to bathe was the open deck, the modest usually
went without bathing. Unfortunately, the laws said nothing about'the
water 's quality, and as the captains were not concerned with its

origins, it was usually fetid before the ship was far from port.

25

Frequently, the captain simply filled the casks which still contained
some of the foul water from the last voyage. Even if the caska were
emptied they were rarely, if ever, cleaned. 12

The lack of proper food caused much grief, and a number of
deaths, among the passengers. If the ship provided the food, it was
normally doled out about once a day. The average amount was one pound
of meal, usually spoiled, during the week and biscuit on the weekends.
If the immigrant provided his own food, as he often did, there were
different problems because his insufficient amounts were rarely proper-
ly prepared. By the 1820's stoves replaced the open grates that had
been used in cooking. But if the i-aigrant was sick, and without care,
he was likely to starve to death. 13

Not all inigrant ships were filthy hulks run by insensitive
captains. The "St. Vincent," a 628 ton emigrant ship active during
the 1840's, carried 240 passengers in relative comfort. The steerage
was 124 feet long and six and one-half feet high. Tables, benches and
hanging shelves were provided. A double berth was six feet long and
three feet wide; a single was the same length. but a foot narrower.
Bach berth had a seat attached to it and each was separated from the
others by partitions from top to bottom. water closets for the women
were on either side of the deck; for the men they were located on the
upper deck. Ventilation and lighting depended on scuttles (man-holes)
and bulkheads. Finally, adequate hospital facilities were provided for
both men and women. The "St. Vincent" was obviously the exception "

to the average class of innigrant ships. 1“

11
Previous to 1847 a general tax was levied on all passengers

arriving at the port of New York. This money was used for the relief

of imigrants suffering from contagious diseases; local laws had to

26
provide for the care of the immigrant should he become a public ward.
These bonds, to be paid by the ship owners, were usually avoided;
consequently no systematic care for the indigent was provided even
before the 1840's, when the heavy immigration caused the financial
collapse of the system. During the winter. of 1846-47 the fraudulent
handling of the immigrants had reached such proportions that a group
of concerned New Yorkers called for the Legislature to create a
separate agency. As a result of this agitation, an act was passed on
May 5, 1847 creating the State Board of Connissioners of Emigration.
The function of the Comission was "relief and protection of alien
emigrants arriving at the port of New York, to whose aid such emigrants
shOuld be entitled for five years after their arrival, the expense of
their establishments and other relief being defrayed by a small
consutation payment for each emigrant. "15
The General Agent was in charge of the hospitals of the Commiss-
ioners. ’ ‘To handle the sick and indigent, the Comiss ioners had taken
over the Marine Hospital and quarantine grounds on Staten Island. The
first agent, Robert Taylor, died in office shortly after his appoinmnt,
and was replaced by Dr. Griscom. Of his appointment, the Comissioners
wrote:
On the 26th of January [1848] the Commissioners appointed
John 11. Griscom, 14.0., to the office of general agent. .
. . Dr. Griscom immediately entered upon the duties of'
his office. lie is well known in this conunity as a
physician of acquirements and ability, and his long
connection with hospitals and other institutions of
public benevolence, appeared, in the judgment of the
Commissioners to give him peculiar qualifications for
many of the duties of their chief executive officer,
especially in the inspection and care of the extensive
sanitary establishments under their charge.
Griscom was in office from 1848 until illness forced him to retire in
1851. During his tenure 700,000 ilmnigrants, mainly from Ireland,

landed at New York. Nearly all of them came in filthy, ill-ventilated

27
ships, and, on the average, seventy percent were landed at Quarantine
or the new installations on‘flard's Island. Griscom had 20,000 cases
of typhus under his charge; he personally treated 7,000 cases in
addition to those in New'York Hospital, where he served on the staff.16
As the Marine Hospital was their only building, it was soon
overcrowded and the Commissioners were forced to expand their facilities.
Early in 1848 they had acquired nearly one hundred acres of Nard's
Island, which lies in the East River off upper Nanhatten. The first
parcel of ten acres was acquired when Taylor was General Agent; though
small it contained a stone building which the Commissioners were able
to use. When.Griscom took over the Commissioners began building a 250
bed hospital which was completed in.November, 1848. Completed at the
same time was a nursery building containing dormitories, a play-room,
a school-room and a chapel. These new buildings allowed Griscom and
the Commissioners to use the‘Harine Hospital exclusively for patients
with diseases then supposed to be contagious.17
The new buildings were ready in thme to receive the greatly
increased immigration of the late 1840's. In 1847, 129,062 passengers
arrived at New York, of whom 10,594 required some kind of aid from the
Commissioners. The following years it continued to increase:
1848 (Dr. Griscom's first year as General Agent)
189,176 passengers arrived at New York
27,523 were given relief
11,779 were sent to the Marine Hospital or the
Emigrant Refuge on.ward's Island.
1849
234,271 passengers arrived at New‘York
41,258 were given relief
11,717 were sent to the‘Harine Hospital or the
Emigrant Refuge
1850
232,768 passengers arrived at New York
55,258 were given relief

11,450 were sent to the Marine Hospital or the
Emigrant Refuge

28
1851 (Dr. Griscom's last year as General Agent)

189,601 passengers arrived at New York

85,386 were given relief

19,116 were sent to the'Narine Hospital or the

Emigrant Refuge
The fact that those sent to Staten Island and Ward's Island did not
significantly increase as did the hmmigration does not indicate the
passengers were healthier in later years--it means simply that the
facilities were filled to capacity and the overflow cases were treated
at the public and private hospitals in New'York City. The figures for
1851 indicate expanded facilities on Staten Island.18
Rules for the Emigrant Refuge and Hospital on ward's Island
were drawn up when Griscom was General Agent, and it is likely he was
the author. A physician's report stating the condition of the patient
was required before he could be discharged. If a patient died while
under the care of the Commissioners the R215; required a complete death
certificate. Writing materials, and a secretary if needed, were
provided for patients who wished to communicate with friends or rela-
tives. In general the gglgg_ref1ect a new concern for the immigrant's
welfare.19
In November, 1848, Gulian C. Verplanck, President of the Board,

Leopold Bierwirth, President of the German Society, and Griscom
appended a brief article to the Annual Report in which they outlined
frauds perpetrated by boarding-house owners and their various agents.
The first problem*was runners who would take the immigrant's bags and
promise him room and board. Often, shelter was not provided, and if
it was it was substandard and sometimes uninhabitable. . Crooked agents
sold tickets to the Nest; once the innigrants were on their way, however,
they were often forced to make additional payments to complete the

journey. In an attempt to gain the immigrants' confidence, men of the

same nationality were used to execute these frauds. The three

29
Commissioners called for a place where the imigrant could land,
protected from the swindlers who roamed the docks. Such a place
would provide the innigrant with a currency exchange and a ticket
booth, in addition to supplying him with information concerning
lodgings and employment for as long as he remained in New York.
Castle Garden was the result; in 1855 it ceased to furnish New Yorkers
with entertainment and began to serve as the leading entry port's
imigration reception center, a role it fulfilled for nearly half a
century. Here the isnigrant foundreputable agents from whom to buy
tickets, exchange currency, rent an apartment, find a job, or make
connections with friends and relatives. Even though it did not begin
to serve the inigrant until several years after Griscom left the
Commissioners, such a place was first contemplated in the report
prepared by Verplanck, Bierwirth and Griscom.2°
After three years as General Agent of the Commissioners of

Emigration, Dr. Griscom caught ship fever himself and tendered his
resignation on April 21, 1851. Careful treatment by Drs. John A.
Swett and Joseph H. Smith, and a European convalescence brought about
his‘recovery. Although this ended Griscom's official connection with
the cause of imigration, his most important activity was still in the
future. Purdy reported that

On his return, through the instigation of Hon. Hamilton

Fish, U.S. Senator from New York, the doctor prepared a

memorial exposing the hardships of emigrants while on

shipboard, and pointing out the necessary measures of

prevention. This sowed the seed of many improvements

in the law.“

III
Until the mid-1850's the federal legislation passed regarding

insigration was minimal; even after this period the effective means for

enforcement were lacking. The next significant shift in steerage

30
conditions after the law of 1855 came in the early twentieth century
when the whole concept of steerage was replaced by "third class."22
The first of many:mmerican steerage laws was passed by Congress
in 1819. The law of 1847 replaced it, which was modified in 1848 and
then replaced by thelAct of‘March 3, 1855. This act was amended in
1860 and stood until it was replaced in 1882. Because it was passed
before the heavy immigration of the 1830's and 1840's the law of 1819
did not alleviate the immigrant's suffering. The two bills passed in
1847 and 1848 indicated Congressional attempts to meet the crisis, but
neither of them was adequate and the hardship and suffering continued
until the passage of the Act of 1855. This law was far from perfect,
but it did represent a significant step forward.23
On Monday, Decewer 5, 1853, Hamilton Fish offered a resolution
to the Uhited States Senate:
Resolved, That a select committee of five be appointed
to consider the causes and the extent of the sickness
and.mortality prevailing on board of emigrant ships on
the voyage to this country; and whether any, and what,
further legislation is needed for the better protection
of the health and lives of passengers on board of such
vessels.
Hannibal Hamlin wanted to delay the appointment of such a committee, but
Fish would not be put off. "It is a subject of vast and vital impor-
tance. Vessels are arriving with a thousand passengers a day at a
single port, almost entirely decimated on the voyage by the prevailing
sickness. There should be no delay, but prompt action." Two days
later the President Pro Tem appointed Fish, Hamlin, James Shields,
Charles Sumner, and Judah F. Benjamin to form the Select Committee on
Emigrant Shipping.24
Dr. Griscom, the New York State Legislature, and President

Franklin Pierce all joined Fish's appeal for stricter laws to protect

immigrants. Early in 1854, the New York State Legislature sent a

31

series of resolutions to the House of Representatives calling for a

complete investigation of the sickness and death on the high seas.

They recommended that Congress "enact such laws as may be necessary

to secure the health of passengers on emigrant vessels." In June of

the same year Pierce sent a communication to the Senate relative to

the conditions on immigrant ships.25

Following his appointment as chairman of the select committee,

Fish sent a letter to interested parties asking for their cooperation

in gathering information on the abuses in immigrant shipping. In

his December 29 letter, he requested them to write concerning the

adequacy of the present law in regard to five major points. These

dealt with space, cleanliness, cooking, provisions, and ventilation.

There were several less important points: provisions for a ship's

surgeon, hospital facilities, disinfection of ships where disease was

present, collection of statistics for the State Department, separation

of the sexes, accurate compilation of mortality statistics, and inquests

into each death. The final question concerned the number of passengers

to be allowed and regulations in regard to the route.26

To achieve'the best results the questionnaire was developed to

probe various groups on the problems of sanitation and police regulation

on immigrant ships. The form was
Sent to members of the medical profession (whose oppor-
tunities of forming correct opinions on the subject had
been furnished by experience, and therefore are entitled
to consideration,) merchants, navigators, who had been
engaged in the passenger trade, persons connected with
the collection of customs, presidents of benevolent
societies, for the relief of indigent emigrants, and
others throughout the country and in the cities at which
the landing of_foreign passengers has chiefly taken
place. The answers . . . are . . . drawn up with great
ability, particularly those from physicians, who, referr-
ing to the diseases, which have caused the suffering on
board of passenger ships, have properly deemed it necessary

to treat their nature and the causes which have given
rise to them.

32

Twice in the introduction to their report, the senators praised the
information provided by the medical profession. While more communi-
cations were received than printed, of those the committee printed in
full, only three were from.medical men, and the first was Griscom's.
The senators thought that "the communications selected contain all, or
very nearly all, of the views expressed in those which have been
omitted, the principle difference being in the form in which they are
set forth." In addition to Griscom's report, there were medical reports
from Isaac Wood, a New York physician, and S. A. Cartwright, a New
Orleans doctor. The remaining printed reports were from laymen repre-
senting some of the immigrant societies, ship owners and captains, and
the Boards of Health of Baltimore and Philadelphia.27

The findings of the committee, together with the communications
from twenty individuals and groups made up Senate Report 386, which
was submitted on‘August 2, 1854, accepted, and ordered printed.
Senate bill 489, passed infiMay, 1855, accompanied the report. The
bill "first concedes and endeavors to secure the rights of emigrants
. . ." coming to the United States. From his broad experience in
immigration, Dr. Griscom‘was "able to speak authoritatively" concern-
ing the basic problems and their solutions. Excluding the bill, the
report dealt with three major concerns, the first of which was the
nature of shipboard diseases. As a result of the reports, the committee
concluded that typhus, cholera, and small pox were the worst diseases--
nearly all the immigrants who died in transit fell victim to one of
these. Second was the extent of the suffering, and the third concern
was the prevention of sickness and death, which was easiest done by
eliminating the causes.28

Dr. Griscom had begun preparing his testimony for the Senate

committee long before the letter sent out by Fish reached him. That

33

Griscom had answered eight of the fourteen questions before the circular
was sent out indicates that Fish and Griscom were in close touch before
the inception of the committee. It also suggests that Fish considered
the testimony of Griscom so important that he did not wait to notify
the doctor in the same fashion as the other witnesses. Griscom also
considered the subject to be of extreme importance. He wrote to Fish:

I cheerfully comply with your suggestion, to prepare a

statement of my views on the nature and causes of the

diseases and mortality among emigrants in transit

between Europe and the United States, together with such

alterations of the present laws and additions thereto,

as appear to‘me to be indicated for the prevention of

the disasters which we have recently had so deeply to
'1ament.29

 

In his report Griscom declared that there was no need for the
high rate of mortality among the immigrants crossing the Atlantic to
find a new home, because it had become clear during the past several
years that the cause of certain diseases could often be found in the
external circumstances. While medicine did not understand the causes
of typhus or measles, or how to prevent the diseases, "an improved
knowledge of the laws of hygiene has disarmed them of their terrors
in a large degree." Furthermore, some had realized that people suffer
when placed in certain surroundings. The laws of hygiene, and the
consequences of violating those laws, were an established fact--as
established as the laws of Newton or Copernicus. Dr. Griscom wrote
that

probably there never was a class of people, or any
circumstances in which human beings could be placed, in
which the truth of these doctrines was more clearly
exhibited, than that class known as emigrants, in their
transit from European ports to our own; and there is
not a fact more shocking to our sensibilities, nor more
disgraceful to humanity, than the condition of these
peOple, under these circumstances.30

Dr. Griscom was more than willing to do anything he could to aid

the conditions of the poor immigrant. For over ten years he had been

34
working to improve their housing in New York (see chapter III), and
now he had another opportunity to strike the problem at the root. All
too often the family that left the Old World to seek a new life in the
United States arrived here, broken in health and in spirit, following
a voyage that lasted for weeks while they were trapped below decks in
the filthy steerage of a decrepit vessel. Griscom thought that it was
worthwhile to bring the problem out in the open:
While we have frequent expositions of the sad estate of
our poorer classes of city tenantry, and the public is
pained with the recital of the story of their crowded
and dilapidated tenements, their packed cellars and
attics, their filthy yards and streets,--too little has
been said of the far more horrible manner in.which
steerage passengers are crowded into emigrant ships, of
their destitution, the filth in which they are allowed
to remain, their deficiency of food and cooking, the
absence of ventilation, and the too frequent disregard
by owners and masters of the spirit, and even of the
letter of the laws, both of our own and other countries;
the result of which has been an amount of disease and
mortality unprecedented in modern times, under any
similar circumstances.31
In their report the senators held that the control of both
cholera and typhus was basically the same, with the possible exception
of disinfection, which would only be necessary in the case of cholera
if it was contagious. With the addition of vaccination the same rules
of prevention were applied to small-pox. In drawing these conclusions
the comittee quoted from the report of Dr. Griscom, who wrote that
typhus was the product of a miasm which was as distinctive as the marsh
‘miasm. Both were easily controlled, and "by preventing the formation
of the miasm of ship fever [typhus] . . . that disease will in like
manner be prevented or avoided." There were three steps in the develop-
ment of ship fever. First, a large number of people had to be con-
fined far a long time in close quarters. Second, the excreta of

these people, which included the exhalations of the lungs, perspir~

ation and "other more offensive excretions," most also be confined in

35
the same small space where they will be acted upon by the heat of the
room and will "become decomposed, and produce an effluvium which will
react poisonously on the persons living in it." The final ingredient
in creating the miasm was the careful exclusion of fresh air. The
filth generated by these actions was sure to cause typhus, and could
perhaps cause cholera and small pox as well, or at least weaken the
individual, making him more susceptible. 32
Whereas cholera and small-pox were occasional killers of the

immigrant, the most significant disease was typhus. This problem was
intensified because the immigrant came on board in a weakened condi-
tion. By quoting contemporary authorities the committee reasoned that
the "fomites" of typhus stayed in the bedding, furniture and walls of
the steerage for months, perhaps even years, after the outbreak of the
disease. The Senators wrote of the experience of Griscom,

whose opportunities of observation have been very numer-

ous as agent of the board of commissioners of emigration,

to whom this class of patients is entrusted, thinks that

the miasm of typhus is the direct product of the vitiated

excretions of the human body, pent up within a small

space, and made to engender a malaria, the inhalation of

which, to a certain degree, produces this peculiar

disease. . . ."33

In his letter to the committee, Dr. Griscom stated that the

passengers were most prone to typhus in the form of ship fever. The
horror was that fresh air and a cleaner steerage, both readily obtain-
able, could prevent it. It had been a problem for the past half-
century; but only in the past ten years had it risen to epidemic pro-
portions, because of the increase in numbers. One of Griscom's first
experiences with the disease in immigrants came in 1847 when he served
on a committee of the New‘York‘Academy of Medicine, which investigated

the situation at Quarantine. The ship "Ceylon" had landed a few hours

earlier after a crossing from Liverpool, and Griscom went into the hold.

36
Before any had yet left the ship, [he wrote] we passed
through the steerage, making a more or less minute
examination of the place and its inhabitants; but the
indescribable filth, the emaciated, half-nude figures .
. . crouching in their bunks, or strewed over the decks,
and cumbering the gangways; broken utensils, and debris
of food spread recklessly about, presenting a picture of
which neither pen nor pencil can convey a full idea.
Some weregjust rising from their berths for the first
time since leavin Liver 001, having been suffered to lie
there all the voyage, wallowing in their own filth.
There was nothing surprising in the number that died-~"it was only
surprising that so many had escaped."34
Seven years later, in making his report for Hamilton Fish,
Griscom reported that during the year 1851 there werel,879 immigrant
deaths between Liverpool and New York; most of these were the result
of ship fever. As many left the ship "healthg" but then contracted
typhus a few days or weeks later, this presented only part of the
mortality. In the following year Griscom noted that 3,040 cases--
all immigrants--were treated at the'Marine Hospital. Of these,
seventeen percent died. Further, this was only one of several hospitals
that handled immigrant cases. "In considering the hygenic aspects of
emigration, we start then with the remarkable fact, that of those who
embark for an.Atlantic voyage, on any one of a certain class of ships,
one in every twelve of them but steps into a coffin; nearly nine percent
will either never reach the promised land, or will die soon after."35
The worst part of the typhus problem was trying to keep clean.
The bunks for the immigrants were built of the roughest, cheapest wood
available, and after the voyage they were placed in the hold as ballast
for the return trip. Even if they were washed, which was unlikely, the
"fomites" remained because of the nature of the wood. Then, on the
next trip to‘Mmerica, the wood was brought up from the hold and reused

as bunks. Now, Griscom maintained, even if the people who entered the

steerage were clean, healthy, provided their own bedding and provisions,

37
they still stood a good chance of falling victim to ship fever because
the disease was in the ship itself. "The pestilential wave, once
started, will roll on to engulf one after another of the entrapped and
helpless victims, who have confided too readily in the purity of the
vessels, and their own cleanliness and care." He went on to point out
that even if the bunks were not reused, the timbers of the ship would
still hold the"fomites."36
Occasionally the steerage passengers were well fed, well clothed
and in good health; more often the filth of the ship was conbined with
problems of overcrowding, improperly prepared, rancid meat, poor
ventilation, and a predisposition to diseases on the part of the passen-
gers due to their weakened condition. Typhus prevailed extensively in
the towns and villages from which they'were escaping, and they un-
wittingly carried the fever on board the ships. The sickly immigrant
would then be packed into the inadequately ventilated steerage. The
lack of fresh air was far more important than the size of the hold,
and since the hatches and ventilating tubes were kept closed during
the winter months the incidence of typhus was therefore much higher.
Many people thought that the'fomites"fared better in the cold weather,
but Griscom rightly pointed out that the temperature was not important.37
Even if enough food was available for the passengers it was usually

poorly prepared. This would not result in typhus, but it would lead to
diarrhoea and dysentery, which left the immigrant in a weakened con-
dition. Combined with other problems he was then susceptible to more
serious diseases.

Famine, therefore, though a frequent precedent, and a

powerful adjuvant is only an indirect cause of the fever

as we find it on shipboard and in our hospitals; but thus

we must continue to be burdened with it, as long as

poverty-stricken emigrants are admitted into the transport

ships in such great number, with food so insufficient in

quantity and quality, and with such total absence of
sanitary police during the voyage.38

38

In large measure the answer to the problem was disinfection.
Griscom quoted from several reputable authorities to prove the only
way to end the threat from typhus was to disinfect thoroughly the ship
and all its contents before allowing it to leave Quarantine. The rule
was "ONCE INFECTED, ALWAYS INFECTED, UNTIL DISINFECTED." Failure to
apply the last two words of this admonition turned immigrant ships into
floating "black holes."39

Griscom cited two illustrations of the results of pure air on
typhus to prove his point. The first came from his experience with
the Commissioners of Emigration. When the new hospital was being
erected as part of the quarantine facility, there were forty typhus
cases in an overcrowded, under-ventilated ward of the old hospital.
These victims were given up for dead, and yet as soon as they were
transferred, they showed marked improvement. The other case was from
Griscom's article, "Hospital Hygiene, Illustrated," in which he reported
on thirty-six patients from the ship "Phoebe" who were struck.with
typhus en route from Liverpool to New York. On arrival at Perth Amboy,
they were transferred from the ship to crude huts where they were
thoroughly drenched following a thunderstorm the first night. The next
day more were added to the open air hospital until they numbered eighty-
two, yet not one died.40

Typhus was obviously a problem for the immigrant; it also
created a problem for the native New‘Yorkers. Because of the heavy
immigration during the 1840's and 1850's, New‘York.City'was subjected
to continued outbreaks of the disease. It was proving increasingly
fatal to the physicians engaged in treating the large numbers of
patients, but Dr. Griscom was one of the more fortunate typhus victims."1

The second disease affecting the immigrant, cholera, was becoming

more and more of a problem» A cholera epidemic rose in the subcontinent

39

of India and marched across Europe in the early 1830's, reaching the
United States via the immigrant ships in 1832. In the next three
decades there were three more epidemics. The then current etiology of
cholera held that it resulted from foul air and filth--it would not be
until the mid-1860's that science discovered that cholera was water-
borne. Griscom wrote in 1854:

There is now no longer any room for doubt, that this

disease is very frequently produced, and is always

aggravated, by filth and foul air. Numerous instances

are recorded of its spontaneous appearance in places

occupied by people of filthy habits, crowded, badly

fed, and ill ventilated. . . . Cholera is the result of

the action upon the human system of foul air, defective

nourishment, and other vitiated circumstances. . . .
In his communication, Griscom quoted from a member of the British
cabinet who said that cholera resulted from foul air and decomposing
matter allowed to collect on the ground. iMan cannot foul the land and
air about him, Griscom contended, and expect nothing to result from
it. Filth spread cholera by providing the breeding place for its
"seeds." Dr. Griscom rejected the contagion theory of cholera, but
even if it was true, he argued, the filth was still needed to provide
the breeding ground. To avoid cholera, then, the prescription was
similar to the one for typhus--clean up and disinfect the surroundings.42

‘ Small pox was ranked the third in importance by the committee.

It was different from the other two in that its nature and means of
prevention were well known. Griscom noted that it came to the United
States on ships from French and German ports, but only rarely on English
ships. He wrote the committee that it was of the utmost importance
that an agreement be reached between the United States and the French
and German governments on vaccination; close inspection of passengers,

thorough cleansing of all ships upon.which small pox cases were reported,

combined with vaccination of all those not protected would elflminate

40

the threat from the disease. His concern for the immigrant was matched
by his concern for New‘York, because a few cases of small pox would
wreak havoc with New‘York's unvaccinated populace. In respect to
small pox, as with cholera and typhus, Griscom was concerned for the
immigrant and the city's native poor. He was acutely aware of the
relationship between immigration and the city's mortality rate.43

One of the many questions raised by the committee dealt with
the limitation of passengers in proportion to the size of the ship.
The number of passengers that could be accomodated was determined first
by tonnage, and then, as a result of the 1848 law, by superficial
height. The first method was inadequate because the tonnage register
was inaccurate. Further, European ships, built for cargo, had larger
holds than.American ships which were built for speed. More people
could be packed into the steerage of a European ship than in an
American, yet they might be of the same tonnage. The changes in the
1848 law included the shift from tonnage to superficial height; there-
fore,if the height of the steerage was six feet, fourteen square feet
of deck space was the legal requirement for each passenger. The lower
the superficial height the more deck space allowed, so if the height
was five feet, each passenger was allowed twenty-two square feet of
space. While this was an improvement, the committee recommended a
combination of both methods to further improve conditions. The 1855
law stated, therefore, that no more than one passenger per two tons of
the ship's weight could be carried, and that passengers were to be
allotted eighteen clear superficial feet of deck space. The new restrict-
ions would limit overcrowding, allow the passengers more air to breathe,
and reduce the chances for error.44

Griscom, in favor of the changes in the law, had suggested an

even stricter plan. He was in favor of lumiting the number of passengers

41

on the basis of the amount of air available, arguing for at least 250
cubic feet of air space for each passenger. "This is the true standard
of sanitary capacity, when considered independently of its means of
ventilation; and this, in my judgment, should be the basis of a
restrictive law, in the allottment of numbers." This would eliminate
the favorite trick of shipowners who filled up the allotted space
with baggage or cargo; in his letter Dr. Griscom specifically noted
that there should be nothing in the passenger's space, and this recommend-
ation was adopted.45

In addition to so many square feet per passenger, there should
be a minimum height established which would allow a person of average
height to walk through the steerage without stooping. In the law of
1848, which the senate committee asked the witnesses to comment upon,
passengers could be carried where there were less than five feet of
headroom. Griscom, who was a six footer, said that this was an outrage.
"The possibility of such a hold being used for the stowage of passengers
should be at once, forever, and totally prohibited." He thought the
height should be at least enough to allow the tallest man to walk
about upright, which would mean more than six feet of clearance. The
1855 law was not quite this generous, but it did prohibit the carrying
of passengers in holds where the clearance was less than six feet, which
was a decided improvement.46

Steerage passage on the second deck was bad enough, but in some
ships the presence of an orlop deck, which was the lowest deck in a
ship having three decks, made it intolerable. Frequently the owners
used the orlop deck to make the voyage as profitable as possible. The
select committee wrote that "according to the statements of persons
'well informed on the subject, these places, when occupied by passengers,

not only become the depositories of the most noisome filth, which can

42
. neither be reached nor removed, but they give rise to a stench and
effluvium, which, rising to the upper decks, tend to render them
unhealthy." Most peOple, including Dr. Griscom, thought the orlop
deck, which was completely below the water line, to be entirely un-
wholesome.47
Again in commenting on the 1848 law, Griscom noted the presence
of the orlop deck in steerage passage. The upper steerage was bad
enough, and it was just beneath the main deck; the lower one was
more than twice as bad. On the orlop deck light was never present,
with ventilation and fresh air rare. Griscom wrote:
In broad sunlight, and the hatches all open, and the
vessels lying quietly at the wharf, on a recent visit
to several of these three deckers, which had arrived
with large consignments of emigrants, the dirt and
on.which we trod could be felt but not seen. ‘At see
when lights are not permitted below, and there are
many causes which would intercept the few rays of day-
light which struggle to descend, the condition of things
cannot be seen, and cleaning is impossible. .Almost
perpetual night reigns in those sub-aqueous abodes. A
residence there of thirty hours must be enough to sadden
and depress the coarsest sensibilities of its inmates,
and produce great proneness to disease, independently
of the filth and foul air which envelopes them before
they lose sight of their native shores; but at the end
of thirty days the scene is one which humanity shudders
to dwell upon. . . .
Considering the innumerable problems connected with the orlop deck,
there was no other course than to prohibit its use for passengers.
The Senate committee, which paraphrased Griscom's recommendations about
the orlop deck, agreed with him that it should be prohibited to
passengers. "The committee have no hesitation in coinciding in opinion
with those who recommend the prohibition of the use of the orlop deck
as a sleeping apartment, and have, therefore, inserted into the law a

provision to that effect."48

'The fifth question the committee asked its correspondents to

direct their attention to was the one on cooking arrangements. While

 

43

some of the people whose testimony was printed were not in favor of
requiring the ship owner to provide the food, Dr. Griscom was among
those who did. Regarding the 1848 law, Griscom thought the section on
food preparation was inferior to the British passenger laws, which
required the ships to provide cooks. Griscom wanted the fuel distri-
bution section of the law repealed and replaced with a "requisition for
the appointment of a sufficient number of cooks as a part of the ship's
complement, whose exclusive duty it should be to cook for the passen-
gers themselves, under such regulations as may be necessary for the
preservation of order and discipline." Food of poor quality, improper-
ly prepared, resulted in diarrhoea and dystentery and a weakened
condition, opening the steerage passenger to other, more serious
diseases. Good food, Griscom noted, was more important in the steerage
than in the cabin because cabin passengers had the opportunity to walk
on the deck, were usually better clothed, housed, and in generally
good health. The law required ten pounds of salt pork per passenger
per voyage; Griscom was in favor of fresh soup or meat for the steer-
age three times a week. It was true that some passengers provided
their own food but the people who needed it the most did not.49

The Senate committee inquired how the closely confined, seasick
passenger could adequately prepare his own food. All the cooking was
done in the ”caboose," a cooking area four and one-half feet long and
one and one-half feet deep. For the safety of the ship, fires could be
lit for certain hours only, and,therefore, the sickest, weakest, or small-
est passengers were often too late to use the caboose. Those who
needed the best food usually ended up with the worst. The committee-
agreed, with Griscom and the others, that the ship should provide the

provisions, but they did not suggest that the shipowners should hire

cooks. They also hoped that this would secure a better grade of food

 

44

because the shipowners bought the provisions in larger quantities.
The law as passed reflected the concern of the committee, but not to
the point of adopting Dr. Griscom's recommendations for fresh food.50

Griscom's chief concern for the health of the underprivileged,
whether the sick poor, living in a damp, dark cellar in New York.City,
or the poor, bewildered immigrant crossing the Atlantic with his wife
and children in an overcrowded sailing ship, was that they have ade-
quate air to breathe. He was intelligent enough to realize that
ventilation was not a panacea, but he did believe that foul air was
at the root of a number of their health problems. In relation to fresh
air and ventilation, Griscom‘s comments were "so judicious and practical,
and occupy so small a space" that the committee did not "hesitate to
insert them entire." The Senators quoted passages from Griscomis letter
where he pointed out the necessity of considering the size of the
steerage and the amount of ventilation before the number of passengers
to be allowed could be determined. The amount of air needed per person
per minute is between four and ten cubic feet; unfortunately most
ships did not provide that amount.51

In making his point concerning the inadequacy of ventilation
aboard immigrant ships Griscom referred to the Black Hole of Calcutta.52
In that instance 146 persons were shut up in a cell eighteen feet
square and ten feet high, allowing each individual twenty-two square
feet of space. They were so confined for ten hours, and although two
small windows at the top of the space provided some ventilation, only
twenty-three lived till morning. Griscom compared this horrible example

with the conditions on the average immigrant ship:

A recent examination of the two steerages of one of the
largest packets belonging to this port, New‘York (author-
ized by law to carry over nine hundred,) gave as the
cubic feet for each passenger, not deducting the room
occupied by the solid contents of the bodies of the

 

45

passengers for the upper apartment 103 feet, and for the

lower 112 feet. This vessel, on her last homeward

voyage, lost one hundred passengers at sea.
While 103 feet is nearly five times the space allotted in the Black Hole,
the immigrants were confined for weeks, not hours. Griscom realized
that 300 cubic feet per person was high, but he maintained that the
inadequate ventilation and the uncertainty of the weather made it
necessary.53

The three medical men who communicated with the Senate pointed
out the importance of ventilation, yet each suggested a different
solution to the problem. Griscom repeatedly stated that the size of
the apartment was relevant to the amount of fresh air the ventilators
introduced, a small well-ventilated apartment being superior to a
large, unventilated space. In commenting on the 1848 law Griscom
pointed out that the required twelve inch ventilating and exhaust tubes
were totally inadequate for the job. He suggested several modifications,
including larger tubes with an apparatus at the steerage end for the
dispersion of the air, conversion of the exhaust tubes to intake, and
use of the hatches to remove the foul air. In addition to the changes
in the equipment, he called for trained inspectors because the untrained
personnel overlooked violations simply because they were unaware of
then. "The means should be, as far as practicable, stoutly defined
by law, and what cannot be thus defined, submitted to the discretion
of an officer thoroughly informed on the subject." Unfortunately,
these improvements did not come about at this time.54
The law as adopted disallowed the carrying of passengers between

decks with less than six feet of clearance. It was also very specific
in defining superficial space as "the spaces appropriated for the use

of such passengers, and which shall not be occupied by stores or other

goods, not the personal baggage of such passengers. . . ." The law

 

46

did not meet the specifications of Griscom concerning cubic feet, but
it was moving toward the optimum conditions as he defined them.55

The remainder of Dr. Griscom's testimony before the Senate committee
was directed to the minor points raised by the committee's inquiry.
In answering the query concerning medical personnel, Griscom said
that the matter of ship's surgeons was of the "highest importance. I
have been cognizant of frequent instances in which the services of a
well-qualified physician were greatly needed and could not be had, and
I can readily understand that they would be continually in demand for
the care of the steerage, in gross and in detail, in preventing as well
as relieving sickness." All too often those ships which carried
surgeons merely to fill out the roll had the worst men in the profession
when they should have had the best. Griscom compared the ship's
surgeon with the pilot; both controlled the passengers' lives, yet
only the latter was required to serve an apprenticeship and pass a
rigid examination. To make the surgeon's task.manageable, well trained
attendants were also needed.56

The committee noted that the use of physicians, nurses, and
attendants on shipboard would be desirable. They could treat the
passengers, look into the sanitary arrangements of the ship, supply
records and reports to prevent the many abuses and, in general, supply
vital information to aid medical science. However, "taking into view
the uncertainty of the number of passengers that may be on board, and
other circumstances, they cannot see how it can properly be made the
subject 0f effective legislation."57

The same sense of frustration was felt by the committee regard-
ing the "shocking immoralities said to be practised on board of passenger

ships." The free circulation of air would be eliminated by partitions

to separate the men's from the women's sections. In older ships having

 

47

only one hatch it would be impossible. Griscom favored stricter
legislation like the British passenger laws which required separation,
but he did not offer any solutions to the ventilation problem. "How-
ever desirable, the measure is difficult of attainment by specific
legislation."58

One of the best suggestions Dr. Griscom made was too far ahead
of his time. This was his plan for passenger inspection. The British
law then in effect required that each emigrant be given a medical
examination before leaving the country, but its superficiality made it
worthless. To correct this problem Griscom thought American doctors
should examine the immigrants at the port of origin. This would also
save the individual the anguish of reaching the United States only to
be turned back. The passenger could also be examined regarding his
preparedness. If he was inadequately clothed against the weather,
he was likely to spend most of his time below decks, creating an
unhealthy situation not only for himself but also for those around him.
Griscom recommended a surgeon/officer for esch.immigrant ship who
could carry out these examinations before the ship sailed.59

Section twelve of the 1855 law required the captain to report on
the number of passengers, their age, sex, and occupation, the part of
the vessel they occupied, their homeland, and whether or not they
desired to become residents. This type of record collecting was in
line with recommendations for accurate statistics that Griscom had been
proposing in this and other situations for over a decade (see Chapter VI).
If the numbers and causes of all immigrant deaths were accurately

recorded, then the inspectors would have the information needed to

order the disinfection of the ships involved.60

 

48
IV
At the close of their report, the committee listed nine recomm-
endations they considered essential, five of which were directly
influenced by John B. Griscom. Three related to space per passenger and
prohibition of passengers on the orlop deck. Next, they suggested
that the sanitary rules of the ship be posted throughout so the passen-
gers would be aware of them, and not be in a position to take the
captain to court if he ordered the confiscation or destruction of any
of their belongings. Dr. Griscom wrote such posting was necessary if
the captain was to enforce vigorously the sanitary regulations and
protect the health of all the passengers. Finally, they called for
more accurate records.61
Of the remaining four recommendations, Griscom's indirect
influence can be seen. The committee wanted space on deck set aside
for the passengers; Griscom did not mention.this specifically, but
everything in his testimony pointed towards getting the steerage
passengers on deck to allow them more fresh air. The senators wanted
to increase the number of privies, and provide separate ones for the
women; these were recommendations Griscom had made earlier.62
In his conclusion Dr. Griscom wrote:
I have thus, though I fear too prolixly, frankly given
you my views on this subject, which from the magnitude
of its interest, both pecuniary and humanitarian, is
eminently worthy the attention of our country's legis-
lature, to whom all other nations look for new steps in
the improvement of the condition of the race.
Griscom's testimony was the most valuable to the committee. His prolix
comments (while most reports were less than three pages, his ran to
eighteen) were the only ones extensively quoted. Even the Immigration

Comission of 1910 saw the importance of Griscom's comments; the

Commissioners devoted one-third of the space on the 1855 law to Griscom's

49

testimony. (They faulted the doctor for not discussing ventilation
on the fourth deck, but his opposition to the third deck would indicate
he was equally adamant against the use of a fourth deck.) All the
available evidence points to the fact that Griscom's written testimony
was the most significant.63

His dedication and broad knowledge were invaluable, but unfor-
tunately some of his recommendations were too visionary. His visits
to the ships, especially when he went down into the holds and personally
inspected the steerages, indicates his humanitarianism. His ability
to quote British laws shows the depth of his research into the subject
of steerage legislation. It was not until 1882, however, that the
number of passengers was limited by the amount of available cubic air
space. The majority of his suggestions were incorporated into the
1855 law, which made the passage much safer for the immigrant.64

Ending the barbarism of confining the poor to filthy ships was
Griscom's prime concern, but he was also aware of the economic disad-
vantages. Thousands of intelligent, able-bodied, hard-working
individuals were dying before they could reach the promised land and
add to its greatness. Tens of thousands were being manned for life,
turned into public wards draining the strength of the state instead of
increasing it. No one could tell how many Samuel Slaters, or Andrew
Carnegies were lost. Finally, no one knew how many stayed behind

because they did not want to step into a floating coffin.65

CHAPTER II NOTES

1Frederick‘Kapp, Immigration and the Commissioners of Emigration
(New York, 1870, 1969), 38.

2John H. Griscom, "Notice of a.Malignant Disease Generated on
Shipboard by Filth, Imperfect Ventilation, Etc.," AJMS XII Quay, 1833)
272-73.

31bid.

41bid.

508car Handlin, The Uprooted (New'York, 1951), 51. Edwin C.
Guillet, The Great'Migration (Toronto, 1963), 67-69, 84. Egg, XLVII
(September 5, 1834), 55-56.

6Kapp, Immi ration, 19-20. Edith Abbott, Immigration, Select
Documents and Case Records (New York, 1924), 26.

 

7Kapp, Immigration, 20-24. Marcus Lee Hansen, The Atlantic
Mi ration, (New York, 1940, 1961), passim.

8Kate H. Claghorn, "Foreign.Immigration and the Tenement House
in New York City," The Tenement Rouse Problem, eds. Robert w. DeForest
and Lawrence Veiller (New York, 1903), II, 67. Hansen, Mi ation, 301.
John H. Griscom, Annual Report of the Interments in the City and County
of New‘York, for the year 1842, with Remarks thereon, and a Brief
lyiew of the Sanitar17Condition of the City (New York, 1843), 156-57.

 

9Kapp, Immigration, 36-38.

10John H. Griscom, Uses and Abuses of Air (New'York, 1849, 1970),
169-70.

11Guillet, great Migration, 71. Esther Bienhoff, ed. and tr.,
"The Diary of Heinrich Egge, A German Immigrant," MVHR, XVII (June,
1930), 127-29.

12Guillet, Great'Mi.ration, 71-75.

13£§$§,, 71. Abbott, Select Documents, 26.

 

14cu111ec, Great Migration, 68. Bienhoff, "Diary," 125-31.

15CE,.Annual Reports of the Commissioners of Emigration of the
State of New York, 1847-1860 (New York, 1861), 3-4.

16CE, Agnual Reports, 7. Alfred E. M. Purdy, The'Medical
Register of New‘York, New Jersey and Connecticut, for 1874 (New‘York,
1874), 276-77. A

17Kapp, Immigration, 125-27.

50

 

51
lacs, Annual Reports, 9-10, 42-43, 57-58, 74-75.

19GB, Rules for the Government of the Emigrant Refuge and Hospi-
tal at ngd's Island (New York, 1850), 5-7.

ZOCE, Annual Reports, Appendix, 380-82. Handlin, Uprooted,
56. Kapp, Immigration, 107-11.

 

21NYS, Report of the Select Committee to Examine into the
Condition, Business Accounts, and'Management of the Trusts under the
charge of the Commissioners of Emigration, Assembly No. 34, Feb. 6,
1852, 26. Purdy, Medical Register, 276-77. On his return from Europe,
Dr. Griscom wrote out his experiences for the Illustrated Family
Friend, a Columbia, South Carolina newspaper edited by the son of
Dr. John D. Godman. Griscom's articles, "The Surgeons's Log," are
lost as there are no copies in the United States. It appears that the
"memorial" Purdy referred to was the letter Griscom sent to the Senate
Committee.

 

22Handlin, U rooted, 51. 0.8., Congress, Senate, Reports of the
Immigration Commission, 6lst Cong., 3rd Sess., 1911, Senate Doc. 758,
vol. 39, 379.

230.8., Reports of the Immigration Commission, 399-410, 368-79.

24U.S., Congpessional Globe, 33rd Cong., 1st Sess., 1854,
Part I, l, 14, 19.

2511.8., Conggessional Globe, 33rd Cong., lst Sess., 1854, Part
III, 1577. 0.8., Congress, House, Mortality on Emgggant Vessels,
33rd Cong., lst Sess., 1854, Misc. Doc. 14.

 

260.8. , Congress, Senate, Report of Select Committee on
Emigrant Shipping, 33rd Cong., 1st Sess., 1853-54, Senate Report
No. 386, 31.

27Ibid., 3, 22-23.

23Ibid., 4. Guillet, Great‘Miggation, 38. 0.3., Reports of
the Immigration Commission, 350-52, 56. In 1842, when Dr. Griscom
served as City Inspector of New York, he reported that the number of
immigrant deaths swelled the mortality statistics. Nearly two-thirds
of the white deaths from consumption were Irishmen who had just arrived
in New'York. The reason Griscom did not include consumption in his
list of diseases lies in the fact that the Senate committee was concerned
with only the passage, and consumption did not become a problem until
the immigrant was safely ensconced in the tenement. Griscom, Annual
Report, 156-57.

 

29U.S., Report on Epigrant Shippipg, 53, 70. Griscom's letter
was dated January 14, 1854; it must have been written previous to his
receiving the circular letter, because of the length and scope of his
report. At this time Griscom was also a member of an AMA comittee
appointed to investigate means to control the introduction of diseases
by emigrants. Due to the resignation of the chairman, Dr. S. H.
Dickson, the committee did not.report. AMA, Transactions, VII, 34,
VIII, 47.

52
3°U.S., Report of Epigrant Shipping, 53-54.
311bid., 54.

32Ibid., 4. The committee quoted from Griscom's letter, page
55. See also, Griscom, Uses and Abuses, 76-77.

 

33Ibid., 4-5. Griscom was well aware that clean air and good
food would help in curing even well advanced typhus cases. As proof,
he cited 330 cures of 467 cases during one three month period. Since
he was unaware of the real causes, he felt the only thing medicine
could do wascounteract the effects of the foul air and the insufficient
food. He further noted that placement of a bed near a window improved
chances of recovery.

34Ibid., 54. NYAM,‘Minutes, June 2, July 7, Sept. 1, Oct. 3,
1847. In another article Griscom reported that pure air and wholesome
food cured even the most advanced cases of typhus. To Griscom, the
implication was obvious--if they would cure the disease they would also
prevent it. John H. Griscom, "Summary of, and Observations Upon, the
Medical Practice of the New York Hospital in the Months of July,
August and September," NTMJ, xx (Nov., 1847), 348-52.

 

3SU.S., Report of Emigrant Shipping, 55.
36gg;g., 59-60.

3Z;g;g., 55-59.

331212-

39Ibid., 59. The best disinfectant was clean air, which,
Griscom thought, would prevent the formation of the typhus miasm.
Ventilation and cleanliness controlled the communicability of typhus,
and, therefore, if patients showed no signs of typhus after a thorough
cleansing there was no need to quarantine them. "Communicability of
Typhus Fever," NYAM, Bulletin, 11 (July, 1864), 311-12.

4°u.s., Report of Emigrant Shippin , 57-58, 72-73. John a.
Griscom, "Hospital Hygiene, Illustrated," NYAM, Transactions, I
(1857), 173-74. Reviews of this article were mixed; D. Francis Condie
devoted nearly two pages to an in-depth review in which he agreed
completely with the findings of Griscom. D. Meredith Reese, however,
panned the article. Reese was a bitter enemy of Griscom, and this
attack is characteristic. D. F. 0., Review of "The New‘YorkuAcademy
ofiMedicine," AJMS, XXX (July 1855), 134-35. "Editor's Table," NYMG,
V (Jan., 1854), 39. Although Griscom made no claim to originality in
regard to pure air and typhus, he was given credit for popularizing
the idea. Austin Flint quoted Griscom as an authority in the treatment
of typhus cases. Austin Flint, A Treatise on the Principles and
Practice of Medicine (Philadelphia, 1866), 728.

 

41Griscom, "Hospital," 167-69.

420.8., Report of Emigrant Shipping, 61-63. Again the committee
quoted from Griscom's letter in their opening remarks. This time they
quoted extensively from Griscom on the causes of typhus and cholera.

53
431616., 63.
44Ibid., 15. 0.S., Statutes at Large, x, 715-16.

450.8., Report of Emigrnnt Shipping, 66-69, U.S., Statutes at

 

 

 

 

Large, X, 715.
460.8., Repert of Emigrant Shipping, 66-69. 0.8;y Statutes at
Large, IX, 222.

470.8., Report of Emiggant Shipping, 12.

481bid., 12, 66-67. 0.8., Statutes at Large, X, 715.

 

490.8., Report of Emigrant Shipping, 64-65. 0.8., Statutes at
Large, X, 717.

500.8., Report of Emigrant Shipping, 13-14. 0.8., Statutes at
Large, X, 717.

510.8., Report of Emigrant Shipping, 12-13. The extract from
Dr. Griscom's letter is taken from pp. 68-69 of the report.

52The Black Hole was in Fort William, where, on June 20, 1756,
one-hundred—forty-six British subjects were confined.

530.8., Report of Emigrant Shipping, 13, 68-69.
54l§i§., 63-64. 0.8., Statutes at Large, IX, 220-21, X, 715.

550.8., Report of Emigrant Shipping, 10-11. 0.8., Statutes at
Lar e, X, 7l7f‘

560.8., Repert of Emigrant Shipping, 71. 0.8., Statutes at
Lar e, X, 716. In 1865, Dr. Griscom, suffering from an "unpleasant
catarrhal trouble," accepted the post of ship's surgeon on the "Fulton."
While it was pleasant work, it was hard to keep up with current
medical progress. John H. Griscom, "Letter to the Editor," Jan. 4,
1866, 0.8. Mail Steamer Fulton, MSR, XIV (Feb. 10, 1866), 116-17.

57U.s., Report of Emigrant Shipping, 15-16.

581bid., 16-71.

59Ibid., 70.

60Ibid., 71. 0.8., Statutes at Lar e, X, 719.

510.s., Report of Emigrant Shipping, 20-22, 70.

62Ibid., 70. 0.8., Statutes at Large, X, 715-21.

630.8., Report of Emigrant Shipping, 71, 53-75, passflm. ,Abbott,
Le islation, 350-52, 368-69.

640.8., Report on Emigrant Shipping, 71.

65Handlin, Uprooted, 150. NYAM,‘Minutes,'March, 1850.

CHAPTER III
THE NEED FOR REFORM: TENEMENTS
Griscom was the first outstanding
figure in American housing
reform--scientific in habit of
thought, and direct, practical
and far-sighted in his recommend-
ations for future policy.
James Ford
As with the passengers on emigrant ships, the people most in
need of the best accomodations in American cities were usually those
with the worst. The people's economic self-interest in the nineteenth
century prohibited city planning which had social efficiency in mind.
Large parks, broad boulevards, plenty of light, and fresh air were
needed in the core city, but the high cost of land caused great concen-
trations of pe0ple in this area. To take property from the market to
protect the public health was not believed to be good business practice.
For the day laborer, decent housing was not one of his options; he did
not have the capital needed to provide light, air, and sanitation for
himself and his family in the inner city.1
Among the duties of the City Inspector, the chief health officer
of New York.City, was his role as tenant house inspector. According to
the law of 1839, under which City Inspector Griscom operated, he was to
inspect all boarding and lodging-houses and include in his report the
name of the owner, the address of the house, the number of occupants,

and the number of apartments. He was to inspect the houses as often as

be deemed necessary, but at least once a month between May and November--

54

55
the months of high incidence of such diseases as yellow fever and
cholera.2
There was a close connection between the rapid rise in the system
of tenantage and the heavy immigration of the 1840's. In 1842 City
Inspector Griscom "made the first detailed and comprehensive report
upon housing conditions in the city." Three-fourths of that year's
100,000 inigrants entered the United States through New York port, a
good many of whom remained permanently in that city. Nearly all these
unfortunates found their way to the city's tenements. In 1859 and
again in 1865 surveys showed that three-fourths of New York's peeple
lived in tenements (multi-family dwellings which housed more than three
families). A New‘YorkHAssembly report found that fifty-two percent of
these buildings were unsanitary, one-third from.causes which could be
easily corrected.3
New York‘s increased mortality resulted from high insigration and

overcrowding--it was in no way produced by New'York's soil, location, or
atmosphere. For example, of the 719 whites who died of consumption 1o‘
1842, 410 were Irish is-igrants. The inmigrants were especially suscep-
tible to consumption, in part because of their weakened condition from
the long, confined voyage, and in part because of the squalid conditions
after they arrived. Griscom‘wrote of their condition:

Living with their acquaintances awhile in crowded apartments,

in cellars, in crumbling tenements, and narrow courts and

streets, and upon food poor in quality, and stinted in'

quantity, they are peculiarly exposed to the inroads of

disease, and to none more than consumption.
Immigrants also suffered from yellow fever, which resulted from.their
residence in the area around the Exchange Slip and the Whitehall dock,
one of the filthiest in the city. The dwellings in this part of the city

were built before the streets were paved; therefore, when the streets

56

were surfaced the first floors of many of the houses were partially below
ground. As most immigrants who remained in the city had not the funds
to leave, they were likely to live first in these "undesirable quarters."4

when he was City Inspector, Griscom realized that the concentration
of immigrants in tenements resulted in a high disease rate, and, therefore,
he became deeply involved in the tenement-house issue. Once in this
situation, his methods of investigation were as thorough as possible; in
addition to personal visits he was the first in the United States to
gather reports from investigators who were intimately involved in tenement
life. He also made comparisons with other cities to put New'York’s
problem in the proper perspective.

The problems of the cities, Griscom wrote, could and would be
remedied by effective sanitary measures, which would control the filth,
the tenements, and the bad streets. New York, which had a perfect
location, being washed on two shores by broad rivers, had one-half the
population of Paris and one-fourth that of London, yet its mortality
rate equalled that of both these European cities. To Griscom, the
problem was mmltifaceted; filth allowed to collect in the streets,
rear buildings, cellars, alleys, cul-de-sacs, garrets,and courts trapping
foul air, faulty sewerage systems, combined with hot humid summers all
contributed to New York's mortality. Neither public nor private
buildings were erected with the ideals of health and sanitation in mind
as the builders were solely interested in making money by housing the
hordes that each year reached.America's shores.S

As the immigrants moved into the city, the older residents left
their homes in the crowded lower wards and searched out more comfortable
residences uptown. Their old houses were then divided by real estate

speculators into small apartments for the laborer and his family. In

57

addition to these converted dwellings, transformed warehouses were used
to shelter the poor; the "Old Brewery" in the Five Points was perhaps
the most notorious tenement in ante-bellum‘New'York. At times it held
300 tenants, yet the only privy was in a rear court. Several years
after its conversion to a tenement, Griscom called the Five Points: "that
profoundest of all sinks of moral and physical pollution, which sends
forth from its pandemonium in the shape of the 'old Brewery' (which is
a moral brewery still) the agents who perpetrate the 'stratagems and
spoils' there concocted, and bespatter the reputation of the whole city
in the eyes of the world." In addition to converted warehouses and
homes there were the specially built tenements erected by urban jerry
builders.6

In 1833, James P. Allaire, "a wealthy engine manufacturer," is
said to have erected New York's first tenement-house. That tenements
flourished so extensively in.New‘York reflects its role as the main port
of entry for immigrants. By the mid-1840's, the beginnings of a tenement-
house system could be clearly seen. Contemporary observers often
pointed to the connection between the immigrant and the tenement; John

H. Griscom was one of the most astute of these observers.7

I

The tenement-house system was allowed to develop for nearly a decade
before any concerted attacks were directed against it. In 1834, City
Inspector Gerritt Forbes called attention to the problem, but, according
to Lawrence Veiller,

The first attempt . . . to give any comprehensive idea of

the condition of the dwellings of the poorer classes in New

York City was not made until 1842, when Dr. John H. Griscom,

the City Inspector of the Board of Health, called attention
to the existing conditions.

58

Griscom found that the population had greatly increased as a result of
the immigrants who reached these shores between 1810 and the 1840's.
Arriving penniless, disease ridden,and miserable, they were herded into
the poorer districts of the city, greatly increasing the population while
decreasing the quality of life. New York soon came to have the greatest
concentration of people per square acre of any city in the civilized
world.8

In relation to the tenement-house question Griscom had three
significant publications. The first was the Annual Report of the City
Ins actor, written in 1842. The second, a direct outgrowth of the first,
was The Sanitary Condition, which was sent to James Harper, New‘York's
mayor, who in turn sent it to the Common Council. The Council returned
it to Griscom. Making no progress in political channels, Griscom ex-
panded the report and delivered it to the public in December, 1844. The
third document was the report of the Committee of the New'York.Association
for Improving the Condition of the Poor, On the Sanitagy Condition of the
Laboringyglasses in the City oeALsiclyNew’York. It was as a result of
this last report that the New'York Legislature launched its investigation
of tenement-houses, conducted in 1857 (see below).9

Dr. Griscom asked his fellow New‘Yorkers to examine the economy
of tenement life and to consider the effects on the poor people forced
to live there. In an appeal to the pocketbook, Griscom noted that the
costof maintaining this system of slow destruction was very expensive;
not only did it constantly remove individuals from the work force, it
also placed large numbers on the relief rolls. In the year 1844 alone,
53,000 sick poor people were treated at public charitable institutions,

and this did not include those treated privately. There could be no

doubt about the effects on the individual of breathing foul air--every

59

urbanite saw the difference between the pale city belle who had been
shut up all winter, and the same girl after a few weeks of fresh air and
sunshine. 01th’this picture in mind Griscom invited his audiences to
figuratively descend the cellar stairs to see conditions that were even
more deplorable. Taking another tack, Griscom pointed out that the
fever which arose in the poorer wards was no respector of persons, there
being no barrier to disease between the rich and poor:

Disorders arising and fostered in these low places, will

sometimes become so virulent as to extend among and

jeopard the lives of the better classes of citizens; while

on the occurrence of general epidemics, these localities

constitute minor streams, whose poisonous waters, as they

mingle with the great river of diseases, give additional

impetus to its destructive current.
Griscom appealed to the residents of New York on behalf of the poor on
three levels. First there was the purely humanitarian approach; second
there was added the pecuniary entreaty, and finally the appeal was
directed to their own safety.10

Dr. Griscom put his finger on the heart of the problem when he

wrote as follows:

The system of tenantage to which large numbers of the poor

are subject, I think, must be regarded as one of the principle

causes, of the helpless and noisome manner in which they

live. The basis of these evils is the subjection of the

tenantry, to the merciless inflictions and exhortions of
the sub-landlord.

 

Large numbers of the poorer residences were leased by their owners to
sub-landlords for periods ranging up to several years. The owner was

thus insured of a sizeable return on his investment and he was also
relieved of the problems associated with the maintenance of the property--
making repairs, collecting rents, and the other duties of the landlord.
The sub-landlord, or lessee, also interested in making as much money as
he could, divided the building into as many apartments as possible,

without the slightest regard for decency, health, comfort,or convenience.

60

Griscom noted that this class of speculators was usually foreign born,
with little understanding of the needs of health and safety. He also
reported, displaying his temperance leanings, the presence of the grog
shop in each of the buildings, which robbed the men of their wages and'
their dignity. The apartments, "closets," Griscom called them, were
rented to the poor on a weekly or*monthly basis, rent generally paid
in advance. Once the landlord had his money, his concern for the build-
ings, their surroundings,and inhabitants, ended. The situation rapidly
deteriorated.

The families moving in first, after the house is built,

find it clean, but the lessee has no supervision over their

habits, and however filthy the tenement may become, he

cares not, so that he receives his rent. He and his family

are often steeped as low in depravity and discomforts, as

any of his tenants, being above them only in the possession

of money, and doubtless often beneath them in moral worth

and sensibility.11

Sub-tenantage forced rents up by twenty-five percent because of

the middle man. Griscom did not mince words in relation to this problem--
it mmst either be regulated or eliminated. Not only did this system
keep the poor at the bottom of the economic ladder, because of the high
rents, but it also dehumanized the occupants. Removals being frequent
and sudden, the renter paid little or no attention to his surroundings.
When one tenant was evicted, the next moved into the filthy apartment
before it was cleaned. The fear of eviction kept the tenants from
extensive cleaning, and the apartment was soon unfit for human habitation.12
The poor moved every few weeks, and left all their dirt behind. The
next residents moved their furniture in before attempting to clean;
therefore, if any cleaning at all was attempted it was superficial. ”The
floor was generally the only thing cleaned, and all too often it was

covered with filthy rugs, which were not shaken out as "they would not

bear it." Griscom.found dirt everywhere:

61
In these places, the filth was allowed to accumulate to an
extent almost incredible. Hiring their rooms for short
periods only, it is very common to find the poor tenants
moving from place to place, every few weeks. By this
practice they avoid the trouble of cleansing their rooms,
as they can leave behind them the dirt which they have made.
The same room, being occupied in rapid succession, by tenant
after tenant, it will easily be seen how the walls and
windows will become broken, the doors and floors become
injured, the chimneys filled with soot, the whole premises
become populated thickly with vermin, the stairways, the
common passages of several families, the receptacle for all
things noxious, and whatever of self-respect the family
might have had, be crushed under the pressure of all the
degrading circumstances by which they are surrounded.
In some places the walls were so badly broken that there were holes
which Opened to the outside, but Griscom felt these were beneficial
as they "left openings for the escape from within of the effluvia of
vermin. . . ." Nothing was ever whitewashed, clothes and persons were
rarely, if ever, washed; cupboards, stairways, furniture, bedding, and
walls were in the'most filthy condition. Usually the ceiling was so
low and the rooms so small a person could not stand erect. With neither
windows nor light, it was difficult to see, yet in these holes the
"luckless and degraded tenants pass their nights, weary and comfortless."13
The question was often raised, why did the peeple continue in "
such situations? The answer was simple; at any time the landlord or
sub-landlord could order them out for non-payment of rent. Even‘if they
were only a minute late they could be evicted, and loss of a few day's
work, or a brief illness, would be enough to put them out in the’street.
The system of tenantage was directly responsible for this situation,
because there were several instances where, under different circumstances,
the poor kept their domiciles clean and their personal lives exemplary.
Knowing that they could not be evicted on a moment's notice created the
change in their apartment, their appearence, and their health.14

The overcrowding was the worst aspect of the problem; more often

than not two or three families were forced to share one room. Thus,

62

when one person contracted a disease, the chances were that all the
occupants would come down with it, and the confined space made recovery
less likely. There was also the question of modesty, or the lack of
it. The close quarters virtually eliminated all privacy, forcing
members of the same and different families to eat, sleep, dress, and if
lucky enough to have water, bathe, in the presence of one another. In
his 1845 report, Griscom sent out a questionnaire to the City Tract
Missionaries. The first question on the list concerned the morals of
the tenement dwellers, and the effects of overcrowding on their moral
outlook. George natt, missionary in the First and Second Wards, on the
lower tip of‘uanhatten, reported that one missionary was invited into a
one-room apartment where the father was sitting on the bed, "entirely
naked," washing the shirt he had just taken off, in the presence of
his wife and children. Samuel Russell, of the Eighth ward, reported
that such close quarters, "blunted, ruined and finally destroyed" the
sense of shame, "that greatest, surest safeguard to virtue except the
grace of God. . . ." This same attitude was confirmed by the other
tract missionaries who corresponded with Griscom.15

This breakdown of morals led to depression, which made restoration
of health more difficult, and in.some cases impossible. Further, Griscom
wrote, the senses of the residents were soon dulled, and amazing cases
ef'degeneracy were reported. He told the case of two policemen in
search of a criminal who entered the cellar at 123 Cedar Street, in the
First Hard. Three hogs were kept in the cellar, which was permanently
sealed from.the front, the boarders feeding them from the rear or ground
floor. The top floor of the two story house was occupied by people of
"doubtful reputation." The building was condemned and razed, and from

the house "eight or ten carloads of manure and filth" were removed. Even

63

those residents with some remaining.moral sense, and not physically
incapacitated, simply gave up and wallowed in the filth because they were
constantly surrounded by broken people and suffering families.16

The lack of ventilation was the next problem of importance. With-
out proper air to breathe, the peOple were quickly reduced to a state
of ill health, more susceptible to diseases, which the foul air and
effluvia supported. Griscom was appalled at the construction of the
tenements, because when they were built, the windows and doors were both
placed on the same side. "A draught of air through, is therefore an
utter impossibility." Furthermore, the windows were so arranged that
the upper sash could not be opened, thus preventing the admission of
air to the upper part of the room. Also, the poor were in the habit of
putting their beds as far from the windows as they could, cutting them-
selves off from the fresh air even more. (This was perhaps the result
of the erroneous concept that the night air carried diseases.) Things
were bad enough in the summer when the door was often opened, but in the
winter the apartments were almost hermetically sealed against the cold
breezes that blew along the streets and alleys, at which point, the
smell became intolerable and all manner of diseases were found in the
offensive apartments. Griscom, feeling that the readers of his reports
might accuse him of being too melodramatic, said "I cannot too highly
color the picture, if I would."17

One problem as prevalent in mid-twentieth century slums as it was
in Griscom's day is the policy of overcharging the tenants for goods.
Griscom reported that as they had no place to store anything, they
therefore bought their food, wood or coal, and everything else "by"the
small,'" for which the grocer, who might also be the landlord, charged

exorbitant rates.18 While today's slum dweller no longer buys coal to

64

heat with, he is still faced with the problem of paying more when he
buys his goods in smaller amounts.

Again, as in the case of the immigrant ships, water was a problem.
In the first place, it was not available in large amounts, because the
Croton water was only supplied to the wealthier wards. Only shallow
wells which provided water of questionable quality were available in
the tenement districts. Further, if the family was inclined to bathing
and cleaning, there was no place to hang out the wash, assuming, of
course, they had a change of clothing. The lack of water combined with
the necessity of carrying on all of life's functions in one room"

eliminated the bath from the lives of most tenement dwellers.19

II
If tenement living in general was bad, then the worst place in
a tenement was the cellar. As Griscom wrote,

The most offensive of all places for residence are the
cellars. It is almost impossible, when contemplating the
circumstances and condition of the poor beings who inhabit
these holes, to maintain the proper degree of calmness
requisite for a thorough inspection, and the exercise of a
sound judgment, respecting them. ‘You must descend to them;
you must feel the blast of foul air as it meets your face

on opening the door; you must grope in the dark, or hesitate
until your eye becomes accustomed to the gloomy place to‘
enable you to find your way through the entry, over a broken
floor, the boards of which are protected from your tread '
by a half inch of hard dirt; you must inhale the suffocating
vapor of the sitting and sleeping rooms; and in the dark,
damp’recess, endeavor to find the inmates by the sound of
their voices, or chance to see their figures moving between
you and the flickering blaze of a shaving burning on the
hearth, or the misty light of a window coated with dirt and
festooned with cobwebs--or if in search of an invalid, take
care that you do not fall full length upon the bed with her,
by stumbling against the bundle of rags and straw, dignified
by that name, lying on the floor, under the window, if‘
window there is;--all this, and much more, beyond the reach
of my pen, must be felt and seen, ere you can appreciate in
its full force the mournful and disgusting condition, in which
many thousands of the subjects of our government pass their
lives.

65

The two things that.made these holes exceptionally bad were the dampness
and the less than adequate ventilation. Few cellars were reached by
the warmth and drying powers of the sun, or wafted by fresh, life giving
breezes, but this was especially true of the inhabited cellars where
the residents shut out the hot air in summer and the cold air in winter.
Following a rainstorm, most of these holes were flooded because the
sewer system was totally inadequate. Griscom knew of some courts and
alleys where the street was higher than the cellar windows, which
caused the water to run into the basements as a matter of course.20

Since Griscom did not have much time to prepare his City Inspector's
report, he was aware that some of his findings might be inaccurate.
Even though he went ahead and prepared a ward by ward census of the
cellar and rear buildings (rear buildings were erected on the rear half
of a lot that already had a building on the front portion. They were
almost completely cut off from circulating air as the only access was
via narrow alleys or cul-de-sacs. While not as bad as cellars they"
were extremely unhealthy places.)21

Upon completion of the survey Griscom examined each ward. he
found the worst living conditions in the Eleventh ward, bounded by
Fourteenth Street and Rivington on the north and south, and the East
River and.Avenue D on the east and west. There were 240 cellars with
L349 people and 157 rear buildings with 799 families. Since average
families had four members, the Eleventh Ward rear buildings housed about
3,200 tenants. The Fourteenth ward, located near the center of the
city and bounded by the Bowery and Canal Street on the east and south
was not as crowded. It had 796 people in 140 cellars and 775 families
in 189 rear buildings. Third in overcrowding was the Thirteenth Hard,

directly south of the Eleventh, where 1267 tenants were crowded into 252

66

cellars and 686 families in 204 rear buildings. After these three wards
came the Seventh and the Fifth wards. Then the population figures
dropped off until the Twelfth and Sixteenth wards, which were so thinly
populated that no statistics were gathered. Griscom noted that in the
Thirteenth Ward, there were some cellars with as many as thirteen
inhabitants each; however, the Fifth ward, located on the Hudson River
between Read Street and Broadway, contained some cellars with as many
as forty-eight people. These filthy basements were located in both
front and rear buildings, and "into some the water is continually '
flOwing from the roofs and yards, and the small rooms are so crowded"
as to have scarcely room to turn."22

In 1850, New'York's total cellar and rear building population was
conservatively estimated at 33,668 (Liverpool's was about 40,000).
"Many of these back places," Griscom had written, "are so constructed
as to cut off all circulation of air-~the line of houses being aeross
the entrance--forming a cul-de-sac, while those in which the line is
parallel with, and at one side of the entrance, are rather more favour-
ably situated, but still excluded from any general visitation of air ‘
in currents." Despite all these criticisms, cellar residences continued
to grow in numbers. In 1842 Griscom.estflmated the cellar population at
7,196, whereas by 1850 the chief of police reported it had jumped to
18,456, undoubtedly as a result of the heavy immigration of the 1840's.
The number must have stabilized at that point since Stephen.Smith found
the same number in his sanitary survey conducted during the Civilw’ar.23

There were three classes of boarders, in addition to those who
rented, who inhabited the cellars. The first class paid, on the average,
thirty-seven and one-half cents per week for food and lodging, and slept

on loose straw strewn on the floor. The second class paid half that and

67
slept on the bare floor. The third class, paying nine cents a week,
were in a percarious position because as soon as second class boarders
became available they were turned out.24
The fact that these cellars were designed to receive coal,
lumber or other goods for storage simply added to the horror of cellar
life, and to the crime of those who rented such holes to people unable
to afford decent housing. Griscom reported a conversation he had with
one resident.
Upon remonstrating, not long since, with a woman, for not
keeping her apartment in a cellar in a nester condition,
particularly about the floor, which was covered with ten or
a dozen pieces of old carpet, and as many varieties of
figure, and a great deal of dirt, she said it was no use'
to try; and the assertion was justified, by exhibiting to
me the boards destroyed in.many places by rottenness, and
in others entirely absent, exposing the bare earth beneath.
The place was so dark, that with the broad sunlight without,
I could not see distinctly without a candle; and yet this
family (in which were several children, all sick) had
lived there several years at a high rent, the landlord
refusing always to put down a decent floor. In addition
to their own family, three or four men were accomodated
with lodgings.25
Again and again there are instances of Dr. Griscom crawling ‘
around in these dens of filth to get an accurate idea of living conditions
of the poor. His reports were highly emotional--it would be difficult
to treat cellar residences dispassionately when one considers the numbers
of children who breathed their last beneath the ground--but they
were thoroughly documented. The above illustration was just one of many.
As City Inspector, Griscom had assistants who were to tour the wards and
report nuisances, but he was not willing to leave such an important
task in the hands of non-professionals (few if any of the assistants
had medical training); consequently he made inspection tours himself.
This lent more weight to the Annual Report, and probably helped bring

about the removal of this over-zealous reformer, as he exposed too many

evils.26

68

Dr. Griscom was able to cite several examples where families who
were healthy when they lived above ground, became ill and charity cases
when they moved into cellars. One individual who lived in a cellar
adjoining a church cemetery was forced to move the bed as the moisture
seeped through and ran down the wall. 'Host of the case-histories
Griscom cited were of women, because the men were able to escape the
cellars when they went to work. Even the boys were freed from their”"
tombs on their way to and from school. But the "females, both night"
and day, inhale the polluted atmosphere of the dwellings, and are more
continually under all the other bad influences of their unfortunate
situations." More women than men were treated in the dispensaries,
proving his point. In one year the ratio was nineteen to eleven, but'
it was generally twelve to eight and one-half, or twelve to ten and '
one-half. These figures were even more striking when it is considered
that many of the men were treated for problems directly connected with
intemperance.27

While City Inspector, Griscom prepared a form of seven questions
for the City Tract missionaries, who, from daily acquaintance, were most
familiar with the problems of the slums. Griscom was interested in
learning the effects of overcrowding on.merals, how physical discomfort
effected their reception of the Gospel, how filth effected morals,
whether stronger laws would help the inhabitants stay clean, whether
regular visits fro-1a health officer would help, and whether or not there
were many who wanted to live cleaner, more decent lives but simply did
not know how. Finally, he asked the missionaries to include any of their
personal experiences.

Griscom frequently displayed a talent for making the best possible

use of available sources. In reference to these tract missionaries he

 

69

wrote:

Many of these gentelemen have been a long time engaged in

this work, and probably no body of men possesses more thorough

knowledge of the localities of this city, of the condition

of its inhabitants, of the influence of circumstances upon

the tone of morals in all classes, drawn from actual obser-

vation, or of the alterations and additions required in

the police and sanitary codes, for the improvement of the

city at large, and in its various particulars.
Here Griscom added strength to his cause by citing several other reputable
witnesses to the degradation of the poor. In an attempt to bring about
reform, his questions were designed to illustrate the inferior position
of the tenement dweller. In addition to his own personal observations,
the public was invited to listen to the conclusions and observations of
other medical men and of miss ionsries--men who worked in the wards and
the homes of the poor from day to day. Griscom must have reasoned that
while people might ignore him, they would be hard-pressed to ignore the
physicians and missionaries who also provided testimony.28

J. B. Horton, missionary from the Seventh Hard, replied to Griscom's

appeal as City Inspector; he also responded in 1844 when Griscom was
preparing his Sanitary Condition. For the latter work Horton wrote "I
think there is no intelligent man whose opinion on this subject [cellars]
will not entirely accord with yours." The damp, dark, ill-ventilated
cellars were well established as the cause of fevers, ague, rhet-etism,
and a whole list of other diseases. llorton pointed out that Griscom
was not attempting to establish a new theory in regard to cellar dwellings,
"but to give a history of its bit-4:35 experience, and so to impress the
mind of the philanthropist and statesmen, that salutary laws may be
enacted and enforced to prevent cupidity from being allowed to glut its

insatiate mew, by renting tenements to the poor, the widow and fatherless,

so near the precinct of death and the tomb."29

70

Several missionaries wrote to Griscom concerning their experiences
in the slums; physicians who had worked in the dispensaries also wrote,
providing further information on the squalid conditions in the tenements
and cellars of New‘Tork. Drs. John Swett, Stephen wood, and Benjamin
McCready all wrote concerning the horror of cellars and rear buildings.
In one rear building McCready noted the tenement was surrounded by pig
sties and stables, and "fromtthe quantity of filth, liquid and otherwise,-
thus caused, the ground, I suppose, had been rendered almost impassable,
and to remedy this, the yard had been completely boarded over, so that
the earth could nowhere be seen." The boards had partially rotted away,
and by exerting a slight pressure on them a "thick greenish fluid could
be forced up through the crevices." This was the scene of nine cases'
of typhus in six weeks, two of them fatal. The only thing that stopped
the spread of the disease was the evacuation of the house by its residents.
The reports of the missionaries, though less technical, all emphasized
the same point; filth was detrimental to the health and morale of the"
inhabitants. They also followed a policy which the Salvation‘Army wduld
use in later years-~fill the stomach, then preach to the soul.30

From 1832 until 1834 Griscom*was attached to the New‘York'
Dispensary, the first organized in the city. It was located on the corner
of Centre and White Streets, in the Fifth Hard. Then in 1842 he becane
Attending Physician at the Eastern Dispensary, located on the corner of
Esiex Market Place and Ludlow Street, having as its domain those regions
of the city where the cellar and rear buildings were the most numerous.
The physicians attached to these and the other dispensaries were the
first to see the diseases that plagued the tenement classes. Dr. Griscom
wrote that dispensary physicians easily picked out cellar dwellers by

“their peculiar pallor, their straining eyes and ghastly countenances."

71
Any one of the men who served in this capacity was able to present tales
of horror and woe, and of the hopelessness of the losing battle against
the rising tide of disease. The easiest part of the job was locating
the patient:
I cannot be mistaken when I state, that frequently in
searching for a patient living in some cellar, my attention
has been attracted to the place by a peculiar and nauseous
effluvium, issuing from the door, indicative of the nature
and condition of the inmates; and I can point to several,
numerously occupied, in which I cannot stand erect [it will
be recalled Griscom was a six footer], except with my head
between the beams of the ceiling, and to which the entrances
seem almost as difficult as that to the cave where Putnam
found the wolf.”

The effects of the tenement on disease could only be properly
understood by the dispensary physician, who worked with the problems on
a day to day basis. Griscom noted all sorts of diseases attributable
to the condition of living in the poorer wards-"rheumatism, fevers ,'
infla-stions, pulmonary, and sundry other diseases were all traced to
the filthy tenements, squalid courts, overflowing sinks and privies,
or the manure filled streets and alleys. In addition to these diseases,
small pox, cholera, typhus, and yellow fever usually started in the
tenements and spread to the nicer parts of the city. on the appearance
of these diseases the city fathers began vast clean-ups, all of which
emphasized the false economy practiced. Dr. Griscom explained that if
the money had been expanded in smaller amounts over longer periods the
evils of the tenement might well have been avoided. 32

The dampness of the cellars--there were many cases where the
incoming tides caused the furniture to float about the room--and the
lack of adequate air to breathe led to many of these diseases. E. 'A:

Fraser, one of Griscom's reporters, in an understatement said "it

should be remembered that, in multitudes of instances, basements of only

ordinary dampness, with the little fuel that the poor have to warm them

72
with, and at the same time being very open and cold, must be very un-
wholesome to their tenants." In an 1857 address, Griscom noted that
troglodytes were more susceptible to disease; Liverpool's 14,000 cellar
residents were only twelve percent of the population; yet they accounted
for thirty-five percent of the city's morbidity. After an act of
Parliament significantly reduced the cellar population, cholera deaths
dropped from 500 in one year to ninety-four. Closer to home, one New
York ward had 562 blacks, 119 living in cellars, while the remaining
443 were better housed. Only one-fourth of the blacks living above
ground suffered from the 1820 outbreak of "Boucher Fever ," whereas one-
half of the cellar blacks were stricken. "Out of 48 blacks living in
10 cellars, 33 were sick and 14 died; while out of 120 whites, living
i-ediately over their heads, in the same houses, not one ever had the
fever." This is just another indication of Griscom's thorough research;
heidemonstrated with great care the evils of cellar residences.33 '
Ventilation was one of the keys to the problem; in cellars and

many of the above ground tenements sufficient air was not available.
Dr. Griscom agreed with the English ventilation expert, David B. Reid,
whb maintained that ten cubic feet per minute were required by each adult.
Using these figures, Griscom maintained that the two families of ten
people residing in the cellar at 50 Pike Street, which was ten feet
square and seven feet high and contained one small window and a slanting
door, began breathing contaminated air fifteen minutes after their
arrival, yet they would remain in the apartment from ten at night until
five the next morning, reinhaling the same air over and over again. ’

Is it astonishing, [he asked] that the Dispensary is called

upon, very frequently to extend its aid to these imates?

and should there not be some remedy for this dreadful state

of things? The whole of these premises, besides the ‘cellar,

is in a condition unfit for b habitation, and yet
crowded to a melancholy degree.

73

Residences in cellars were bad enough, but schools conducted in
them were among the worst abuses known to the poor. An infant school
was conducted in a church basement, measuring forty-six by thirty by
eight and one-half feet high. Into the room about two hundred children
were packed. The surrounding buildings were so close to the church
that the blackboard could not be seen because the shadows cut off all
light and ventilation.35

It is unfortunate that after the exposures of 1842 and 1845, the
cellars were allowed to continue. In his 1853 report for the New York
Astociation for Improving the Condition of the Poor, Griscom encountered
the problems of living in cellars again. He wrote of the rising‘water,
the smell, the blackness, the lack of air. "Though utterly unavailable
for any other use, they are rented at rates which ought to procure
comfortable dwellings, to persons who have become as debased in charatter
as the condition is degrading in which they live." The 1850 survey of
cellar population showed that each cellar averaged five occupants, and'
that only half of the 3,742 cellars had more than one room. ObviOusly
things had not improved, the aural degradation, the destruction of health
and human life were allowed to continue unabated even though these
cellars were "fitter receptacles for the dead than the living." A
lengthy residence in such a place was ahmost certain to shorten one's
life.36

Still later, during the Civil war, the Citizens Association,
formed to put an end to corruption in city hall, directed part of its '
energies for improved sanitary legislation. The.Association sent out a
letter to several of the city's distinguished sanitarians,‘among them
John I. Griscom. Griscom was called upon because of his "close study of
the subject for the past twenty-two years." He wrote, in responding to

the query, that the 20,000 people trapped beneath the ground were at the

74
nadir of the 450,000 tenement dwellers. "The condition of this part of
the population is disgusting in the extreme, and provocative of the worst
results, moral, physical, pecuniary, and political." Drawing on his
vast knowledge, Griscom compared New York of the 1860's to London of
1666 when 100,000 died of the plague. 37

III

The llew York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor
(AICP) was organised during the winter of 1842-43. Its leaders felt
that there would always be a poorer class and therefore a necessity to
improve its condition. 0n the one hand they wanted to do away with
street begging; on the other to visit the poor in their dwellings,
examine their circustances and extend needed relief. Griscom served
on several co-ittees of the AICP, but his most significant contribution
was the First Bengt offs Co-ittee on the Sanitary Condition of the
laboring Classes ‘i_n the CitLoe Lsigl Newlork. Organized in June, 1853 ,
the co-ittee, under Griscom's direction, presented its report in mid-
October. The Association was quite pleased with the report: "among
the objects claiming the attention of the Board during the year, none
have deserved or received more careful consideration, than that relating
to the sanitary condition of the laboring classes." The report was to
signal the beginning of a distinct organization which would erect 'modél
tenements, as was being done in Europe; however, the plan was given up
and the blueprints distributed to local builders.”

John ll. Griscom also served as district chairman, his duty being
to visit the poor families of the district, and meet their needs, both'
physical and moral. The districts corresponded to the city's wards;
Griscom's was the Seventh which was one of the worst. One visitor, "in

1847, worked with an Irish family. The father was dangerously ill, the

75

mother was convalescing from a previous illness, and their two children
were starving. The visitor called in two physicians, one of whom was
Griscom, to aid the family, and after several months the case was happily
resolved. 39

Griscom's 1853 AICP report is something of a minor classic in the
literature of progressive action against the evils of the tenement-
house. Thirty years after it was written, a New York tenant-house
inspector wrote a history of his department of the Board of Health, and
cited Griscom's report as the initial step in reform. Lawrence Veiller,
intimately involved in the slum problems at the turn of the century and
a noted authority on the subject, credited Griscom with beginning the
campaign to improve living conditions for those in the inner city.
Witing of the 1853 report, he remarked that "one result of the dis-
closures made by this Association in 1853 was the appointment by the
State Legislature in 1856 of a connittee of their own. . . ." He went
on to discuss the similarity of findings between'the Sanitay Condition,
the A10? report, and the Legislature's report. In another work on
tenements, Veiller quoted extensively Griscom's City Inspector report,
finding it "extremely interesting" that Griscom saw the problem of. the
city not to be its shape but‘ its rapid increases of population. He
was also pleased to see Griscom lay the blame where it belonged--at
the feet of the municipal authorities. In his "List of Books Important
to a Proper Understanding of the Tenement House Problem in the City
of New Yerk," Veiller cited first Griscom's Sanitary Survey of 1842
and then his AICP report."0

There was a definite progress from Griscom's agitation to the
first tenement house laws; unfortunately the wheels of justice move
slowly. As James Ford Notes, Griscom's recomendations languished for

nearly half a century before some of his ideas were put into effect, and

76

The first plan of the Association was to erect model tenements,
"replete with every requisite for health, comfort and economy, at rents
not ordinarily exceeding those paid for the lowest class of tenements."
The Association reasoned that "every honest, sober and industrious
resident, should at least have it in his power to procure a decent and
healthy home for himself and family." As they pointed out, the sad
truth was that this was impossible, because of the overcrowding. People
must live near their places of work, and that meant they would be shut
up in small holes in the most overcrowded districts, sacrificinghealth,
life, and morals. There were thousands of poor families in the lower
wards, and more arriving daily, with no apartments where they could'
live in health and safety. During their inspection tour the cousittee
could not find one building worthy of being called a model tenement.
Some buildings had wide stairways but they were inadequately ventilated,
or filthy, while some had rooms that were far too small.“2

To his Annual Report Griscom had appended a section entitled
"Preventive Sanitary Neasures." In a footnote he discussed a model
tenement that had been opened on Anthony Street, between Church and ‘ "
Chapel, "one of the worst neighborhoods to be found in the City." All
the important items needed to make the tenants happy and healthy had
been included, with no significant rise in the rent. "Light and airy
rooms, good dry cellars for fuel and food, well flagged pavements, a
hydrant in the court, and other convenient appurtances, with the cheerful
aspect of the whole place and of its inhabitants, afford conclusive
evidence of the value of such improvements, both to the owner and the
City. " Griscom had advocated this kind of building for the poorer "
classes several years earlier and was happy to 'see such a "refreshing

oasis in that desert of wretched tenements, and more wretched “mate's.”3

77
Griscom, showing his faith in the goodness of man, staunchly

believed that if the poor were taken from their insalubrious surround-
ings, and put into decent housing, at reasonable rents, the result

would be a new class of people. Not only would the poorer classes become
better housed, they would become active members of society, contributing
to, rather than taking from, the public weal. One individual erected

a model tenement, in which he provided the necessary amenities forthe
tenants to live like human beings, and not well-kenneled dogs. Bis

brick building provided each resident with two rooms, separate cellars
under lock and key, separate out-houses, piazzas, a copper boiler, and
adequate closet space. The tenants were chiefly Irish; even though many
were out of work the weekly rent was promptly paid, and with the exception
of a few cellar lights nothing needed repair. Examples such as this could
be multiplied, but they were still the exception.“

The AICP report maintained that the poor were the concern of all;
that by providing them with better places in which to live, the city
would be doing them a great service while saving vast amounts of money.
Hhile other ameliorations had been made in the condition of the poor,
”little comparatively has been effected for improving their tenements,
though it is doubtful whether in any other city they are less adequately
provided for than in New York." There were a nmaber of reasons for
this; first, the capitalists with the funds to change the situationwere
unconcerned; second, it was thought that model tenements would not pay;
third, the tremendous i-sigration created a further strain on the ’3”
existing housing; and finally, and most important, was the absence of
adequate sanitary and housing regulations,"5

men the poor took over buildings vacated by wealthier people,
the large rooms were divided into smaller ones, the one family houses

becoming a multi-family dwelling. This same thing would happen fifty

78
years later when the blacks moved into Harlem. Another parallel with
Harlem was the high rent-~even though the buildings were in need' of'
repair, and "in so vile a condition they can scarcely be stepped into,
without contracting filth of the most offensive kind ," they were rented
for twenty-five to thirty percent more than was paid in other parts
of town. In the lower wards of the city, as in Harlem, one found that
Crazy old buildings--crowded rear tenements in filthy yards--
dark, damp basements--1eaky garrets, shops, out—houses, and
stables converted into dwellings, though scarcely fit to
shelter brutes--are the inhabitations of thousands of our
fellow-beings, in this wealthy Christian city. ’
These decrepit buildings on the verge of collapse paid their owners
handsomely. The report cited specific examples, such as a rear building,
entered through a filthy alley off Oliver Street in the Fourth ward.
Neasuring sixteen by thirty, it had two floors and a garret divided into
ten small apartments for sixteen families. The rents averaged $1.50
a week, the building returned $750.00 a year, or thirty percent of its
value. In the same ward there was a front and rear tenement which held
fifty-six families. Pour lots, chosen at random, rented at seventeen”
percent of their value; therefore, after the sixth year, the landlord
received nearly one hundred percent clear profit on these buildings.“'
In his ward by ward survey Griscom came upon a block in the
Eighth Nerd which went beyond his worst expectations. "Rotten Row," a
series of eight houses lining both sides of Laurens Street, contained
tw<>~hundred fifty families, of 1,250 people, in 18,000 square feet, which
left each man, woman and child with fourteen square feet of space. "The
p‘estiferous stench and filth of these pent-up tenements exceed description. "
One room was occupied by six people, with chickens scratching about the

beds. Every inch was occupied, the lower rooms and cellars renting for

$4. 50 a month. The owner received $7,500 per annum, the residents a leaky

79
roof over their heads and ever increasing poverty. ‘Nany of the buildings
did not even have fireplaces, the only exchange of air taking place '
through the windows and doors, both of which were usually shut.47”

After the survey, Griscom and his emumittee reached three conclu-
sions they felt to be significant in the formation of such intolerable
conditions. First, the apartments were too small, and this was true for
at least three quarters of the laboring class residences in the city.

A ten by twelve room with a closet for a bedroom was‘mmong the bétter
class of accomodations. "What then must be the discomfort, disease,
and demoralization of the thousands who have but a single apartment of’
the most inferior kind, of small dimensions, low ceilings, etc., and"
that crowded with two, or three, or sometimes four or five families?"
Overcrowding in the inside led to invariably disgusting filth on the
outside. Second, there were too many people living in too small a space.
While a one story building with ten occupants might be salubrious‘,’ the
addition of a second or third story, with an accompanying increase in
the number of residents, could seriously endanger the health of all the
occupants. The third conclusion was the neglect of proper ventilation.
Many of the buildings were erected with no thought at all to ventilation,
and "many of the dwellings of the laboring classes are constructed as
if to want ventila_gi_og.”48
There was no reason to be shocked by this state of things:
when families of five, eight or ten persons, each live in a
contracted apartment, that is applied to every conceivable
domestic use, and from fifteen to thirty such families in
the same house--having the entry, stairway and yard in
common, the last badly drained, perhaps unpaved and the
receptacle of all deleterious and offensive things, it would
be truly surprising if the tenants did not become filthy,
reckless and debased, whatever might have been their previous

habits and character.

Conditions such as these turned the residents into creatures without hope

80
for the future. Griscom and his committee clearly understood that
intemperance was the result, and not the cause, of the poverty. As
the report aptly put it, it was not odd that so many were constantly in
the liquor shops but it was odd that so many would struggle home without
stopping for liquid relief.49

Even though there were no accurate statistics pinpointing the
proportion of deaths in the tenements as compared with the rest of the
city, Griscom was certain that it was far higher in the poorer residences.
While many of the dead were children who suffered from malnutrition, ‘
or i-igrants weakened by the crossing, most were from the male working
class--men cut off in the prime of life, their families being thrown'
on the relief rolls. The co-ittee concluded thus:

Hence it is, that so large a preportion of the dependent
are widows and fatherless children; and to say nothing of
the misery and suffering thus occasioned, hence also the
incense tax on public and private charity, attendant upon
ill health and premature mortality, from preventable or
removable causes.

Griscom was quick to point out that the poor were so not because
they were lazy, but because of circumstances over which they had no
control. They were caught up in a vicious circle; they had little money
and were forced to dwell in the tenements, which ruined their health,
yet they remained because they could not afford to leave. Whereas some
might escape, the large majority remained in their overcrowded, under-
ventilated, filthy tenements until they went to an early grave in Potter's
new.so ‘

Griscom was one of the few persons astute enough to realize that "
ina‘ring down the slums was not the answer to the problems of the poor.
he 'was shocked by the callousness of the city for when it tore down the

tenements, a perfect opportunity provided itself to build model tenements.

Yet, as Griscom ruefully declared, nothing was done. "They pull down the

81

habitations of the laboring class without building others of the improved
kind, which should take their place; the tenants are consequently driven
to find shelter elsewhere, though it be in cellars, and courts, and
garrets, amidst vice, and filth, and wretchedness." In a true stroke
of understatement Griscom wrote "the wants of the population have
evidently been misunderstood."51

The evils of the tenement-house ate-ed from three groups--the
tenants, the owners, and the Legislature. The last group had the power
to change the conditions but failed to do so. Griscom closed the AICP
report by calling upon capitalists and landlords to work together and
create new housing for the laborers. Speaking in terms of the Gospel
of Health, Griscom argued the rich had a trust, and that they must not
always be concerned with a fair return on their investment (although
the "model tenements usually did return a fair profit). Host of the
tenements being erected were as bad as or worse than existing structures,
and this was false economy. With the then current state of affairs, the
almshouses and prisons continued to drain enormous amounts of the city's
revenue; although improved dwellings would require a vast initial outlay
a large part of the drain might be stopped. It was the duty of the
Legislature to intervene at this point and provide minimum hous ing"
requirements, that would specifically guarantee the rights of the indi-
vidual and yet recognize "no man's right to pollute the atmosphere of' a
neighborhood by breeding a pestilence in his own domicil." Certain
standards for superficial height, heating, ventilation, and minimum
space were needed, enforceable by law. Finally, cleanliness needed to
be strictly enforced, and where its lack endangered the public health
the law should step in and issue a cease and desist order to either

tenant or landlord-whoever created the nuisance.52

82

here Griscom showed his visionary ideals when he called for partial
negation of the principle of laissez-faire. More government control of
buildings was needed or there would be no improvement for the laboring
classes. This was an appeal to the peOple's pocketbooks; Griscom demon-
strated how the welfare costs could be reduced at the same time the city's
wealth could be increased.

Griscom, prepared for any eventuality, had answers to four objections
that might be raised to model tenements. First, this would not interfere
with the rights of property holders, as nothing would hinder their
making a fair profit. Further, all the improvements would eventually
benefit the owner as he would have fewer complaints and repairs. " Next,
the rights of the tenants would not be abridged. when they realized
that living in filth undermined their health, morals, and will to live,
the poor would "discover that their own best interests are promoted'by”
all those measures which are calculated to improve their sanitary condition. "
Third, as charity was not considered, this plan would not destroy the
poor's self-reliance. Finally, with a few modifications, the plan
could be put into effect with the existing city and state machinery"
overseeing the operation. Griscom outlined the bare bones of reform-#-

it was up to the Legislature to act.53

IV
As a result of the AICP report, in 1855 state representative John
H. Reed offered a resolution which called for the creation of a special
co-ittee to investigate tenant housing in New York City. Reed was ‘ ”
co-pelled by reports of poorly constructed foundations, overly tall
buildings , undersized apartments, poor ventilation, narrow halls, over-
crowding, and a total lack of concern for the tenant's safety. As a

result of this interest Reed was made chairman of the select co-ittee

83

of five appointed the following year to examine the situation. "The
committee investigated the problem and became so interested that when
the state failed to continue the funds they completed it at their own
expense. 54

Their first meeting in the Mayor's office, May 14, 1856, was
followed by subsequent meetings when they heard testimony from city
officials, health officials, tenement builders and agents, concerned
citizens,and the president of the workingmen's association. while they
did not hear, or at least did not print, oral testimony from Dr. Griscom,
they did rely heavily upon his views and thoughts. Of thirty-nine"
footnotes, ten were references to the Sanitary Condition (twelve of the
remaining were references to the Minutes of the Investigation), In
addition to taking testimony the committee made two inspection tours
of the slums, of three and four days, with police protection.55

The:Assemhly committee accepted the ideas expressed by the.AICP
on the origins of the tenant-house. They further conceded that, given
New‘York's climate, shelter for the working classes was imperative.
Because shelter was imperative, and because owners wanted to make a
greater profit, buildings were converted into tenements*without any'
regard for their suitability. In addition to the primary cause of
overpopulation, the committee agreed with Griscom's findings when they
concluded that the "tenement is an offspring of municipal neglect." ”Land-
lords were allowed to charge exorbitant rents on the assumption that the
poor would ruin their buildings, which quickly fell into decay due to
neglect. Yet nothing was done to safeguard the health of the laboring
class. The Assembly reported:

lo stringent regulations on the part of landlords, no pro-

visions for the maintenance of health, and no convenience for
securing neatness, cleanliness, ventilation, or general order

84
and comfort in the establishment, were ever dreamed of in
connection with the tenant-house system, as it spread its
localities from year to year.
Bad more stringent regulations existed, some problems could have been
avoided. As it was, "poverty, as we have seen it in New York, is wedded
to despair, and its offspring is vengence."56

In their inspection tours they found, as had Griscom, that words
failed to describe the hideous conditions. "The decay and delapidation
of the premises was only equalled by the filth of the inhabitants." The
committee was quick to agree with earlier conclusions about the rear
buildings: "Rear buildings and their surroundings, present, in general,
the most repulsive features of the tenant-house system." They were
nearly impossible to reach as the

visitor must sometimes penetrate a labyrinth of alleys,
behind horse-stables, blacksmith's forges, and, inevitably,
beside cheap groggeries, till he finds himself in a dis
close, thick with nephitic gases, and nauseous from the
effluvia of decaying matter and pools of stagnant water.
Newly erected tenements were often just as bad as the existing structures,
a fact which impressed the committee‘with the seeming hopelessness of the
situation.”

Again drawing fromLprevioua reports, the committee noted the '
detrimental effects of neighborhood groceries. They charged higher
prices than did other places, and at least one per block sold liquor,
the result being that both decent families and children found their way
to the shops, and the corrupting influences of the drunks lounging about.
The committee agreed with Griscom that the temptations were the result,
not the cause, of the poverty. The Legislators went one step further
and laid the blame for the evils of liquor and policy playing (numbers)

at_the steps of the government because it did not provide adequate

protection.58

85
The co-ittee cited Griscom in their footnotes in relation to
several questions. It was confirmed that the landlords, and ultimately
the state, did not have the right to force people to live as animals,
where crime, vice, disorder, disease, and death were ever present. Again
quoting from the Sanitary Condition, the conmittee used Griscom's examples
of cities as sores on the body politic. They quoted Griscom's statement
that "history furnishes truths that should be warnings for legislation. "
With reference to superficial space, they cited a letter to Griscom
from Isaac Orchards, missionary to the Fifteenth Nerd. Orchards wrote
of the overcrowded, insalubrious conditions he encountered during his”
work as tract missionary, and responded to Griscom's appeal for facts
to support his case. Another citation, from another missionary,
urgently appealed for reform, and the committee completely agreed”.
Here all the inmates of these wretched dwellings vicious, desperate,
and depraved? Dr. Griscom, the missionaries, and the Assembly coamittee
thought not.
As wild roses may bloom in swamps, and violets upon the
edge of charnel pits or the crest of volcanoes, so in these
social morasses, Golgathas and Sodoms, there are to be found
honest, laborious men, struggling against want and disease;
self sacrificing women, toiling and suffering for beloved
ones; and little children, with ears and eyes as yet unused
to sounds and sights of wickedness, with hearts as yet
unseared by the contrast of surrounding corruption.
To save those still within reach, it was necessary to begin legislative
reform i-ediately.59
At the end of one month's investigations, the co-ittee reached
several conclusions, some of which Griscom had reached a decade earlier.
Cellar residences must be eliminated. Next, to prevent fatalities from
fires, strict regulation of stairways and balls was needed. If incest,

prostitution, and overcrowding were to be stopped, then sub-leasing

would have to be outlawed. Finally they thought that a clean, comfortable

home would reduce drunkenness.50

86
In their conclusion, the connittee maintained, as did Griscom, that

low cost housing for the laboring classes was possible. They went,
point for point, with the AICP report Griscom prepared in 1853:

The co-ittee have satisfied themselves “that houses, affording

proper accomodations and conveniences can be erected for

the poorer classes; that the providing of such will be

productive of incalcuable good, in a moral as well as

physical point; that investment of capital in the construction

of these buildings would be attended with no risk, and would

yield a good and permanent interest; that, finally, such

building and providing of habitations for the poor is not

only a measure of humanity, but of vital necessity to the

public, and should be encouraged by legislation and all

needful and fitting inducements.61

That legislation was the answer to the tenement house problem is

undeniable. Taken in conjunction with education on the evils of ‘filth,
this would go a long way towards improving the condition of the poor. '
The recs-endations of the legislators, and John H. Griscom, were adopted,
but in piecemeal fashion over the next several decades. Changes began
in 1866 with the hay 4 building law, which was concerned with fire
prevention and providing adequate means of escape. The first tenement-
house law, which shows the influence of Griscom, was passed the following
May. The law stated that each sleeping room be connected with the out-
side via a window, a door, or at (least a ventilating tube. Adequate
fire escapes were mandatory as were a sufficient number of water closets.
The law stopped the conversion of cellars to residences by refusing to
issue new permits after July 1, 1867. To maintain health it required
that houses be cleaned to the satisfaction of the Board of Health, or"
they had to be vacated. The size of rooms, rear buildings and the space
between buildings were also regulated. Twelve years later, on June 16,
1879, a new act was passed, which provided more adequate air space. 110
new tenement could be erected which occupied more than sixty-five percent

of the lot, except corner lots. Every room was to have a window at least

twelve feet square, and there was to be 600 cubic feet of air space per

87

occupant. however, discretionary clauses left with the Board of Health
nullified the law's effectiveness. Finally, on March 25, 1887, a
Tenuent louse Co-ission was appointed. As a part of the same law was
a section which required each sleeping roon to connect directly with the
outside. Unfortunately, this was coqletely unenforceable.62

Even though a few model tenements were put up, the more affluent
New Yorkers were not ready to take responsibility for the welfare of
their less fortunate brothers. Individualism, the Puritan ethic, and
self reliance were too firmly entrenched. Griscom's slain significsnce‘
then was as an innovator; he started the ball rolling by focusing the
public's attention on the problems of the slu. Although Griscom's soul
searching reports started tenement-house reforn in New York City, it can
be safely stated, considering the condition of today's urban centers,

that the last word has yet to be written on the subject.63

V

In 1853, the year in which Griscom conducted his survey of the
tenements for the AICP, there was a move in the State Legislature to set
aside land for a large Nanhatten park. The two sites being discussed
were Jones' Wood, an area of land along the East River facing Blackwell's
Island, and the middle park area, roughly sinilar to New York's present
Central Park. During the heated controversy over the site, Griscom sent
a letter to the New York Times, in which he discussed the issue of parks
and their value to the health of the poor. The whole question was one'
that had attracted the favorable attention of the public; Griscom“ asked
the opportunity to present his views on the sanitary aspects of such'a
park. When one considered the size of Manhatten Island, the rel-oval of
any large parcel of land from the market would, he suggested, force

already high rents to a new level. Next, he thought it was not needed

88
for the poor as an outlet for recreation, as they had other diversions.
Finally, it was a question of priorities—-other improvements were needed
more than a large park. If the Legislature, however, was determined to
set aside eight hundred acres for park land, Griscom had an alternative
plan; divide the land in fifty acre parcels spread over the island so
"that the air, the trees, the flowers, the fountains, and the walks, may
be brought within the reach of all. This would certainly be less aristo-
cratic, more democratic, and far more conducive to the public health. "5"
It was thought at this time that parks served as "lungs for the

city;" they supplied the necessary fresh air, helping the city "breathe."
Griscom pointed out the fallacy of setting aside a large uptown park to
_ make the air healthier in the overcrowded downtown wards. But even more
hportant, the largest problem was the life indoors; women, who spent
more time in the tenement, had the higher incidence of disease. Griscom
again called for tenement-house reform:

If we would, therefore, ventilate the city, we must begin

by enlarging and ventilating the dwellings, by prohibiting

the erection and occupation of the thousands of rooms no

larger than prison cells, and by prohibiting the occupation

as residences, of hundreds of cellars, in which the poor

are now compelled to crowd themselves.
These parks and trees were nice, but they would not offset the evils of
a Gotham Court, or a Torsyth Street. Jones wood was particularly absurd
as a reservoir of fresh air. In the first place the city was surrounded
by swift running rivers which provided a constant change of air with all
its freshness. Second, Jones wood was located at the edge of one of
these rivers, nowhere near the center of the city. Using it to ventilate
the tenements of the poor would be like "helping the flight of an eagle
by giving him the wing of a butterfly, or using a candle to help one's

sight under the broad glare of the noon-day sun. " The problem involved

89
getting the people out of doors, not necessarily to a large park‘but to
any spot where they could breathe freely.“

Too much emphasis was being placed on the park and the beneficial
effects it was to have on the city's health. It was as if the public had
caught hold of a park as a cure-all for the laboring classes. "Its
advocates would seem to regard it as a panacea for most of the ills,
moral and physical, which issue from this great box of Pandora. "' The"
park would not serve as a lung for the city, even existing parka had
no effect on buildings only a few hundred feet away. Fresh air was
available to the poorer classes; the problem was that the construction
of the tenements shut off all avenues of approach for the fresh air. The
narrow, offal filled streets, blind alleys, courts, yards, and cul-de-sacs
precluded all ventilation. These were the problems to be attacked, not
a new park which would benefit the gentleman and his lady out for an
afternoon's drive.66

It was argued by the park's promoters that such a place would
provide cheap entertainment for the working classes. Griscom showed
the fallacy of this:

A walk through the most beautiful park in the world is not
to be compared with a sail upon either of our noble rivers,
with their unsurpassed views of city, country and water,” and
their pure and most invigorating atmosphere; while the rawles
at Staten Island, at Greenwood, at Green Point, and above
all, at Noboken, with its Elysian Fields and shady groves
and river-s ide promenade, equal, if they do not surpass,
those of either London, Paris , or Versailles;--and all
attainable for a few cents.
One could sail to Staten Island for six cents, to Noboken for three
cents, or across the East River for a penny. It would cost more than
this to ride up to Central Park. The ferries were readily available, '
with fourteen on the last and eight on. the North River. The ferries
were near to the places where the laborers lived and worked while the park

sites were quite a distance away.67

90
Griscon's article was not entirely negative; in closing he anti-

cipated the turn of the century garden plans that would be used in some
of New'York’s outlying districts. He wanted to combine dwellings and
gardens by laying off streets one hundred feet wide, and in the inter-
vening areas, erecting modern, well ventilated apartments, not more
than three stories high (taller buildings, he noted, cut down on air
and light, and by limiting the height Griscom seems to have anticipated
the city's later set-back regulations for skyscrapers, which allowwmore
light and air to reach the street). There would be at most one or two
families per floor in these open, clean apartments. At the center of
each group there would he’s garden for the use of all.

These interspsces, now usually occupied as private yards,

could easily, and without loss, be spared for common use,

and if well arranged with walks, trees and flower beds,

'with two or three fountains, would form little parks of

themselves, to which the neighbors would daily resort with

their children, always in sight, and where, by'more frequent

and free intercourse, the kindly feelings would be cultivated

‘with far more liklihood than elsewhere.
Perhaps such a plan.was too idealistic; but it did offer an alternative
to the stinking hovels in which the poor were forced to live. John H.
Griscom's plannwould have provided the poor with a nice place to live,
one with enough amenities to restore their sense of worth and dignity,
and yet one that would not be terribly expensive. He further reasoned'
that the poor would return to work, and being taken off the welfare rolls,
would add to the city's wealth, thereby offsetting the cost of the build-
ings. "There might be accomodated, in the way I propose, comfortably,
healthfully, cheaply, and elegantly, and‘with a revenue too, a population
not less than 250,000, who, otherwise must be crowded into narrow spaces,
at high rents, greater certainty of sickness and early mortality."58”

Thirteen.years after his death, in 1887, the Small Parks Act was

passed which authorized the creation of parks south of 155th Street.

91
Three sites, totalling thirteen acres, were selected, but little was
done prior to 1895. The most inortant site was Mulberry Bend, the
park which was so dear to the heart of Jacob Riis. In 1895 another“
co-ission recs-ended the creation of two more park sites, to be located
east of the Bowery and south of Fourth Street. The Co-issioners
also thought that each new school should be built with adequate space
for playgrounds. Though dead, the influence of Griscom is just as
apparent in these small parks as that of Jacob Riis or the conissions

which develOped the-.69

CHAPTER 111 NOTES

1Thomas C. Cochran and William Miller, The Age of Enterprise
(New York, 1961), 62, 252-53.

2New York City, By Laws and Ordinances of the NaLor, Aldermen
and Co-onalty of the Gig of New York, (1845), 70.

3John N. Griscom, Annual Reiort of the Interments in the City
and County of New York for the year 1842, with Remarks thereon, and a
Brief View of the Sanitary Condition of the Ci _1 (New York, 1843),
155-57. Rate 11. Claghorn, "Foreign Immigration and the Tenement
House Problem in New York City ," The Tenement House Problem, eds. ,
Robert H. DeForest and Lawrence Veiller (New York, 1903), II, 67-69.

“Griscom, Annual Report, 155-57. John a. Griscom, A History,
Chronological and Circumstantial, of the Visitations of Yellow Fever
3; New York (New York, 1858), 17.

5John a. Griscom, Uses and Abuses of Air (New York; .1850, 1970),
175'79s

6lloy Lubove, The Progressives and the Slums (Pittsburgh, 1962),
3. Griscom, uses and Abuses, 186-89.

7Douglas T. Miller, Jacksonian Aristocracy: Class and Democracy
in New York, 1830-1860 (New York, 1967), 135. Oscar Nandlin, 1h:
Uprooted (New York, 1951), 150. Claghorn, "Foreign Imigration," 67,
69- 71.

 

8Lawrence Veiller, Tenement House ReformL1834- -1900 (New York,
1900),5 . Stephen Smith, The City that Has (New York, 1911), 19.
George Rosen, in his History of Public Health (New York, 1958), stated
that "it is no accident that the first penetrating study of the
health problems of the comunity was published by John C. [sic]
Griscom in 1845‘. ' The depth of Griscom's analysis is related to his
work on the slum economy and its connection to the'sanitary condition
of the population. " 237

9The 1853 AICP report is not signed by Griscom; however, from
the style, force, use of witnesses, conclusions, and overall organization
it is attributable to him. Furthermore, Griscom made use of an
illustration in the report (see page 89) on the number of occupants
on a site. that appeared in his article to the New York Times (see

pages 87-91) .

1”John N. Griscom, The Sanitary Condition of the Laboring
Population of the City of New York, With Suggestions for its Improvement
(New York, 1845), 11-15.

111b__1_o., 67. noun, gist“: of Public Health, noted that
sub- tenantage was still one of the major ills in the mid- twentieth
century alt-s, 237- 38.

92

93
12John N. Griscom, AICP, First Report of a Co-ittee on the
Sanitary Conditions of the LaborigLClasses of the City oe_[sic] New
YorrL with Remedial Suggestions (New York, 1853), 9, 23- 24.

13Griscom, Sanitary Condition, 7.

 

“Griscom, Report oijnterments, 174.

lsGriscom, geport ofinterments, 161. Griscom, Sanitary
c0“1t1° , 25-34.

16Griscom, we}: of Interments, 173.
17Griscom, _S_:a:nitary Condition, 7-8.
1§rggg., 8.

19.12141.-

29rggg., 8-10.

“Griscom, R_eport of Interments, 162-65.
2221—4.

23932., 163-65. mm, Minutes (Narch, 1850). Smith, City
that Was, 81. ‘

2"Norman Ware, _Th_e Industrial WorkerL 1840-1860 (Chicago,
1964), 15-16.

25Griscom, Report of Interments, 172.
2691!. ‘

”Griscom, Sanitary Condition, 9-10, 13-14.
23231., 24-25.

29Griscom, grport of Interments, 167.
3°Griscom, grniury Condition, 15-19, 25-38.

3]'¢.:ris<:om, Report of Interments, 171-72. See also, Griscom,
Sanita Condition, 10. .

32Griscom, Sanitary Condition, 45.
”Griscom, Re__port of Interments, 165,170-71. John I. Griscom,
"Improvements of the Public health, and the Establishment of a Sanitary
Police in the City of New York, " NSNY, Transactions (1857), 114-15.
Griscom, Rgport of Interments, 170-71.
“Griscom, Sanitary Condition, 10-11.

351bid., 11.

94
36Griscom, AICP, girst Report, 9, 18.

37John H. Griscom, Reply to Citizens Association Co-sittee of
Iguiry on The Sanitary Condition of New York (New York, 1864), use aim.

38AICP, First Annual Reart of the NYAICP For the Year 1845
(New York, 1845), 8-10, 13-15, 17. Fourth Rsmrt (New York, 1847), 20.
Tenth Leport (New York, 1853), 26.

39Ibid.

‘oveiller, lgnsmsnt House Reform, 6-8, 11-12, 14-17. Lawrence
Veiller, ”Tenement House Reform in New York City, 1843-1900," :11;
Enement House Problem, eds. , Robert DeForest and Lawrence Veiller
(New York, 1903), I, 73-75. George 1!. Price, "History of Tenement
House Department and Advice to Inspectors," SanitarLand Tenement

House InsEctor Examination Instructioni ed. John I. Pleines (New
York, 1917) , 1.

“James Ford, 311-. and Housit_Ig (Cambridge, 1936), I, 108.

“NJ. , Assembly, Rpport of the Select Co-ittee Appointed to
Examine into the Condition of Tenant Houses in New York and Brookl n,
Doc. No. 205, 80th Sess., 1857, 27-28. Griscom, AICP, First Report,
5-7. hhile the co-ittee realized that the model tenement was not
the answer, they failed to realise'that the businessman was principally
interested in making a fair return on his investment. As Lubove
pointed out, "most builders subordinated the pleasure of serving
humanity to the maximasation of profit. " However faulty Griscom's
reasoning, it is another example of his faith in his fellow man."
Lubovs,Pro essives, 9.

‘3Griscom, Repgrt of Interments, 198. Anthony Street was 'in the
Sixth Hard, which was among the worst for cellar residences and rear
buildings.

“Griscom, nor, First Rs rt, 27-28.

“511131, Remts (1m York, 1359), 6. Griscom, nor, First
Re rt ,4-5.

“1232., 7-10.
‘71232-9 12: M
“M” 14-17.
“mg” 20-21.
5M” 22-24.
51333., 6, 25-26. .
5293., 28-31.
531391., 31-32.

95
“NJ” Assembly, Select Co-ittee, 1-2.
55%., 2-3, £9.2-
56_I_b_ig., 12-13, 19-20.
5793., 14-19, 23-24.
58932., 26.
59393., 31-32, 37-40.
603151., 3.
61.12151; , 46-53.
“pond, _s_y._no_, 1, 151-55, 164-65.
63M” I, 138. Lubove, Pro essives, 11.

“New York Times, June 30, 1853.

 

69Fond, Slums, 1, 193-97.

CHAPTER IV
NUISAHCES.AND THEIR.ABAIEHBNT

The poor, and the destitute,
and the degraded, have been
too long allowed to remain in
their ignorance, to grovel
in their filth, and while suffer-
ing acutely themselves, to
spread around them the contem-
ination and contagion of the
diseases of body and of mind,
which inevitably result from
their neglected condition.
John Bell, 1859
The fundamental health problem among the poorer classes in New
York was a lack.of fresh, wholesome air; inside the tenements there
was little exchange of air, and outside, the neighborhood was usually
so dirty the air itself was fetid. The closeness of the buildings
prohibited the passage of any stray breezes, which meant all the noxious
odors remained for days and weeks. Dr. Griscom, as were his contem-
poraries, was a miasmist, and attributed the common diseases to the"
vitiated air of the apartment, or the neighborhood; or else to the
incredibly common piles of filth in the streets.
Such nuisances as slaughter houses, pig sties, and rag and
bone piles added to the filth, and the case that the miasmists had '
built against life in the slums. To these were added the problems“
associated with rapid urban growth--inadequate sewerage, insufficient
water supplies, unregulated building codes, haphazard garbage pickups,
and the necessity of draining low-lying 1ands--a11 issues that Dr.

Griscom continually raised. Other problems, swill milk, for example,

96

97
weakened infants and children and if it did not kill them outright it
made them more susceptible to other diseases. In the view of the '
miasmist, these nuisances frequently resulted in epidemic or endemic
diseases; cholera, small pox, typhus, consuptionuall had their origins
in the laboring-class districts of the city.

Crista found in 1849 that animal and vegetable refuse was
being thrown into the street in ever increasing amounts. The intro-
(hiction of the Croton water system caused abandonment of city wells,
which resulted in more water percolation and, it was thought, more
disease. A growing pig population codined with a rising human pood-
lation ,. added to the health problem. What ends the situation more
regrettable was that New York could and most of the problems and take
her "place as one of the healthiest spots in the world.1

It was beyond the ability of a Christian such as Griscom to
understand how the humn body could be so susceptible to disease,
even from the necessities of life. The air he breathed and the food
he ate were capable of causing disease, and in many cases, death. "But
strangest of all, they [food and air] become so too often by his own
perversion of their properties." What made this even worse, nature
had the power of cleansing the earth and water if left to herself.
There was no question then, that the insalubrious condition of New
York was the result of man's spoilage.2

European travelers who frequented the shores of the United
States during the nineteenth century often co-ented on the condition
of the cities. Dickens vividly described his 1840 tour of the Five
Points. He mentioned the filth, the pigs, the blank faces staring
out from emaciated bodies. When Charles chay toured Gotham a

decade later he wrote: "Broadway monopolizes near 1y all the good

98

pavement as well as cleanness of New York; and the streets that branch
off from it on each side are uneven, dirty, and full of deep holes
and ruts. . . ." Such holes became pools of stagnant water, and
collection pits for animal and vegetable refuse.3

In the pro-germ theory era, most medical research was related
to preventing obvious nuisances. Preventive medicine centered on
sanitary improvements, and it was in this field that Griscom made some
of his most important contributions. The laborer, living in the
poorer sections of the city, was more susceptible to disease because
most nuisances were centered in his district. It was the purpose of
the AliA's "First Report of the Co-ittee on Public Hygiene," prepared
in 1849, to examine the major cities of the United States and their
sanitary condition. , Griscom presented the report for New York, one
of the best in regard to coverage and content. (These individual city
reports were attached, as appendices, to the main report, which
outlined the conclusions of the connittee, along with a brief smary
of their duties. The main report was the joint effort of the con'mittee.)
They made up a list of nine significant points they saw as central to
the issue. After dealing with population, location, geographic features,
they analyzed the healthy and unhealthy parts of the city, drainage and
paving, street cleaning, ventilation, schools, hospitals, dispensaries,
water supply, and its source and purity. Griscom answered the final~
query, "Are the municipal regulations on the above subjects effective
or not?" in the negative. His answer would remain so until the
Metropolitan Health Bill of 1866 passed.“

The American Journal of the Medical Sciences published a very
favorable review of Griscom's ANA report. It reported Griscom's

pleasure with the geological formation of the island, but wrote that

99

he felt inrovements in ventilation and sewerage were desperately
needed. "His descriptions of the wretched situation of the poor
in many of the closed alleys and crowded courts are calculated to
excite philanthropists to the most active efforts to accomplish reform. "5

In addition to Griscom, the AHA "First Co-ittee" was made up
of other notable sanitarians. James Wynne, who prepared the report
of Baltimore, was later to serve with Griscom on the National Quarantine
and Sanitary Conventions of the late 1850's. Edward H. Barton, of
New Orleans, prepared an in-depth report on Yellow Fever in the next
decade, and Isaach Parrish, of Philadelphia, was another notable figure
in preventive medicine. Although these men served only one year, *‘
devotion to the subject was the keynote of the comittee; as soon as
the msflers were appointed, they set about to collect as much information
as possible, in part to provide "authentic data for future research."
Their work, accomplished in 1848-49, was one of the earliest examin-
ations of health in the major cities. With the exception of Griscom's
Sanitary Condition, prepared four years earlier, there was virtually
no recorded evidence on sanitation in Amer ica.6

In his report Griscom concluded that while the geology, location,
and population of New Yorkwere quite good (population was 400,000,
soil was rocky, and the island was basin shaped, and washed by two rivers
which had six foot tides), the health of the city did not reflect its
salubrious condition. Mortality rates were higher in New York
than in other cities, primarily because of the unsanitary conditions.
"Diseases of as thenic character are very prevalent . . . arising
doubtless, from the impurities of the air." Griscom concluded that
lince the diseases were particularly prevalent among the working classes,

they were a result of living in filthy surroundings and breathing

* foul air. 7

100

Nuisances were classified as any manufactories, butcheries,
public works or foundries which gave off noxious gases, smoke or
unpleasant odors. The worst industries were those which used acids,
with brass, lead or copper smelting foundries next in offensiveness.
Both groups filled the air with impurities harmful to animal and
vegetable life; the building of tall chimneys to carry off the pollu-
tants was only a partial solution. Among the other blights cited by
the co-ittee were soap and candle works, zinc and iron sulphate
works, and phosphorus and friction match establishments. Solutions
to the problem were simple. "If the neighborhood of manufactories are
found to be more unhealthy than other places, it becomes the duty of
every municipal body to interdict them in populous parts of the
town. . . ."8

Generally speaking, these nuisances were of two classes. The
first were the internal offenses; foul air resulting from overcrowded
conditions, lack of preper food and clothing, both in quality and
quantity, and a lack of cleanliness of the apartments and the tenants.
There were also evils found outside the domicile--the terrestrial
emanations, changes in the weather and their influence on filth, and
wastes removed from the buildings, which were improperly collected ,'

if collected at all.9

I
For several hundred years the pig had served the cities of the
world as the principle scavenger, as there was no regular means of ‘
trash and garbage removal. During his American trip Dickens reported
that New York's pigs, which numbered 10,000 in 1842, led "a roving,
gentlemsnly, vagabond kind of life. . . ." They ate everything from

cabbage stalks to offal, and usually roamed the streets in bands,

101

threatening dogs and small children. The day of the pig as scavenger,
however, was rapidly drawing to a close, with Griscom.in the forefront
of the attack. In his 1842 report as City Inspector Griscom found no
justification for keeping pigs in the lower wards of‘Hanhattan. They
Idid not compete, financially, with the pigs grown and slaughtered
elsewhere and sold in the city. The problems caused by the keeping
of pigs far outweighed any benefits.10

Griscom admitted there were laws to control pigs; an owner,
providing he could be identified, could be fined for keeping more than
three in a pen, or four in an enclosure. "I would recommend therefore,
' that the keeping of these animals in any place south of Fiftieth-
street, be prohibited by law; the penalty for its violation be a '
forfeiture of all animals, and some competent officer be authorized to
remove them from wherever found, to the public yard." During the next
fifteen years the pig population was significantly reduced.11

The piggeries were a direct result of the number of slaughter-
houses within the city limits; if the latter were removed then the
number of pigs would be reduced. As regards, then, sanitary nuisances
needing to be removed, City Inspector Griscomn"wou1d mention particularly
that of slagghter-houses, which in themselves and their various
concomitants, can be regarded as perhaps second to none, whether we '
consider their influence upon the health, the decency, or the morals
of the community."12

‘Host city officials, and the general public, surmised that
these houses were not injurious to the public health. Griscom, taking‘
the other side, thought the city should view them as harmful until
they were provan innocuous, because no one believed animal.and vegetable

material in a state of decomposition was innocent of any ill effects ‘

102

to those who lived nearby. His own experience made him aware that simply
walking past these places in the su-er was dreadful. It was difficult
to say just how harmful slaughter-houses were, and to cause their
removal they needed to be the beginning point of an epidemic. Whether
or not it was possible to keep them clean was a moot point-~they
were never anything but filthy. Griscom thought the city fathers
should consider the facts--slaughter-houses filled with hungry cattle,
calves, and sheep, constantly crying out from pain or hunger, floors
covered with blood and offal, and the whole place reeking of a
disgusting stench--and then reach a decision on the healthfulness of
slaughter-houses.13

With the exception of the Grahamites, few saw slaughter-houses
as unnecessary. Griscom was in favor of concentrating them in a
few places along the city's rivers, where they would be out of sight
of children, easily cleansed, and readily inspected. This would
reduce complaints from citizens; close inspections would allow the "
neighborhoods to be kept clean, and free from the usual nuisances
associated with such places. In 1849, in a more radical stand, Griscom
called for the removal of slaughter-houses beyond the city limits. If
fresh vegetables were brought in from the country, why not fresh meat?
There was no need for slaughter-houses located within the city, yet in
1850 a police department survey found 206; what was needed was ad"
informed populace to force the city officials into action. With the
passage of the Metropolitan Health Bill the worst of these nuisances
were ended, after more than twenty years of agitation by Dr. Griscom. 1"

If the health menace, the offal, the smell, and the dirty streets
were not enough to cause the removal of slaughter-houses, what abOut

their effect on the moral sensibilities of the people? Griscom asked

103
the government to examine this aspect: "they are no ordinary schools
of vice. Children of both sexes, and boys of considerable age, often
gather around to see the work of death, and familiarize their young
minds with scenes of suffering and cruelty, well calculated to blunt
every natural sensibility, and harden their hearts to every sentiment
of pity." The character of the apprentices and journey-men made
matters worse; they swore, were insensitive to pain and suffering, and
had loose moral character. This could "but add to the pernicious
influence of those places, upon the morals of the low and neglected
children around them. " Griscom saw the slaughter-house as a natural
breeding place for crime and vice, and maintained that many of the
city's criminals received their early education in crime at such
places. The way the animals were abused when carted about the streets
of the city was also offensive to the morals of the people. That
such inhumane treatment was carried on in a Christian nation was a
sign of moral dullness. "If we would not tolerate the Spanish bull
fights, still less should we indulge a worse cruelty practiced under

more revolting circumstances. "15

II

Rag-picking and bone-boiling were COIIIOII, though not lucrative,
nineteenth century New York vocations of the poor. The rags were
washed and sold while the bones were boiled for sale as fertiliser.
Griscom maintained, incorrectly, that chiffoniers from the major
Buropean cities had only lately immigrated to the United States;
actually many native Americans were involved. This was the only aspect
of rag-picking that Griscom misunderstood: he was acutely aware of
the health hazards, both to the rag pickers and their neighbors. The

pickers used a long iron hood to rake through the rubbish and garbage

104

of the street in search of rage, bones, and paper. These were put
either in large sacks carried over the shoulder or a basket carried '
under the arm. They searched for their treasures from dawn until
darkness compelled them to stop. For food, "they may not unfrequently
be seen picking up the garbage thrown into the gutters from the
adjacent houses, which they either deposit in a separate receptacle,
to be re-cooked at home, or eat upon the spot." All ages and both
sexes were represented. They lived in the filthiest parts of the city;
the 1857 New York Assewly colmaittee which investigated tenant houses
reported that a row of tenements in Sheriff Street was known as "Rag '
Picker's Paradise." The area "was infected for squares around by
the effluvia of putrefying flesh, from numerous bone-boiling places,
and‘bales of'lfilthy rags stored in the cellars and sheds." The
co-ittee reported that bones gathered from the slaughter-houses, with
the flesh still attached, were lying all about.16

The accumulation of rage added to pollution and provided a
breeding place for vermin; This practice had to be abolished to
improve the city's health, yet this could cause problems. Griscom
wrote that 2,000 mm rioted in Paris during the 1834 cholera
epidemic when the city tried to clean the streets. "Their ignorance,
debased morals, and recklessness, with their wretched vocation,
followed at the expense of public health and cleanliness, aptly fit
them for turbulence and riot. . . ." Street cleaning, however, was the
only way to remove the bones, rags, and other "treasures" of the
chiffonier, and with them his occupation as well. The necessity for
this was two-fold; if nothing was done the children would grow up"
to be a new generation of rag pickers; equally important, the collection

of filthy rags constituted "the lurking-places of those contagious fevers

105

that occasionally devastate the neighborhoods in which the houses

for these wares are kept."17

III

In their general report, the AHA public hygiene co-ittee
recognized the necessity of street cleaning; it was, it pointed out,
obvious to all who pondered the city's condition. Furthermore, streets
should be laid out in such a way as to prevent the collection of standing
water. They reported that suburbs were most likely to suffer from
malarial diseases because of the pools of stagnant water that were
everywhere to be found. Whereas main streets were cleaned once or
twice a week, "the smaller streets, although frequently inhabited'by
a denser population, are seldom visited by the street cleaners oftener
than once or twice a month; and the courts are seldom or never cleaned,
except when reported as nuisances." Costly, inefficient, and super-
ficial as the cleaning was, the shortsighted city officials refused
to ’nke it more effective and, therefore, less expensive in the long run. 18

Host towns had ordinances agath throwing garbage in the
streets; however, as they. had no effective means of trash removal the
laws were usually meaningless and unenforcable. To Griscom, the
foul streets which produced harmful odors and gases combined with the
closely built, overcrowded houses to become sources of disease. "So
long as badly drained and filthy quarters are permitted to exist in‘a
city, so long will it be scourged by fevers, and liable to the
invasions of epidemics." The effects of filth and improper cleaning
were reflected in the mortality rates. 19

Griscom's individual report repeated the conclusions that he
and his colleagues presented in the co-ittee report. Since the

Revolutionary War New York's laws had undergone several changes;

106
no longer was it required for each resident to clean up the area in
front of his house two or three times a week, the piles then being‘
collected by public cartmen. The problem with that plan was that in
multiple family dwellings no one took “the responsibility, and the city
became dirtier. Then the city created a municipal department to
clean the streets. The next change came when one contractor was hired
to sweep the streets, and finally the city was divided into districts
and several contracts let. Unfortunately, none of these plans proved
effective, even though the annual cost to the city was over $100, 000.
The solution involved the use of street sweeping machines. Of these ‘
Griscom wrote:
Street sweeping machines have not been permitted, it is
believed, for the principle reason that they cannot
exercise any political influence--they cannot vote--the
street sweepers forming a strong, and important corps of
voters, who cast their suffrages as they are required by
the party in power. 20
Griscom's conclusionawere supported by George Templeton Strong, who
in his diary wrote that the streets developed a] stench, the "kakodyle"
(cacodyl) of civic chemistry. In June, 1851, he noted that the streets
were the worst they had been for many years.21
Twelve years after Strong's comments, the New York Times joined
the fight and reported that the streets had reached an all time low.
The‘main streets were clean, "but for one street that is moderately
clean, there are one hundred i-oderately and disgustingly unclean.
And these latter too, are the very ones that should be kept clean. They
are not inhabited by the wealthy, but lined by the residences and shops
of middling and poor folks, who suffer fearfully by the neglect." "The

Times blamed the filthy streets for the increased mortality; they

reported a sharp weekly increase from the previous year.22

107

To a large degree, the filth in the streets was directly related
to the improperly constructed sewers and sinks. City Inspector Griscom
drew the attention of the Co-on Council to the need of reforming the
laws related to sewers when he presented his report on their cleaning.
Sven though his proposals were not adopted, he was able to point to
some improvements:

Important inrovements have been adopted by the scavengers,
so that the public are now relieved from much of the
umentionable nuisance, that formerly rendered the open
streets insufferable at night. The Watch Department
has rendered essential service to the public, by a more
careful surveillence of the workmen, and reporting
offenders.
Griscom thought that proper legislation was necessary to maintain
this state of cleanliness; otherwise a lax city inspector could undo the
improvements made. One had to consider always the "liability of offi-'
cars to fall back into the careless habits of former days."23 '

A few months after his appointment as City Inspector, Griscom
prepared a report, delivered to the Board of Aldermen on Septefier 12,
1842, concerning the emptying of sinks, cess-pools and privies. In
his opening remarks he wrote that he had long been aware of the evils
related to the cleaning of sinks in the city. Knowing New York's
laws to be among the worst in the nation, he prepared a new ordinance
in his report. It was the custom to clean the privies using open tubs,
and hauling the wastes away in open carts to be duped into the nearest
slip. The boxes on the carts were covered with an unfastened lid,
"whereby a large portion of the contents of the box is jolted out as
the cart goes to the dumping place, and the greater the quantity
scattered along the streets, in this way, the less is the labor of
the horse, and the sooner is the work performed. "24

The evils connected with this method of removal were many; the

atmosphere for many blocks was "perfused" by the wastes, and people for

108

for blocks around were forced to close their windows during the warm
su-er months to keep out the odor. This deprived everyone, but
especially the sick, of the healthful properties of fresh air. The
bad odors of the streets, even though freshly swept, resulted from
the droppings of the carts. Finally, dumping the contents in the river
from the nearest pier presented problems. Ships tied up at the wharves
often found their ropes and hawsers covered with filth. Small boats
were often partially or wholly filled with night soil, "and instances
are said to have occurred of their being carried to the bottom with
their unnatural load."25

Even though this type of disposal was illegal, the fines were "
minimal and the chances of being caught slight. Often the slips were
filled with the contents of the sink cleaner's carts. "Some piers
hence become nearly useless, and much of the expense for cleaning "
slips, for which the citizens are taxed, is attributable to this cause."
The alternative that Griscom suggested was turning this material into
useful fertilizer, a process in which many cities in the United States
and Europe were already involved. Besides providing a saleable
co-odity it kept the city's streets, piers, wharves, and slips clean.
Griscom also proposed changes in the law to enforce cleanliness; ‘
first, tightly covered containers to transport night soil (the 1839
law nde no mention of the containers). He also race-ended an
increase in the fine from $10.00 to $25.00 for failure to observe the
regulations. Finally he wanted to prohibit the emptying of the contents
of day privy into the river below Twenty-First Street, with a $50.00"
fine for violators. Griscom could see "no reason why this disgusting
and unnecessary nuisance should be submitted to any longer by citizens

or allowed by the authorities. . . ." Proper regulation would eliminate

109

it, perhaps delaying or mitigating an epidemic. It would also reduce
the tax burden and provide needed fertilizer.“

Two years later the Board of Aldermen presented a report based
on Griscom's reco-endations. They agreed that the contents of sinks
and privies should be collected in tightly covered containers, but
they thought that the night soil should be collected on several docks,
south of Twenty-First Street, where the ships of two fertilizer
coqanies regularly tied up. Even with this modification, the regu-
lation changes suggested by Dr. Griscom were closely adhered to and
adopted by the Board of Aldermen. The result was a somewhat cleaner
New York. 27

In a supplement to the City Inspector's report, Griscom asked
the Co-aon Council to address their attention to several preventive
sanitary measures, the first being sewers. If constructed correctly
they carried off street refuse which resulted from markets, stables and
slaughter-houses. Adequate supplies of water were needed to flush the
sewers periodically; Croton water was thought adequate to do this job.28

Sewers were inadequate in New York, and in one way the intro-
duction of Croton water made the situation worse. Many people knocked
the bottoms out of their cisterns and began using them as cess-pools.
"It needs no prophetic vision to perceive, that an i-ense mass of
offensive material, will thus be soon collected, its decomposition
polluting the air, in the i-ediate precincts of our chambers and
sitting rooms, and generating an amount of miasmatic effluvia,
incalculably great and injurious."29 I

Dr. Griscom's expertise in matters related to health and clean-
liness were quickly recognized by the New York Academy of Medicine.

Shortly after its founding in 1847, DJ. Meserole, from City Ball,

110

seat a letter to that society, in which he reported that the Common
Council had appointed a committee to investigate sewerage facilities.
The Academy appointed its own committee in October, with Griscom as *
one of the members. After a study made over a period of two years,
Chairman James B. Manley made some remarks on the subject, but it
appears that he took his responsibilities half-heartedly. (It is
likely that Griscom used some of the material he gathered for thé““
NYNM committee in.his AMA report.)30

The in comittee reported that one of the most important
functions of city government was devising efficient means of waste
removal. Surface removal was unacceptable, and sewers, having an
atmosphere of their own, must be properly constructed to carry away
all the wastes produced by the area's inhabitants. "It need hardly
be said that educated engineers are the only persons competent to
direct the execution of these important works." 'Most cities were
sadly lacking in this respect to sewers; Boston, with twenty-five
miles of them was far ahead of her sister cities. In his report
Griscom stated that New York's conditions were "good and improving" in
relation to sewers and drainage. Surveys were being made and new I
sewers were constantly being planned. Even though there was enough
slope for good runoff "stagnant water is by no means uncommon."31

Several years later, in his report on sewerage attached to the
Bepbrt on the Internal Hygiene of Cities, by John Bell, Griscom main-
tained that good sewers were absolutely essential to the public health.
If‘water and garbage were allowed to collect in the streets, fevers,
diarrhoea, dysentery, cholera, "and a general depression of the vital
powers, which renders every other disorder more dangerous" resulted.
It was equally harmful to allow such filth to collect in sinks and

teas-pools. The kinds of sewerage which collected, human and animal

lll

excreta, vegetable refuse, and residue from tan pits, slaughter-houses,
gas works, and factories were deleterious to hmnan health. To remove
it successfully, however, a reservoir fifty percent larger than the
then present one at Murray Hill was needed to provide the necessary
pressure to wash the sewers clean. 32

In a review of Bell's work, which included con-ants on Griscom's
report, the North American Medico-Chirggical Review wrote that "New
York very modestly comes in at the end of the book with her views
upon special subjects of sewerage, water supply, etc.: minor, but very
important subdivisions under the general head of sanitary regulations.

u

. . . They commended Griscom's report as one devoted to the preser-

vation of the public health. 33

IV

Next in importance to the public health was the existence of
pools and marshes in the city. These often led to malarial type
diseases; as City Inspector Griscom reported that in the Twelfth Ward
(north of Portieth Street along the East River) they had caused
bilious, remittent and intermittent fevers. This ward, the largest
in area but the smallest in population, was getting worse each year.
The water was collected during the su-er to harvest - ice in the winter.
While Griscom had no figures on the benefit derived from the ice, he
was sure the draining of the pools would benefit the city more than
the sale of ice. He urged the Canon Council to pass an ordinance to
prevent da-ing for any reason.“

In addition to the artificially formed pools there were natural
marshes which rendered parts of the island almost uninhabitable. This
was especially unfortunate because a few of the locations were quite

beautiful, situated near either of the rivers, or the Croton reservoir.

112

Many mansions were unfinished, or if finished, unoccupied because of
these marshes. Those who did live in this area did so only at the
risk of their health. Money had been appropriated for the draining of
one, and possibly two marshes, "but the safety of the inhabitants,
and the protection of property, call loudly for a thorough drainage
‘ of the whole of this section." Dr. Griscom urged the (30.01! Council
to act in behalf of the citizenry so that these beautiful locations
could be opened for safe residency. In his City Inspector's report
he wrote:
Very few sections of the country of equal extent, contain
so many eligible sites for cottages or mansions, and it
is doubtful whether any city in the world possesses '
within its corporate limits, so extensive a variety of
beautiful scenery. Washed on either side by a noble river,
traversed on one verge by a romantic road, on the other,
by a well Macadamized avenue, and in the center, by a
costly rail-way--studded with villager-containing, among
other objects of attraction, the two Croton resevoirs‘,
the termini of the most stupendous work of modern times,
one of them an artificial lake of over thirty scream-this
beautiful part of the Island is greatly injured as a
residence, and its value much diminished, by the existence
of these pestiferous spots.35 '
Sunken lots created the same sort of problems as the marshes
and the artificially created pools. As City Inspector, Griscom was
empowered to order the filling in of all sunken lots that created a
nuisance. In July, and again in September, 1842, he called upon the
Board of Aldermen to fill in sunken lots, which, in his opinion,
created health hazards. In both instances he was successful.36
During the sm-er of 1859, Drs. Griscom and Alexander B.
Stevens offered several resolutions to the NYAM in relation to the
dfainage of New York. In July, Stevens recommended that the co-ittee
of public health and legal medicine, of which Griscom was chairman,

examine the situation. The next month Griscom asked permission to

113

have the Fellows of the Academy answer some questions which pertained
to the drainage of the various wards. The suggestion was adopted, but
the results were, unfortunately, not recorded in the‘Minutes.37

Griscom replied to a letter of the Citizens' Association.when
they were making their sanitary survey during the Civil Whr. In
1814 the city was as healthy as London, but it was getting worse each
year. New York had "by neglect, fraud, and official ignorance,
degenerated to a condition almost as bad as that of London of 200
years ago. Without the establishment of a speedy and thorough reform,
there is no reason to apprehend that no remedy short of that which
visited London in 1665, will suffice for a restoration to its former
Sanitary standard." While there were innumerable instances of the
benefits of sanitary reform, New York's officials chose to ignore
them. The increase of mortality in 1863 was greater than in any ‘
year except 1854, which was a cholera year. In March, 1864, Griscom
stated that the mortality returns were 700 ahead of 1863, which would
make 1864 the most unhealthy year in the city's history. What was
worse, they were the result of extra-domicilary causes that produced
typhus and other zymotic diseases in the Five Points. "The want of
suitable drainage and imperfect sewerage" coupled with the internal
problem‘ of poor ventilation were pushing the mortality figures ever
higher.38

These problems of sewerage and drainage were not confined to
New‘York; its neighboring city across the East River, Brooklyn, faced
a similar situation. In the closing years of the 1840's there was a
growing awareness of the needs for a more comprehensive city plan to
protect Brooklyn from evils created by a lack of sewers, improper

drainage and filth in the streets. The health officer's report for

114

1851 emphasized the need of street cleaning and urged an annual
city sanitary survey, such as "existed in NewYorkCity."39

Griscom realized, as did his fellow sanitarians, that there
was only one solution to the high mortality in the tenement districts
of New'York and other major cities, and that was a massive clean-up
campaign followed by periodic cleanings. To prevent, however, minor
outbreaks of disease from turning into full blown epidemics, disin-
fectants of various types were recommended by Griscom and his associates.
Problems developed when the city officials tried to use disinfectants
as a substitute for cleaning the streets and slum districts. As
the"AMA couittee noted, disinfectants "were useful in limited areas;"
privies, sinks, sick rooms and hospitals were all made better because
of choloride of lime or nitrous acid, but "no-one would be visionary
enough to think of disinfecting the unwholesome atmosphere of a
populous city by means of any chemical agency, however extensive,
‘within his reach."l'o

Various disinfecting agents had to be tested to establish their
effectiveness, and one was sent to the NYAM. On July 1, 1863, the'
Academy's president received a letter from the Ridgewood Chemical
Works, along with a package of their disinfectant, for examination by
the Academy; the president turned it over to the Committee on Public
Health and Legal Medicine, which Griscom'was carrying on by himself
at that time. In mid-September Griscom reported that he had found the
Ridgewood product to be of superior quality. 0n.motion, his report
was accepted and ordered printed."1

Griscom was eminently qualified to examine the product, as'he
was ‘a well accepted sanitarian as well as a chemist of some note; it
will be recalled that he served as Professor of Chemistry at the New

York College of Pharmacy from 1836 until 1840. The doctor was quick

115
to mention the connection between preventive medicine and chemistry.
"In few things has modern chemistry been of more value, or better
appreciated, than in the means it has furnished to check the influences
of poisonous effluvia, arising from decaying animal and vegetable
matters." He went on in his report to explain that until the nineteenth
century the cause and effects of decomposition were generally unknown.
Griscom had the beginnings of an understanding of the process of
putrefaction and its results as well as ways to prevent it.42
In one sense Griscom equated cleanliness and fresh air with
disinfectants:
We must not, for a moment, in considering the general
question of disinfectants, leave out of consideration the
first in value, the easiest attainable, and most effective
of all, cleanliness and pure air. It is the neglect of
these alone, in general, that renders necessary any other
appliance. But the great variety of conditions to which
the human being is exposed, especially in his artificial
relations of life, with his peculiar susceptibility above
all other animals, to external causes of disease, gives
great importance to any invention of discovery which
promises in any degree to mitigate or remove
'Whatever shapes of death
Shook from the hideous chambers of the globe
Swarm through the shuddering air."*3
Griscom conducted seven experiments on the Bidgewood powder,
with the help of some of the Academy members. The experiments were of
two types; in the first they sprinkled it on dead animals exposed to
the st-er heat, and in varying stages of decomposition. In each
instance the body sprinkled was preserved and the odor and decay
halted, while the unsprinkled control body continued to putrefy. It
was also used in.a camp latrine, and found to be most effective.
Finally, Griscom asked Dr. W. D. Butler, Assistant Surgeon in the
Army, to test it. Butler used it in the dead house and found it ”
stopped the "offensive effluvia" from badly decomposed bodies.“
There were five principle requirements if a disinfectant was

to be of value; it must stopoffensive effluvia, prevent putrefaction

116

or fermentation, cmbine with and preserve fecal material to prevent
loss of valuable material which could be used as fertilizer, be
inexpensive and readily available, and add nothing of a harmful
nature. Griscom found the Ridgewood powder to be very acceptable in
respect to each of these criteria. Griscom and the Academy were not
the only ones of this opinion; the reviewer of Griscom's report for
the American Hedical Times was also impressed. "Its general use in
the filthy courts, cellars, privies, and even in the streets and
gutters of the city . . . would doubtless have a happy effect in
purifying these nauseaous localities.”5

A few years later, in 1867, Griscom was appointed chairman of
a special cousittee of three (Alfred Post and Stephen Harris were
the other members) to report on the possibility of making changes and
improvements to the "Rankin Disinfecting Chamber Pail." Griscom
reported that the device disinfected the water closet, and also
destroyed various sewer gases. At the December 13, 1867 meeting of '
the Academy, Griscom presented his report, in which he race-sanded no

changes. The report was accepted.“6

V

If Dr. John H. Griscom had been forced to choose only one
remedy for the city's ills, it would undoubtedly have been fresh,
pure air provided in abundance by adequate ventilation. Built closely
together on blind alleys and dead end streets, the largely windowless
tenements cut off much of the air. Furthermore, the height of some
of the taller buildings cut off exchange of air from that direction.
People had no choice but to live in houses, but they could at least
attempt to change the air in the house frequently. Griscom found,
however, that most people kept the doors and windows tightly closed

and breathed the same air over and over. "He seem, generally, to be

117

too fearful of the presence of fresh, pure air." This was especially
true of the night air, which was popularly believed to carry all
manner of diseases, and yet in the nighttime people badly needed the
fresh air, as they were shut up inside their houses for long periods
of time. In his novel about the 1878 yellow fever epidemic in Memphis,
George Kibbe Turner had one of his characters make this typical remark:
"'Come in here.‘ Come out of that poison night air.""“7

The overcrowding and poor ventilation were harmful not only
because they affected the physical aspects of human life; they also”
undermined moral stability. To a miasmist, such as Griscom, these
conditions caused disease and debility, which in turn produced a
moral laxness that made the disease harder to cure. Trapped in the
ghetto, the poor gave up hope, and in many instances the will to
live. There were also milder effects on the moral character of
individuals. An "ineptitude for study and therefore ignorance" could
be seen by comparing the achievements of pupils from poorly ventilated
schdols with their peers who attended better ones. The lack of fresh
air‘preverted the judgment, and encouraged intemperance and alcoholism,
because, Griscom maintained, when the natural stimulant of pure air
was unavailable, people found a substitute. Alcohol was even given to
infants and young children to help them sleep in the contaminated "
‘a‘tmOsphere of their tenements. Griscom also pointed out that the man
whoconstantly breathed the foul air of the cellar or court was often
incapacitated, and unable to work. "Add to this the mental debility,”
and extinction of moral sentiments, inseparable from a cellar life, and
we at once arrive at on; of the efficient causes of poverty, of low
ideas of comfort, and of dishonesty and prostitution. . . ." The

poisoned air produced cowardice, Griscom continued, because constant

118

filth broke one's spirit. Finally, overcrowding and poor ventilation
tended to produce idiocy, imbecility and deformity.“8

Whereas people were aware of the need for wholesome food and
clean water to sustain life, few spoke of the necessity for pure air.
Griscom was quick to note that food was changed before it was of use
to the human system, yet air was taken in and used immediately,
regardless of its purity. Further, the stomach had the power to
separate some harmful substances from the food, but "impure air is the
direct cause of very many, and an aggravation of all the diseases
incident to the human frame.“9

Griscom's book Uses and Abuses of Air, appeared anonymously in
1849. The American Journal of the Medical Sciences reviewer who
ventured "to impute its paternity to a writer of authority in matters
of hygiene," was totally favorable to Griscom's efforts, declaring that
the book would help convince the populace of the false economy of
building unventilated houses. In this early work of Griscom's on the
subject of ventilation, it is clear he was in the forefront of the
reformers. "We bid this new laborer welcome to so broad and ahaost
uncultivated a field of usefulness. So extensive is the ignorance of
the connection of life with air . . . that too many works which shall
teach the law to the people and stimulate them to obey it, cannot be
produced."50

In his perennial tenement house inspections Griscom made clear
the necessity for agitation of the air--a window in the same wall as
the door was useless. Yet even agitation was not the whole answer,
because if the filthy air of the court was exchanged for the vitiated
air of the apartment, little was gained. To help bring fresh air from
the outside, Griscom.ca11ed for the adoption of a ventilating system

by.L.lu Mott, which was attached to the tops of chimneys. Several

119
years later Griscom turned theory into practice when he patented his
own ventilation systems1

In their report the AHA committee outlined the need for the
exchange of air. They found that it was fouled most quickly in areas
of high population concentration. "Those parts of town, therefore,
which are built up with innumerable courts and tortuous or narrow
alleys, are permanent abodes of infection, . . ." Set-back laws,
parks and open spaces, and more concern on the part of the public
officials were desperately needed. In his New‘York report Griscom
cited the lack of internal and external ventilation. Even in the
public buildings, located in the older parts of the city, the situation
was bad; schools, hospitals, and dispensaries were all in need of
improved ventilation because of overcrowding or the lack of a central
ventilator. In the newer parts of the city ample provisions were made,
the changes were needed in the older sections.52 This was in large
measure why Griscom was so opposed to a Central Park; it would not
benefit the tenement districts.

John H. Griscom was a very busy lecturer; when he was not
lecturing on physiology, chemistry, or sanitation, he spoke on the
necessity of ventilation. One such discourse was delivered in the
Breadway Tabernacle, in January, 1852. The New'York Times reporter who
covered the lecture on the physiological, chemical, and mechanical
aspects of respiration reported that it was attended by a "highly
respectable audience, . . . and much attention was paid to the enlight-
ened suggestions of the lecturer." Griscom's activity on the platform
is another indication of his belief that the only way to end the evils
of poverty and despair was education. He reiterated the importance
of pure air, and how, in considering food, water, and air the latter

was usually overlooked. To drive home his point, he cited statistics

120
showing that over fifty percent of all deaths were of young people

under twenty, and that the majority of these were related to improper

ventilation.53

when in 1854 the NYAMLinvited Griscom to deliver the Anniversary

 

Discourse, his choice of balls left his judgement open to question.
Griscom gave the address in the lecture room of the Mercantile Library
Association, on Astor Place. The audience of 2,500 made it one of

the Academy's best attended lectures. The editors of the New'York
‘Hedical Times, Drs. H. D. Bulkley and J. G. Adams, enjoyed the speech
immensely but they objected to the basement hall, which they claimed"
was "not susceptible of prOper ventilation." Griscom replied in a
letter dated January 18, 1855, that although that room was well
ventilated, "subterranean residences are objectionable, but for reasons
which do not apply to the room in question.” In the same issue the
editors stood by their position, stating that the ventilators Griscom

spoke of in his letter did not change the room's "damp,4vault-like

 

atmosphere. . . ,"54

In the Anniversary Discourse Griscom cited an illustration of
the effects of poor ventilation. In a school of 1840 children, the air
was foul after six hours of study, when the teacher went off into a
corner to tutor a few children. She fainted because of the lack of
oxygen, one of the frightened children screamed "fire," and in the
ensuing panic forty-two children died. "The commencement of that
disaster, the mustard seed from which sprang this tree so full of
death and woe, was the total absence of ventilation." In a footnote
to the printed version of the discourse, Griscom included a letter
froi Dr. we. Hibbard of the school board, who wrote that $8,000 had
been spent to "fire-proof the schools, but not one cent was expended

to ventilate them; therefore the same kind of disaster could happen

121

over and over." Hibbard was, however, hopeful. "Your remarks will
go far towards producing a safe and efficient remedy."55

when they met in 1857, the New York Assembly cosmittee investi-
gating the tenement houses, made a reference to Griscom's expertise in
the area of ventilation. Using a quotation from the Sanitary Condition,
they called for improved ventilation in the tenements of the laboring
classes to protect the rich and ease the rising costs of supporting
paupers.56

Griscom°s interest in ventilation carried him into a study of
battlefield conditions during the Civil Hhr. He prepared an article
on the causes of disease in the armies, and discovered that the tents
in use cut off most ventilation. In rainy weather the flap was closed,
and the canvas, which was porous when dry, became nearly air tight.
Those tents called "self-ventilating" were only a little better. As
lwere his associates, Griscom was aware that disease was carrying off
large numbers of soldiers, and that many were felled or weakened by
this poor exchange of air.57

Griscom, a frequent reviewer for the journals, reviewed A
ggowledge ofigivingTThingg by A. H. Bell, another noted sanitarian
of the mid-nineteenth century. Bell wrote that adding moisture to
heated air was harmful to health because the air already contained
enough moisture. Griscom disagreed completely; he thought the moisture
was needed to make the air more pleasant and healthy. It was the
rapid loss of moisture from the body that made rooms heated with hot
air uncomfortable.58

Dr. Griscom turned theory into practice when he invented his
Own plan for the ventilation of buildings. In 1859 he received a
patent for his system using the heated air of the furnace to ventilate

buildings. His method consisted of heated flues which operated as

122
ventilators as long as they were warmer than the room. The idea was
to build separate ventilating flues to use the excess heat of the
furnace. For example, if the register was closed at ten in the evening,
the heat would then go into the ventilating shaft, warming it. Then
at six A.‘H~ when the register was again opened, the heated flue would
continue to ventilate the room as it held its heat for manyhours. The
system could be used in new or older houses. It was safer than forcing
the“heat back into the furnace, and since it used heat that would
otherwise be wasted, there was no additional expense.59
Several people wrote to Dr. Griscom in praise of his method of
ventilation. One was showman P. T. Barnum, who reported Griscom's
plan a "complete success." Barnum had lost two whales within forty-
eight hours of their arrival at his American Museum, but after Griscom's
system of ventilation was installed, a third whale survived. "Stronger
evidence of the effects of impure air, the value of pure air, and the
efficacy of your principles and practice of ventilation cannot be'
found, and I regard the latter [Griscom's ventilating system] as
one of the interesting objects of my institution." a. D. Butler, in
charge of the live exhibits, concurred completely.60
Griscom's plan received high praise from fellow physician

John Bell:

Among the latest and most valuable for efficiency and

general applicability, is the plan of ventilation of

dwellings and other edifices, suggested and put in

execution by Dr. John H. Griscom, of New‘York.
English sanitarian D. B. Reid also approved Griscom's plan. Citing
Griscom's work, Reid was convinced that the subject of fresh air was
well understood in American medical circles. He was especially pleased

to see how concerned Griscom was with schools. "The testimony of

Dr. Griscom, of the Hon. Henry Barnard, and of the Inspector of

123

Schools in Brooklyn, presents striking and important evidence on
this point as to one class of buildings that demands the most scrupulous
consideration, particularly where the capacity and energy of the lungs
are apt to fall below the proper standards, in early youth, from the
want of due facilities for exercise and appropriate play-groun ."
Several years earlier, in 1845, Griscom addressed a letter to William
Walker, County Superintendent of Common Schools, on the subject of
adequate school ventilation.61

A sub-committee of Public Health and Legal‘Medicine of the NYAM
was appointed to prepare a report on the ventilation issue, and naturally
enough, Griscom was named chairman. The report was read and received
at the meeting on May 30, 1866, and following a discussion the president
ordered it printed. Werking under the assumption that their goal was
to present the easiest, most efficient means of ventilation, the
committee favored any system that used the principle of hot air. A
simple chimney could be effectively used as a ventilator; Griscom's'
method, although using the same principle, was more effective. In
those few buildings were hot air exchange was impractical they analyzed
other methods, such as external wind or chemicals. The sub-committee
aptly concluded they were not as effective; on a still day those
systems which had ventilators on the roof were useless.62

Griscom kept up with the new improvements in ventilation; in 1868
he supported a plan by Dr. William Thoma which provided adequate'
ventilation for all buildings. The following year Griscom was appointed
chain-an of a special committee of three to prepare a report on a
specific ventilator for the New York Association for the Advancement
of Science and.Art. This was a new apparatus that reportedly removed

dust, foul air, excess moisture, and carbonic acid (carbon dioxide)

124
from the atmosphere of the roomt The committee reported that it could
be used in tenements, churches, all public vehicles and passenger

vessels.63

VI

There were a few nuisances that Griscom commented on briefly. If
pure air was the most important element in life, then clean water,
available in abundance, was second. Dr. Griscom was quick to explain
that in buildings of five and six stories the absence of water from
the upper floors raised the mortality rates for those floors. Under-
standing that water should be as available as air, Dr. Griscom praised
the work of Stephen Girard and John Jacob Astor in providing the city
‘with Croton water.64

The Croton system not only brought water for washing and
bathing, it also provided water for recreational uses. "A swimming
bath of sufficient dimension, may now be brought within the reach of
every citizen, for a very modest price, so that all may indulge in
this health-provoking exercise; and if used as swimming schools, every
child would be enabled to learn the noble life-preserving art."
In a more utilitarian vein, Griscom maintained the water would allow
for bathing at home. Time and energy would be saved because the
people would no longer be required to carry water from the neighborhood
well to the house. Water pipes attached to the house would drastically
reduce the need for servants, Griscom thought, because cleaning would‘
be made that much easier. The lower classes would then be able to
use the money they saved more wisely; they could "procure more whole-
some food, better rooms, better education for their children, and other

things needful for their happiness." Unfortunately, even though

125

fifteennmillion dollars were spent, little of this water reached
those who needed it the most--the poor.65

In addition to the uses already listed the AHA committee saw'
water as useful in maintaining life, carrying off wastes,and putting
out fires, which were a constant problem in the wooden tenements.
They discerned that whenever water was scarce, or of insufficient
purity, it was the poor who suffered first. When he was commenting
on the water supply of New York, Dr. Griscom mentioned the Croton
system, but did not bring up the distribution.66

The tenement4house investigating committee cut to the heart of
the problem when they wrote that the costs of providing the poor with
water were prohibitive. It was too expensive for the landlord to
run pipes to the buildings, and where there were pipes, the landlords
complained that the laborers wasted the water or let the pipes freeze
in the winter.67

Light was essential to public health just as were pure water
and fresh air. Griscom addressed the New York Sanitary Association
on the subject of "Light in its Sanitary Relations." He discussed
the "baneful effects of dark cellars, dark offices, dark tenement
houses, restaurants, parlors, school-rooms, 8c., upon their occupants."
Be frequently spoke of the absence of light in his exposes of the
tenement-house evils when he prepared reports for the City Inspector's
office, and the AICP. hesides creating health and safety hazards,
the dark recesses provided spawning grounds for crime and vice.
Prostitution and disease thrived in the dark rooms of the tenement, cut
off, as they were, from the life-giving rays of the sun.68

A minor evil was the city's numerous vaults and graveyards.

When Griscom was writing the Sanitary Condition, a young'man came to

126

him seeking medical attention. The man had entered a vault to view

the coffin of a relative, and was overcome within a fewwminutes. This
particular vault contained about two hundred coffins, and was fre-
quently complained of as a nuisance, yet nothing was done by the city
government. .Although the city no longer permitted burials on Manhattan,
Griscom was unsuccessful in his attempt to force the cleanups of those

burial grounds already in existence.59

VII

Milk, when produced by healthy cows grazed in open country, was
an essential commodity for New York's youth; when it was produced,
however, by cows kept in small, dirty stall; and fed on distillery
slop, it often produced disease in those who drank it, and, not in-
frequently, death. As farming declined in the suburbs during the
1840's, more and more swill milk from distillery cows was being sold
to the laboring population. As City Inspector, Griscom heard the
complaints from a group that maintained that milk from distillery
cows was being openly sold in the city. (Such milk.had been almost
banned from the city, but it was on the rise again in the early 1840's.)
City Inspector Griscom asked the Common Council to prohibit the
introduction and sale of such milk; "it is," he said, "justly to be
placed by the side of decayed or poisonous meat, or bad bread, and
subjected to the same interdiction and removal, wherever found." There
was abundant medical evidence to prove the ill effects of swill milk
an infants and children, and the worst part of it was that the poor
and ignorant were the ones who bought it. They could not tell it from
good milk, and even when they could, the cheaper price made the product
more attractive.70

In 1847, the Mew‘York Tribune joined the attack on the swill

 

milk producers. A complaint against a Mr. Johnson was publicly

127

aired in its article entitled "New York's Augean Stable." City
Inspector Alfred H. White toured Johnson's distillery and found the
area healthy, but on the following day another petition signed by
"Thousands" was submitted, which called for a grand jury indictment
against Johnson. The grand jury visited the stables, and found them
"sweet and agreeable." This is just one example of the problems faced
by reformers like John H. Griscom. 71

The MAP! was quick to join the battle against swill milk. At
the meeting on August 4, 1847, Dr. A. K. Gardiner offered a resolution
calling for a conmittee to examine the influences of several nuisances
in New York, among them swill milk. Gardiner was chosen chairman, and
John H. Griscom a member. The co-ittee was charged with examining
all nuisances, but were particularly to look into the effects of milk
from diseased cows. The consaittee reported in March 1848 that the
milk produced by ill-cared-for cows was less nutritious and "positively
deleterious, especially to young children and. . . a fruitful cause of
many fatal diseases." The cos-ittee proposed a resolution to inform
city‘ hall of these evils, but the motion was tabled. A milder,
substitute resolution was offered at the June meeting, which declared
that milk from swill fed cows was "injurious to young children. " ‘
Griscom moved the resolution be amended to read "as an article of diet
is injurious, especially to young children. " The amendment was
carried,making a slightly stronger resolution, closer to the original's
intent. 72

Perhaps as a result of his investigations with Dr. Gardiner,
Griscom included a few words on swill milk in his Uses and Abuses of
A_ir_, published the year after the col-sittee's dissolution. He thought

consumption and scrofula might result from swill milk. The cows, shut

128
up day after day in their foul, overheated stalls without ventilation,
quickly contracted the diseases and possibly transmitted them through
their milk. 73
For the next several years Griscom made no statements on swill
‘milk; then in 1857 he asked the NRAM.to allow his Public Health and
Legal Medicine committee to "undertake an extended investigation of
the subject of milk sickness, calling in.when needed outside assistance."
HeaVy opposition forced Griscom to recall his resolution. The situation
relaxed the next year, however, and Dr. Gardiner presented and had
adopted a preamble and resolutions condemning the use of milk from
swill-fed cows. "These were warmly seconded by Dr. Griscom." In
co—enting on the meeting, the American Medical Gazette reported that
Gardiner's resolutions were designed to draw the Academy into line
with the position of the Board of Health, which was waging war on
swill milk. The editors were hopeful for a favorable conclusion to
this practice. "Drs. Griscom and Gardiner are clearly right in this
instance, and with the veteran Dr. [John] Francis to sustain them, we
predict the overthrow of this abominable nuisance."74
"J. Gotham, Jr." was Griscom's pseudonym for his column in the

New Jerseyjnedical and Surgical Reporter, and in the November, 1857
issue J. Gotham depicted the production and sale of swill milk. Pure
milk, he said, had nearly disappeared from the city:

I presume it is safe to state that it is never drank in

its pure, unadultered form in this city, except by some

few who keep cows in their private stables. It is stated

upon good authority that about two-thirds of the milk

sold in this city is obtained from cows fed upon distillery

slo s, which is the refuse liquor from the grain from

which whiskey has been made, and which is served to the

animals as they stand at the troughs in long sheds, and

which, once they have entered and are placed in the stalls,

they will never leave until carried out dead. The numbers

of cows thus confined in this city alone, from which milk

of a very innutritious quality is drawn, is stated to be
about 4,000.

129
As bad as the milk was, it was usually adulterated with water before
it was sold. One pint of water, plus plaster of paris, or chalk, to
give it color, than magnesia, flour, starch and an egg to give it‘body,
and molasses to give it a rich look were added to one quart. Robert
Hartley, Secretary of the AICP, agreed with Griscom on the matter of
swill milk. It was impure, innutritious and unhealthy, "yet this milk
is the chief aliment of children in all places where the population
is condensed in great numbers."75
Frank Leslie began a campaign to end the evils of milk from"
distillery cows in a spring, 1858, issue of his weekly. This full
scale attack forced the 00.00 Council to make a study of the issue;
unfortunately it was a half -hearted investigation. However, the
population had been aroused, and in 1862 a swill milk law was passed
by the state legislature providing for fines for the production and
sale of this product. Th1'ee groups were in the vanguard of reform;
the AICP, the NYAM, and the New York Sanitary Association, and in each
of these groups Griscom was an active, office-holding member (or had
been, as in the case of the AICP). Further, when Leslie opened his
campaign he wrote to Griscom, asking his opinion "as to the effects
of swill milk upon the health of children and adults. . . ."75
Griscom's reply to Leslie was printed in the columns of Leslie's
‘llustrated Newspaper along with the reports on the campaign. The doctor
wrote:
It seems scarcely necessary to reiterate the opinion which
has been so often expressed by myself and others as to the
value of good milk as an article of diet, and the disastrous
effects of the impure substances which are called milk, and
which are in great quantities supplied to our citizens,
possessing scarcely any of the attributes of that important
article of consumption. Medical books contain abundant
evidence of the deleterious effects of an imperfect diet

in children, and that swill milk is an article of that
description is indisputable.

130
Griscom wrote of some of the diseases which resulted from drinking
swill milk; diarrhoea, dysentery, cholera morbus were directly related,
and it was partially responsible for a host of other diseases. Griscom
stated that in 1856 just under half of the 13,373 deaths of children
under five years were attributable to defective diet and bad air. In
his letter to Frank Leslie, Griscom wrote:
In considering this dark catalogue of infants slaughtered,
we are not to overlook the important fact that it is very
often owing to the debilitated condition of the body,
arising from insufficient nutrition, that great havoc is
made by several other diseases. It is not difficult to
understand how a child, whose veins are filled with good
blood, the result of nutritious diet and pure air, may
withstand the shock of scarlet fever, or measles, or
inflammation of the brain or lungs, or any other of the
numerous ills which infant flesh is heir to, to which the
victim of swill milk must almost certainly succumb.
Nhen.he considered the number of diseases aggravated by swill milk,‘
Griscom concluded that at least 1,000 additional deaths annually
resulted from its use.77
In conclusion, Griscom thanked Leslie for his strong stand in
exposing the "death in the milk pail as it is brought to our doors."
He attacked the Health Department for failing to perform its function
in years past. He also took the opportunity to explain that swill
milk was only one evil.
But swill milk is by no means the sole cause of the enormous
amount of sickness and mortality of our people. I could
point out to you a number of others which are as potential
as this over the public health and which are equally
disregarded by those who are sworn and paid to suppress
thelt These I hope you may find opportunity to delineate
and describe, and the blessing of thousands of lives saved
will be your continual reward.78
To attack and expose swill milk as an evil detrimental to health
was important, but if nothing was presented in its place it would be
a hollow victory. Griscom and his public health committee, therefore,

investigated some of the alternatives. Presh'milk from the country was

131

out of the question, but an early form of powdered milk‘was quite
acceptable, Griscom reported to the NYAM, in 1854, that although there
were marked improvements in the preservation of food, canning, smoking,
and salting were useless when it came to milk. Several earlier
attempts had changed the structure of milk, or reduced its nutritional
value. The problem was that this most healthful and necessary food
quickly deteriorated in the air. In the early 1850's, however,
Dlatchford's "Solidified‘Milk” was introduced; it did not lessen the
nutritional value and kept indefinitely. Blatchford removed the
water, which made up ninety percent of all milk, and replaced it with
sugar. The process was both simple and safe. In his report Griscom
‘ wrote that, "it has been fully subjected to our critical examination;
we have traced the milk from the rich pasturage of Dutchess county,
from the udder to its final conversion into the solid tablet; and we
find it, in all its stages and appliances, to be based upon a thorough
knowledge of the chemistry and dynamic tendencies of the natural fluid."79

This solidified milk was especially valuable to all classes of
city dwellers, because they had no way of testing the nutritional
value of the milk sold from door to door. By using Blatchford's ‘
Solidified Milk, Griscom wrote, there was no question of purity and
quality. It came from only well-fed, exercised, healthy, country
cows. Griscom‘was careful to point out that this was not a milk
substitute, but real milk.which could not be adulterated. The only
drawback.was the expense--it came in one pound blocks, which cost
twenty-five cents and made five pints of*milk. However, as Griscom
wrote, "as an article of diet in sickness, considerations of economy
become insignificant in comparison with purity and high nutritive

character, and your committee deem it but a duty to their fellow

132

practitioners, to call their attention to it as a valuable adjunct in
the sick-room, especially in the convalescence of children."80

To insure honesty in the testing of Blatchford's product, the
editor of the American Medical Times was invited to go with the inspection
team of the Academy. Griscom led his committee, and observers, to the
small town of‘Amenia, near Poughkeepsie. He took his duties as
chairman seriously; "by day-break the Chairman of the Committee was
aroused (the penalty of office) to be present at the milking, that
he might testify as to the purity of the source of the milk, and the'
appearance of the cattle." The committee viewed the entire process,
the editor describing it in detail.81 The editor's presence was an
indication of the importance attached to the product and the inspection
of the process.

Several favorable reviews appeared in the more important medical
journals. The reviewer for the American Journal of the Medical Sciences
thought that the report had come entirely from the pen of Dr. Griscom.
It reflected the "very thorough examination of the whole subject"
typical of Griscom's work. 4Another reviewer, for the AMA, was sanguine:
"These opinions, expressed by so able a committee, after a personal
inspection of the process and a careful investigation of the whole
subject are sufficient, doubtless, to satisfy the.members of this
Association that the 'solidified milk' is all that the manufacturer
claims it to be. . . ." N. S. Davis, who wrote the review, cited a
case where the solidified milk was used to restore a two week old
infant to health when his mother was unable to produce enough milk
herself.82

Griscom kept abreast of other improvements in food processing,
and in 1857 wrote favorably ofiMr. Borden's condensed milk. when

this replaced regular milk at the city nursery, the children showed a

133

marked improvement in their condition. The AMm.committee on Materia
IMedica and.Botany had the subject of condensed milk referred to them,
and when the time came to examine the product, Griscom, who had "kindly
volunteered his assistance in the investigation of this most interesting
subject", went along as a consultant, and viewed the entire process

from milking to the manufacture of the finished product.83

VIII
The use of tobacco was one nuisance that Griscom wrote about
from the heart, not the head. In a little propaganda tract written
after the Civil war, he preached on the evils of tobacco, and called
for its suppression by public authorities on the grounds that smoking
was offensive to all nearby. His position became untenable when he
maintained that the dryness of the throat and the narcotic effect of
the weed led to drinking. Smoking also reduced the moral senses, and
was likely to result in evil deeds and the neglect of religion and'
the intellect. The only relevant statement in the pamphlet connected
cancer to heavy smoking. But Griscom also saw a connection between
smoking and insanity. The review for the Western Journal offMedicine,
who obviously held Griscom in high regard, was as kind as possible:
Instead of a cake, scientific, and logical discussion of‘
the use of tobacco and its effects, such as the enviable
reputation of the author would lead us to anticipate, we
have a presentation of wild, loose fact and fancy, and
illogical conclusions about the toxic evils of the plant
and its destructive influences, that finds a fitting L
name only in tirade.
The reviewer expected much more from a man of Griscom's professional
standing, experience, and intellect, and was forced to conclude that

Griscom's position could "only be accounted for on the supposition

that be mounted a hobby and galloped away from his wits."34

134
IX

As an accepted authority on questions of sanitation and public
health, Griscom was asked to review a few works by the editors of the
American Journal of the Medical Sciences. He reviewed, in January,
1859, a book by James H. Pickford on H iene, Edward Greenhow's m
Relati_l_|g to the Sanitary State of the People of England, with an Intro-
duction by John Simon, and David D. Reid's Ventilation of American
Dwellings. The appearance of these works allowed Griscom to report
happily that people, both doctors and laymen, were becoming increasingly
aware of the importance of public health and preventive medicine. He
said that the nineteenth century had opened with a promise, Jenner's
discovery of the cow pox vaccine, and that public health had been
improving ever since. But there was still much to be done:

It behooves every member of the profession to see that he
is no laggard in the road towards a full knowledge of the
science of public hygiene, even though he may not choose '
to engage its practical application; for the time is
rapidly approaching when the suppression of every health-
impairing circumstance will be demanded by the public
:ii‘i‘éflflcfi'éi£‘iii‘°2§.’ii§3§i§'ifi°.§i12°35”““8“

Each of the three works was related to a different aspect of
public hygiene. Pickford's was related to the philosophy of public
hygiene--natural causes and their influence on health for good or
evil. Greenhow and Simon's book (it had not been published at the time
of the review, but Simon had sent Griscom a copy, an indication of
the writer's esteem for the New York doctor and his opinion); was a
work based on an evaluation of death returns for England. The work
by Reid was purely practical, and concerned with how to put different
modes of ventilation into effect. 86

Griscom quoted extensively from each of the works reviewed, as

was the custom of the day. He was quite pleased with each of the works,

135

but perhaps he was the most pleased with Reid's as it was a practical
treatise along the same lines as his own book on ventilation. The
reader of the reviews was given a good critique of each book.37

Since the basic solution to health nuisances was education,
Griscom was pleased to see new works on public health which would help
pe0ple bring up their children in the knowledge that fresh air was
healthy and not something to be feared. With adequate ventilation even
the hovel of the laborer could be made more healthy. "If it is admitted
that many of the imprOprieties of life are due to ignorance of its
laws, then a knowledge of these laws would cause a diminution of the

impropr ieties . "83

CHAPTER IV sons

1-John H. Griscom, Uses and Abuses of Air (New York, 1849, 1970) ,
194-95. Water from the Croton River was brought to the city, via
aqueduct, when the population reached such proportions that the
wells were no longer adequate. The system opened in 1842, John Duffy,
History of Public Health in New York City, 1625-1866 (New York, 1968),
396-97.

2John H. Griscom, "Improvements in the Public Health," MSNY,
Transactions (1857), 107-108.

3John Bach McMaster, Historj of the PeOple of the United States
(New York, 1910) VII, 76. Charles Dickens, American Notes (Gloucester,
Mass., 1968), 105-109. Charles McKay, Life and léberty in America
(New York, 1859), 18.

l‘James Wynne, Chrm. , "First Report of a Cousittee on Public
Hygiene of the American Medical Association," AMA, Transactions, II
(1849), 443-44. John H. Griscom, "Hygiene of New York City," AMA,
Transactions, II (1849), 455-58.

sG[ouveneur] B[merson], "Transactions of the AMA," AJ'MS, XIX n.s.
(April, 1850), 428-29.

6Wynne, "First Report," 431.

7Griscom, "Hygiene ," 455-56. John H. Griscom, Anniversary
Discourse (New York, 1855), 37-38.

8Wynne, "First Report," 438-40.

9John H. Griscom, "Report Upon Sewerage, Water Supply and Offal,"
in John Bell, R_e1>ort on the_;_[mportance of Sanitary Measures to Cities.
(New York, 1860), 237. ‘

10John H. Griscom, AnnualfiReport of the Interments in the City
and CountLof New York, for the year 1842, with Remarks thereoy, and
a Brief View of the Sanitary Condition of the cgy (New York, 1843),
180-81. Duffy, History of Public Health, 385-86. Dickens, American
Notes, 105.

nGriscom, Annual Report, 180-81.

121139, 181-84.

1312151,, 181-82.

14M” 184. Griscom, Uses and Abuses, 192. Duffy, Histogy
of Public Health, 381-83. In 1849, the AMA connittee on Public Hygiene

urged "the establishment of one general butchery, at a convenient
distance from each town, . . ." Wynne, "First Report," 438 -40.

136

137

l'sGriscom, Annual Report, 183-84. Griscom was one of the
earliest members of the medical profess ion calling for more humane
treatment of animals. In the next few decades a number of physicians
spoke out against vivisection, and in 1866 Henry Bergh founded the
American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

16Ibid., 177- 79. N. Y., Assembly, Report of the Select Conittee
Appointed to Examine into the Condition of Tenant Houses in New York
and Brookl n, Doc. No. 205, 80th Sess., 1857, 20-21.

1'IGriscom, Annual Report, 177-79. Griscom, Uses and Abuses, 192.

18Wynne, "First Report," 434-35.

19Ib1d., 435-36.

20Griscom, "Hygiene," 456.

21George Templeton Strong, Diary, eds. , Allan Nevins and Milton
H. Thomas (New York, 1952), II, 52.

22New York Times, May 10, 1863.

23Griscom, Annual Report, 180.

2“N.Y.C., Board of Aldermen, Cmmsunication of the Cipy Inspector,
With an Ordinance Regphtiglthe Emptying of Sinkp, Priviesy and
Cis ols, Doc. No.-18, Sept. 12, 1842, 163-66.

251bid.

26M” 167-71. N. Y. C., gyLaws and Ordinances of the Mayor,
Aldermen and Comonalty of the City of New York (New York, 1845),, 356.

 

27N.Y.C. , Board of Aldermen, The Connittee on Ordinances, Doc.
No. 16, Aug. 26, 1844, 187-92. As City Inspector, Griscom bemoaned
the fact that men had to be engaged in the degrading business of ,
removing night soil; they were shunned by all classes of society, yet '
Griscom offered no alternative, because none was available. Griscom,
Annual Rpport, 179-80.

28Griscom, Annual Remart, 188-92.

29John H. Griscom, The Sanitgy Condition of the Laborigg
Population of the City of New York; with Suflgtions for its Improvement
(New York, 1845), 52.

3mm, Minutes (Oct. 6, 1347, July 5, 1848, Oct. 3, 1849).

31Wynne, "First Report," 432-34. Griscom, "Hygiene," 456.

32Griscom, "Sewerage," 238-40.

33uusca, v (Sept., 1861), 832-34.

3"Griscom, Acnnual Repprt, 185-86.

138
35Ibid. , 187.

35N.Y.C. , Board of Aldermen, Proceedigg from May 10 to November
l4I 1842 (New York, 1843), XXIII, 146, 315.

3711!“, Minutes, July 6, Aug. 17, 1859.

38John H. Griscom, Rep_ly to the Citizens Association of Ingigy
on the Sanitary Condition of New York (New York, 1864).

39Jacob Judd, "Brooklyn's Health and Sanitation, 1834-55," J‘LIH,
VII (Winter-Spring, 1967), 47-48. It is possible that C. Goodrich, the
Health Officer, was referring to Griscom's reports on the sanitary
condition of the city, as he delivered one each year.

4°Wynne, "First Report," 440-41.
41NYAM, Minutes. July 1, Sept. 16, 1863.

“zJohn H. Griscom, Chrm. , "Report on the Ridgewood Disinfecting
Powder," NYAM, Bulletin, II (July 1863), 143-44.

431b1d., 144-45.
441b1d., 147-51.

_ “slbid. "A Report on the Properties and Composition of the
Ridgewood Disinfecting Powder," M: VII (Oct. 10, 1863), 170-71. .

46"Discussion of Disinfectant," NYAM, Bulletin, III (July, 1866),
126. NYAM, Minutes. December 13, 1867. This was apparently the "Ready
Disinfector". that Griscom urged for the use in prisons. See Ch. VII.

“Griscom, Annual Re art, 161. George Ribbe Turner, Hagar's
Hoard (Lexington, Kentucky, 1970) , 60, 201.

436riscom, Annual Report, 160-61. Griscom, Uses and Abuses,
147-55. Although Griscom was a temperance man, he was aware of a more
pressing reform. "Do you ask for a prohibitory liquor law? Very
good. But would that have rescued from the grave the 13,734 children
who in 1853 went down to it ere they saw their tenth year? . . . the
stimulus of a little oxygen would have saved them, and prevented the
sickness of ten times the number." Griscom, Anniversary Discourse, 46.

 

“Graces, Uses and Abuses, 8-14, 74.

soH[dward] J[arvis], _RLeview of Uses and Abuses of Air, AJMS,
xvm n.s. (July, 1849), 146.

”Griscom, Uses and Abuses, 196-214.
52Wynne, "First Report," 438. Griscom, "Hygiene," 456-58.
53New York Times, Jan. 21, 1852.

54"Dr. Griscom's Oration," NYMT, IV (Dec., 1854), 101. "Dr.
Griscom's Reclamation," NYMT, IV (Feb., 1855), 179-81.

139

55Griscom, Anniversagy Discourse, 42-45. Earlier, in hisC City
I'nspector s Report, Griscom attacked the poorly ventilated schools,
blaming them in part for the high mortality rate among children.
"Seminaries thus conducted should be avoided by every parent, as they
value the health and safety of their offspring." Griscom, Annual
Re art, 162. “—

55N.Y., Assembly, Select Qomittee, 31. Again, in the City
Ins lector' s Report, Griscom estimated that ten years could be added

to the life of the average laborer if his place of work was adequately
ventilated. Griscom, Annual Report, 202- 03.

57John H. Griscom, "The Causes and Prevention of Some of the
Most Important Diseases in the Army. " A Discourse Delivered Before
the NYSA. AMM, XVIII (December, 1862), 411-12.

58J.H. Glriscom], Review of A Knowledge of Livipg Thiggs, . . .
by A. N. Bell, and The Physiology of Canon Life, Studies in Animal
Life, by George Henry Lewes, AJMS, XLII n.s. (Oct., 1861), 529.-

 

59U.S., Mort of the Couissioner of Patents, (1859), I,
172.. John H. Griscom, An Improved Method of House Ventilation (New
York, 1862) , 5-9. Griscom received much praise for hisinvention.
D. B. Reid preferred it because it was simple, sure to operate,
economical, easy to.- install, repair, and operate. D. 8. Reid,
Ventilation (New York, 1864), 21. In his New Family Physician (New
York, 1867), Dr. John C. Gunn hailed Griscom's plan as one of great
value to urban dwellers. 1092-93. '

f 6oGriscom, Improved Method, 12.
61Bell, Sanitary Measures to Cities, 125- 27. Reid, Ventilation,

xvii, 3. Samuel W. Francis, "Biographical Sketches of Distinguished
Living New York Physicians," M_S__R, XV (Aug. 4,1866), 122.

 

62NYAM, Minutes, May 30, 1866. At the Oct. 3, meeting, Griscom
read a paper 011 "Donxestic Hygiene," which dealt with the ventilation
of private houses. "Report of the Sub-Comittee on Ventilation, "
NYAM,’ Bulletin, III (May, 1866), 92-97.

63William F. Thoma, "Ventilation," NYAM, Bulletin, III (June,
1868), John H. Griscom, Chrm. , Report of a Special Ce-ittee on the
Merits of a Proposed Method of SupplyinLPure Air. . . . (New York,
1869), 4'8e

6"Griscom, Uses and Abuses, 3-5. Griscom, Sewerage, 237-38.

“Griscom, Annual Repprt, 196-201, 188-92.

66Wynne, "First Report," 436-37. Griscom, "Hygiene," 458.

67mm, Assembly, Select Co-ittee, 35-36.

53"New York Sanitary Association," Lacy, x (June, 1859), 462.
"Editorial and Miscellaneous," Lag, XI (June, 1859), 486-87.

140

69Griscom, Sanitapy Condition, 52.

 

7"Griscom, Annual Report, 184-85. Judd, "Brooklyn's Health," 43.
71M“ Tribune, July 21, 22, 1847.

72HYAM, Minutes. Aug. 4, Sept. 1, 1847, March 1, June 7, 1848.
73Griscom, Uses and Abuses, 111-12.

74NYNH,‘Minutea, Sept, 2, 1857, June 2"1858, "Editor" lele,n
93;, IX (July, 1858), 434-35.

75".], Gotham, Jr. ," "Editorial Correspondence," NJMSR, X
(Nov., 1857), 559-62. Robert M. Hartley, The Cow and the Dairy (New
York, 1850), 108-09.
761mm, v (May 22, 1858), Duffy, History of Public Health, 431-36.
77FLIN v quay 22, 1858).
781b1d.

”John a. Griscom, Chrm., "Report on Solidified um," um
Transactions, I (1857), 181-84.

 

801b1d., 185-87.

81Edward H. Parker, ed., "Solidified Milk," fl, II (Oct., 1854)
316-17. .

82D. F[rancis] G[ondie], Review of The Transactions of the New
York Academy of Medicine," AJMS, XXX n.s. Uuly, 1855), 135-36. N.S.
Davis, "Report of the Comittee on the Means of Preserving Milk and
on the Influence of Pregnancy and Menstruation on the Composition and
Nutritive Qualities of that Fluid," AMA, Transactions, VIII (1855),
541-44.

 

83Joel Foster, Chrm. , "New York Academy of Medicine. Report
of Condensed Milk," fl, VIII (Dec., 1857), 709-10.

8"John H. Griscom, The Use of Tobacco, and the Evils, Physical
MentalLMoral and Social, Resultiflerefrom (New York, 1868), Essim.
J. F. H[ ibberd], neym of my Use of Tobacco. . . , 1.111, III (Sept. ,
1868), 576-78.

85John H. G[riscom], Review of Reid, Pickford and Greenhow, AJMS,
XXXVII (Jan., 1859), 143-44.

86Ibrd. , 144.
87rb1d., 145-46.

88Griscom, Sanitag Condition, 56.

CHAPTER V
DISEASES--AND THEIR CONTROL
The horseman on the white horse
was clad in a snowy and barbarous
attire. His oriental countenance
was contracted with hatred as if
smelling out his victims. While
his horse continued galloping,
he was bending his bow in order
to spread pestilence abroad.
At his back swung the brass
quiver, filled with poisoned
arrows, containing the germs of
all diseases. V. B. Ibanez
John Hoskins Griscom received his medical degree from the University
of Pennsylvania Medical Department--one of the leading schools in the
country--and practiced medicine from 1831 until shortly before his
death in 1874. All the problems that he encountered as a reformer of
the mid-nineteenth century were approached, to one degree of another,
from the physician's point of view. Imigrants and laborers suffered
because the terrible conditions in which they were forced to live and
work brought about incapacity and early death. Most of the diseases
involved were either entirely avoidable, or at least their stranglehold
on the slums could have been relaxed. Among the more important diseases
that Griscom treated as medical and social problems were cholera,
yellow fever, small pox, and consumption. Griscom felt these diseases
were all preventable if only society would face its responsibility to
the poor.
Overcrowding, lack of air, and filth, he believed, allowed
these diseases to rage uncontrolled. In 1852, 13,194 deaths, or
nearly sixty percent of the total city mortality, resulted from preventable

141

142

diseases; "in other words ," Griscom wrote, "under the most favorable
circmtances of life, these diseases, and consequently the deaths
from them, might have been avoided." To make matters worse, it was
conservatively estimated that there were twenty-eight cases that did
not prove fatal for each one that did. The suffering, the expenses,
and the time lost from work were all unnecessary.1

The most deadly of the diseases was consumption; between 1854
and 1860 it carried off more people than did cholera in all its epidemic
years. The other three diseases were not as deadly, but the fact that
yellow fever was controllable and small pox preventable made their
presence intolerable to a man like Griscom. The problem as Griscom
saw it was to excite the populace enough so they would force the
city to take action. In part motivated by this, and in part by purely
medical reasoning, Griscom urged strict registration of all deaths,
and later called for the registration of all vital statistics. While
the laws he helped pass were of inestimable value to later generations,
1 t was the shock of cholera sweeping across Asia and Europe that
shook New York from its doldrums and forced the passage of the Metro-

politan Health Bill in 1866.2

I

Even though it was not the most deadly of the diseases that
afflicted New York, cholera created the most excitement among the
residents. There were several forms of cholera, each of them present
in New York. (It was not until 1855 that Dr. John Snow discovered
that cholera was water-borne. He found one family in an unaffected
London neighborhood that came down with cholera, and traced the source
of the infection to the Broad Street Pump, which was infected. When

Snow removed the pump's handle, the disease subsided.) Cholera morbus

143

was brought on by hot weather, or changes in the weather, or proximity
to marshland. However, this was not a true cholera. Bilious cholera
attacked the individual suddenly, and was rarely fatal. Cholera
infantum struck.children between four and twenty months of age; in
1853 it accounted for the deaths of 922 children. Griscom thought that
under more favorable circumstances at least 900'would have survived.
It was a slum disease, attacking infants who lived in damp cellars
and dark tenements. The most dreaded--asiatic cholera-~began with
diarrhoea which progressed to total collapse, and, if left untreated,
death in three to five days. Each of these types of cholera differed
from the others in visible symptoms, but each produced the same
reaction in the general public-~fear.3

‘ John C. Peters, a noted authority on cholera in the nineteenth
century, saw two ways to prevent its introduction and spread. First,
even though Europe did not use it, a strict, effective quarantine would
help. It kept the Noravians safe three times, and although cholera
reaChed Staten Island's Quarantine Station fourteen thmes, it
penetrated New‘York only four times. Combined with a strict quarantine
was the need for a massive clean-up, as an important ingredient of
chOIera was "an atmosphere impregnated with the products of fermenting
human excrement. . . ." Nhereas nothing could be done about the high
temperatures and humidity that aided the diffusion of cholera, "we
can remove decomposing filth. We can have the streets cleaned. . . .
Ne can open up close and crowded neighborhoods, and exert a rigid
guardianship over the condition of the tenement houses. . . ."
Beyond this, personal cleanliness was urged for all people.4

Nineteenth-century etiology maintained that cholera was both

portable and communicable, being carried about by ships, persons, clothing,

and baggage. It only effected those regions into which it was directly

144

imported, and only the discharges from the patient produced by vomiting
and purging were infectious. This matter infected air, water, and‘
soil, as did soiled linen, towels, bedding,or clothing. Disinfection,
however, stopped the spread of infection. The‘most dangerous carriers
were those people already sick; filth, unless contaminated directly,
could not produce cholera. It was always brought to the United States
by ship.5

Previous to the 1866 outbreak, there were four major cholera
epidemics. The first time it reached New‘Yorkwwas in 1832, remaining
off and on until it reached a new high in 1834. Cholera next reached
epidemic proportions in 1849, and then again in 1854. The final
outbreak came in 1866, shortly after passage of the Metropolitan
Health.3ill by the State Legislature. During its first appearance
the people felt cholera was a visitation from God--the result of
i-oral living; to be afflicted with cholera was a public display of
God's wrath on the unjust. During the 1849 outbreak, however, the‘
populace began to realize that it was the poor who were hardest hit.
In his 23231, George Templeton Strong reported that in the 1854 epi-
demic the scourge took an odd turn: "there is a strange flare up of
this epidemic just now, among people of the more 'respectable' classes."
No longer was the disease confining itself to the "lowest and filthiest
classes, whose existence from one day to another in their atmosphere
of morphic influences is a triumph of vital organisation and illustrates
the vigorous tenacity of life. . . ."5

During the summer of 1852 cholera infantum was exceptionally
bad, the number of deaths reaching 100 in one week. The.August 4 '
meeting of the New York Academy of Medicine was devoted to a discussion
of the problem, with Griscom as an active participant. The problem,

he said, was that medicine knew nothing of the pathology of the disease.

145
"Ne inquired whether it could be set down as an inflametion, a relax-
ation of the intestines, or a disease of the general system. Post-
mortem examinations reveal nothing satisfactory. " Griscom did, however,
consider cholera infantum to be a true cholera--that is, a disease
with symptoms similar to cholera.7
When asiatic cholera reached New York in 1854, Dr. Griscom

suggested that the Academy spend one meeting in a discussion of the
disease, and the meeting of August 2 was devoted to an in-depth
study. At that meeting Griscom stated that while the pathology was
not unimportant, the treatment of cholera was the main concern. Ne
felt cholera was a "created" disease:

0n Ward's Island in 1849 and 1850 it originated at that

place, and at a time when there was no cholera hundreds

of miles away. This year the disease has occurred almost

exclusively among the destitute, the wretched and the

ill-fed. The pre-disposing causes are in the atmosphere,

aided by impure air, filth, &c. The disease itself is

started by errors in diet. Another important fact is its

occurrence on ship-board. . . . A remarkable fact is its

sudden invasion at sea, and its subsiding with equal

abruptness. The disease will consume in the morning

of a certain day and last for six days, and then suddenly

stop, another case perhaps not occurring during the rest

of the voyage. But that the disease often has a local

origin there can be no doubt.
Several others made consents, and Cr iscom himself added another note
of interest or when he stated that the use of anathesia on cholera
patients quieted their restlessness. Whether it aided in their recovery
he did not report.8

Early in 1866, before the cholera outbreak of that year, Dr.

Griscom toured Europe, and while there he translated and sent to the
Medical and Surgical Reporter an article on the treatment and prevention
of cholera. The author, a Dr. Worms of the Military Hospital of Gross

Cillow, Paris, recon-ended frequent doses of lemonade to stop the

evacuations, raise the pulse, and warm the skin. Worms had treated

146
cholera cases this way in 1848 and again in 1866 and found it to be quite
effective. In translating this article, Griscom was presented a new
theory, but did not necessarily advocate it.9
Griscom returned to New‘York in.time to participate in the

Academy's discussion of cholera. In his inaugural talk, he discussed
the ominous future:

Already a subtle and malignant enemy has flaunted its '

flag in our sight, and for our present immunity from a

repetition of the disastrous results of its four previous

Visitations, we may hold ourselves indebted, not to any

foresight or precautionary measures of our own, but to an

indulgent Providence which has given us another warning

to amend our habits and modes of living, with the almost

positive assurance if we do not, that the same penalty

must be paid as before.
The stated purpose of Griscom's paper was fourfold; to make clear the
approach of cholera on its victims, the case of cholera control, the
necessity of constant vigilance to avoid a repetition of past disasters,
and finally, and perhaps most important, Griscom wanted to correct
some of the errors people made in connecting cholera and the poorer
classes.10

In pre-germ theory days, three approaches to cholera existed.

There were the contagionists, the non~contagionists, and those who
believed the disease was spread by contagion and the right "conditions."
Dr. Griscom belongs with the last group. As later events showed, the
contagionists were right; this does not totally discredit the work of
Griscom.and others who believed as he did; they were partially right.
Basically the doctrine which Griscom subscribed to was the "shears
of fate," one blade representing the terrene conditions, the other
atmospheric conditions. One blade alone would not cause cholera,
but by

a combination of these circumstances, by a union of the

‘meteoric epidemic influence with the emanations from
undrained, overcrowded, filthy tenements, unswept streets,

147

damp cellars, noxious manufactories, and the thousands of

other nuisances of neglected cities, we have the two

blades of these destructive shears in fatal conjunction,

ready to divide the vital chordes in thousands of cases.1

In New York, and other cities, Griscom noted the terrene was
usually present. In 1864, for example, nearly 26,000 deaths resulted
from the foul conditions of the tenements. Moreover, the city had
gotten progressively worse-~filthier--over the previous twenty-five
years, which made it even more inviting to epidemics. No one was more
familiar with the results of living in filth than Griscom; he saw it
when he was City Inspector, when he examined the holds of imigrant
ships, when he examined tenements for the Association for Improving
the Condition of the Poor, and during the twenty odd years he worked
with the New York Hospital and the Eastern Dispensary. Clearly, he
felt that cholera was related to the bad conditions in the city, and
to support this contention Griscom cited the research of several
respected authorities. Among them was Dr. John Sutherland, a public
health physician in England who reported that cholera “'followed the
usual tract of fevers by which those towns are scourged [Edinburgh and
Leith], locating itself in the same filthy closes. . . . "'12
In an attack on contagionist theories, Griscom pointed out the

1832 epidemic in New York did not begin among the traveling co-unity
or near the wharves, but that it appeared in the heart of the city “
among the lower classes. It made scattered appearances in the Third,
Fourth, and Sixth wards, the last being the location of the Five Points
district. He reached these conclusions through a careful study of
mortality returns to the Health Department; furthermore, he was

attached to New York Hospital at that time and probably treated many

of the cases himself.13

148

Griscom‘s major concern in the paper was to make it abundantly
clear that cholera struck the homes of the poor and the indigent, not
because they had sinned and were being punished, but because they
lived in squalor. If cholera did not carry them off in 1866, then
any one of a hundred diseases probably would in 1867. To drive home
this point, be quoted extensively from other physicians interested in
public health. 'Men.like Sutherland in England, Dr. A. H. Buchanan in
in Nashville, Dr. T. 8. Bell in Louisville, and Dr. Austin Flint in
Buffalo were cited to bolster his case against the unpaved streets,
damp, flooded cellars, and filthy tenements. {As regarded the 1849
epidemic in Nashville, Buchanan reported that one entire block was
nearly depopulated--l92 deaths from cholera. "But the street opposite
had never been paved; the situation is damp, the cellars were filled
with water, and thg_premises otherwise filthy."14

From his own experiences and those of his colleagues, Griscom
used the shears of fate theory (this was applied to numerous epidemic
diseases) to prove cholera could only appear when the correct terrene
conditions were present. It was generally accepted that cholera
did not attack those who lived in the cleaner parts of the city with
the same fury it attacked the slums. After several minutes of nauseating
detail, Griscom asked the assembled physicians:

Have we not, in these instances, incontrovertible demon-
strations of the inestimable value of sanitary appliances,
and do they not show the splendor of the opportunity "
offered to the administrators of our Metropolitan Board
of Health of the achievement of similar glorious results,
the demand for which was initiated in this Academy twelve
years ago; the bread which it then cast upon waters now
returned to it?15

For years the battle between contagionists and non-contagionists

'raged; by the early 1860's, however, the contagion theory had gained

more acceptance. Griscom, who supported the quarantine facility and

149
the contagion theory in relation to other diseases, did not accept
it in relation to cholera, in part because if the contagionists were
right. that filth had little effect on the spread of the disease, then
his work in sanitation had been for naught. Furthermore, he thought
a quarantine was unable to control cholera, and as an example he
cited the case of Turkey where such a Quarantine establishment had
failed to stop its spread. Griscom was not denying contagion as a
cause of cholera as much as he was denying the contagionists dream
of preventing cholera by strict quarantine regulations.16
At the same time he rejected quarantine as a control, Griscom
re-emphasized the shears of fate. The first blade, atmospheric, was
beyond human control, but the second, terrene, was not, and because
of the terrene he stressed the importance of strict sanitary controls.
In the closing minutes of his address, Griscom spoke of the medical
treatments available.17
The discussion of epidemic cholera continued during the next

several meetings of the Academy. Several members presented papers
calling for steps to control the approach and spread of cholera. Dr.
Elisha Harris, a noted nineteenth century sanitarian, resumed the
discussion at the April 26 meeting. After the presentation of a
report he had made for the Board of Health on asiatic cholera and
the steamship "Virginia," he offered a resolution calling on the
Acad'emyto develop a systematic procedure to meet the impending crisis:

Resolved, that the Cousittee on Public Health [Griscom was

still chairmaxfl be further increased by the appointment of

three members, and that it be directed to report to the

Academy, at its next meeting, upon systematic medical and

preventive measures in epidemic cholera.

The resolution was adopted; Stephen Smith read the paper at the May

meeting. 13

150
Smith's report was more concerned with control of cholera by

stopping the spread of the disease. In his approach Smith saw the
lessons of the past as most valuable, especially the fact that previous
epidemics were usually preceded by diarrhoea. Since cholera habitually
struck the poor first, the way to control it was simple:

Any system, to be effectual, must be aggressive, not

passive. It must send its agents into the homes of the

people, and by the most systematic and persistent effort

search out the pestilence in its incipient stages, and

apply the remedy at the bedside. It must be a house-to-

house visitation, so thorough as to actually reach every

member of the family. '
Griscom had called for this at the discussion a month earlier. It
was reported in the "Discussion on Cholera" that "he urged the practi-
cability in case the cholera should come, of each and every physician
having a particular locality under his charge; his duties being to
hunt from house to house for diarrhoea patients to provide them immediate
aid." This was, of course, a clear admission on Griscom's part that
cholera was contagious.19

Griscom and Smith were not primarily concerned with the treatment

of individual cholera cases; they hoped that wide scale treatment would
prevent an epidemic. This simple plan called for a superintendent,
assistants, and a corps of visitors. The first two groups were medical
men; the visitors could be laymen. When the first case of diarrhoea
*was noticed, the visitors would comb the area, searching out new cases.
Once found they would either administer first aid or direct the indivié
dual to the dispensary or district physician. .A careful follow-up‘ ”
program would make sure the disease was treated. This plan was
originally used by Griscom as City Inspector when he employed the
City Tract missionaries to collect information on the slum dwellers.

It was also used by Smith and the Citizens Association when they

prepared the sanitary survey of 1864. Finally, it was the plan of

151
the Metropolitan Board of Health, which divided the city into dispensary
districts, of which there were six, each employing ten physicians,
with a corps of reserve physicians who were available to work in any
district.“

Elisha Harris, a physician as interested in sanitation as Griscom,
presented several resolutions at the June meeting. Harris took the
position that "the utility of general and specific hygienic measures
. . . [is] the best means of protection against the pestilential
prevalence of cholera in any locality where it makes its appearance;
and that the most thorough scavenging, cleansing, and disinfection
are absolutely necessary means of averting this pestilence in the
cities and populous towns of our country at the present time." The '
resolutions also stated the best means to control cholera was vigilance
and effective sanitary measures. Following discussion, at which time
no mention of quarantine was made, the resolutions were adopted as '
the position of the Academy in relation to asiatic cholera.21

After their lengthy discussion of cholera, the Academy heard
more ‘on the subject when Dr. N. W. J. Heath delivered a report on the
steamship "England." It was Heath's contention that cholera was
brought on board the ship by the passengers, but Griscom--ever the
sanitar ian- -disagreed :

Dr. Griscom contended that the cholera was not introduced
upon the ship from the shore, but was generated upon

the ship itself. Excessive filth, personal and general,
absence of ventilation, and other circumstances, showed
that foul miasma was absorbed into the system by respir-
ation, by local causes generating disease. He was satis-
fied that Dr. Heath's report demonstrated the local cause
of what is called cholera, and that the cholera in this
city was not an epidemic, but an endemic disease, produced
by local causes, codined with the excessive hot season.

Stephen Harris followed with a few points about other, filthier ships

which did not report cholera cases. The difference, Harris maintained,

152
was their origin--the "England" ceme from a port where cholera raged,
whereas the others came from non-infected ports. Since Griscom
voted in favor of Heath's paper, apparently Harris showed Griscom the
error of his thinking. It seems that at times Griscom became so
involved in sanitation that his first reaction was to reject any theory
which might undermine the necessity for clean-ups; in this instance,

however, he quickly recognized the merits of a colleague's theory.22

11
J. Gotham Jr. reported in the fall of 1856 that yellow fever
had been the only topic of discussion during the preceding summer.
Although the city was spared, the disease had a strong foothold at
Quarantine in addition to infecting several soldiers at Brooklyn's
Fort Hamilton. Only six cases were reported in New York, all of them
treated at New York Hospital, perhaps under Griscom's supervision,
and all of these were traced either to Quarantine or the Atlantic
docks. "The seeds which have been scattered at the doors of our
city, have found no soil to take root in." In general, the city was
quite healthy.
In.fact [wrote Gotham] it is a distressingly healthy
season, physicians, apothecaries, and undertakers all
complaining alike. The coolness and freshness of the
atmosphere, and the cleanliness of the streets from
combined artificial and natural causes (brooms and rains
in abundance), conspire to produce an extraordinary plethora
of population; Broadway and Wall Street never appearing
more crowded and lively, while this very salubrity creates
a dearth of subjects suitable for a medical journal.
One is left with the feeling that Griscom had enjoyed the peace and
quiet.23
"Dull‘Tflmes" continued for the last few'weeks of the summer, and

J. Gotham.raported that only the physicians at Quarantine were busy.

The overall mortality of the city was lower than usual, and, even

though yellow fever raged at its borders, only an occasional case

153
slipped into the city. Griscom noted that the physicians at Quarantine
were well paid, and deservedly so because the Health Officer was a
highly trained professional, who served in a "post of exceeding great '
danger . . . to save the lives of thousands of people and millions
of property, at the iuinent daily risk of his own. " Because of his
work the fever missed New York, though it did strike lower Brooklyn,
where two physicians were numbered among the dead. 2“

Even though yellow fever was not in New York, a threat still
existed and in the face of that menace the New York Academy thought it
should prepare a report on the fever. In the absence of a chairman
of the public health co-ittee, Griscom was appointed to the post at
the August meeting. Two months later he delivered his report, which
was printed in the American Medical Monthly. After its delivery, Dr.
John W. Francis asked whether the Academy agreed with the conclusions
reached by Dr. Griscom. With the exception of Griscom's theory on
origins, Francis himself accepted them completely. Since there was an
outbreak at Quarantine at the time, Griscom asked permission to
prepare a supplemental report after that outbreak had subsided. He
did so the following M—er. At that time Dr. John Watson objected
to Griscom's conclusion that the disease never originated in New York.
Dr. Joseph Smith inquired whether there was anything that could be done
to limit the spread of yellow jack. Griscom responded to Watson, V
saying that originally yellow fever was imported from Africa, and had
not ilways been endemic in New Orleans. ' The answer to Smith was
embodied in the thesis of the report--strict quarantine and clean

cities would prevent its spread. The report was accepted and Griscom
was given permission to reprint it, an indication that it came mostly

from his pen. 25

154
The purpose of the study made by Griscom was to examine the

disease's effects on the city's sanitary condition and how to best
prevent it. The first step then was a presentation of the causes, which
Griscom felt were two-fold. First there was the filth, and second,
the riflt temperature. In his History . . . of the Visitations of
Yellow Fever, as in the City Inspector's Report, The Sanitary Condition,
the AICP Report, and countless letters and talks, Griscom always cited
as prima-facie evidence the filth of the city. As regards yellow
fever this was attached to a thorough historical analysis of the
epidemics of yellow fever. While he traced its history throughout
the United States, Griscom gave more attention to the New York
visitations, analysing each and searching for a pattern which was
mt long in coming. He pointed out what he most assuredly expected
to find--the disease struck the poor and recently arrived. In 1795
it killed 730, of whom 500 were recent i-igrants living in the poor
wards along the East River, near the slips of the incoming ships where
piles of filth accumulated. Until 1822 the advocates of the domestic
theory of yellow fever had strong material for their case.

in the vast accumulations of filth of every description,

in the docks and slips, and in the depraved and vitiated

position and character of the dwellings and inhabitants

of the quarters heretofore infected, the advocate of the

theory of the domestic origin of yellow fever found strong

reasons for the faith that was in him, but the circumstances,

as well as the scene, are now changed.26

The outbreak of 1822 did not follow the well defined rules the

non-contagionists established. It began on Rector Street and slowly
spread in every direction from Broadway. All the streets were thinly. '
populated, well kept and neat. Griscom attributed this outbreak to
some infected sugar which came in from Quarantine.27

Between 1791 and 1807, then, there were thirteen attacks of

yellow fever, all centering on the eastern margin of the city, which

155

was one of the filthiest sections. From 1807 until 1822 there were
only two attacks, and this long period of exemption was coeval with
the filling of the slips and the “general improvements of these
ancient haunts.” Whereas this substantiated the domestic origin
theory, the 1822 outbreak in the cleaner part of the city supported
the contagionists. Yellow fever had always attacked the edges of the
city, close to the slips where foreign shipping landed. Further,
while the lull after 1805 was concurrent‘with the clean-up, it was
also a period of strict enforcement of quarantine regulations. The
quarantine took definite shape during the nineteenth century, and by
1806 two important regulations had evolved. After 1805 all infected
vessels stood 300 yards off shore to unload their cargoes, and in 1806
all vessels from.southern ports arriving between June and October
were ordered to anchor at Quarantine for four days before proceeding
to New York. "And since that time, though yellow fever has frequently
hovered along our border, it had but on two occasions, up to the
present year [1856] planted its foot beyond."28

Griscom and the committee concluded that while it was possible
for yellow fever to originate in.New'York, it was not likely to do
so. ‘More likely was its introduction along the shipping lanes.
According to this prognosis there were two simple solutions to the
problem of yellow fever: a strict quarantine and a clean-up of the
city:29

At the time the report was being made there was an attack of
yellow fever raging at Quarantine. Griscom felt he lacked the proper
perspective to report on the 1856 outbreak; the committee prepared a
supplemental report the following year. This supplement bolstered
the conclusion originally reached--thst yellow fever was imported.

Griscom took a stronger stand on the issue, however, when he completely

156

rejected the theory that yellow fever originated in New York. In
doing so he rejected one-half of the findings of the New Orleans
Sanitary Commission of 1853. 30

That emission had advanced the theory that the disease was
local in origin, being produced by the correct atmospheric and terrene
conditions (Griscom accepted the idea for New Orleans but he did not
want it accepted generally). The New Orleans Couission applied the
shears of fate analogy which Griscom rejected in relation to this
disease. There were several instances in New York's past when both
shears were present and there was no yellow fever. More important,
there was conclusive evidence that the disease was exotic in origin. ‘
The 1856 outbreak began with the arrival of a ship from Havana which
had yellow fever on board. The vessel was ordered to tie up at
Quarantine, and subsequently several cases were reported at Gravesend
Bay. In June the "Lucy Heywood" tied up, and a stevedore from Maine
was hired for the unloading. The man remained on board constantly;
after seven or eight days he contracted yellow fever, and died shortly
thereafter. He came directly from Maine and had never left the ship;
Griscom concluded, therefore, that "there could have been no other
source for the origin of the fever in that man . . . than such
infection as imbued in the cargo and cavities of the 'Lucy Haywood. "'31

Griscom was the type of man people had strong feelings about,
either for or against; the editor of the American Medical Gazette,
Dr. D. Meredith Reese, was one of those usually opposed to him. In an
editorial following the 1856 report, Reese wrote that Griscom presented
"nothing either novel or interesting." When the f insl report was
made the following year, however, even Reese recognized its merit.

He described it as "a document of great merit and importance. . . ."

157
But two years later he accused Griscom of plagarism, citing evidence
that the theory had been presented as early as 1840. Reese failed to
mention, however, that Griscom never claimed originality for the
concept; in fact he mentioned three sources that supported the contagion
theory years earlier. In this work, as in many others, Griscom
presented not so much new ideas as he popularized older ones.32
Griscom was not the only one preparing reports on yellow fever;

his colleague, and physician to the Marine Hospital, Elisha Harris,
prepared an official report for the State Legislature. Harris
attempted to report every case of yellow fever which occurred at
New York port, and discovered 558 cases involving seventy-nine vessels,
although there may have been more cases which went unreported. Yellow
fever reached the outlying districts, according to Harris, because
nature, in the form of prevailing winds and tidal currents, carried
the disease from the infected southern ships anchored at Quarantine
to the Port Hamilton district. Griscom agreed completely with the
findings of Harris, but noted that, unfortunately, he had become a
victim of party politics:

In an evil hour for humanity and science, the Executive

of the Empire State pros trates his independence and patrOnage

before the Noloch of party, and in the face of remonstrances

from three who honor intelligence and virtue, he stabs

them both. Before this report, honorable alike to the

head and heart of the author, was yet dry from the press,

he was removed from office, to make room for a partisan,

who, if rumor is correct, never saw a case of yellow

fever or ship fever.
Hith a pen like this, it is little wonder that Griscom made enemies--
both medical and political. If Governor Seward was in the habit of
reading the New Jersey Nedical and Surgical Reporter, he must have
smarted under this attack. 33

Although Griscom was unable to attend the Second National Quaran-

tine and Sanitary Convention, held in 1858, he sent along a letter of

158

apology, along with a number of copies of his yellow fever report,
‘vhich the officers had requested. Griscom also presented a plan for

r idding ships of fever, which may have been impractical, but which
showed his concern for the public's health. well aware that yellow
jack was not native to New‘York, he maintained that freezing temper-
atures on shipboard would kill the poison, and once removed it would
probably not return. To accomplish this Griscom suggested two mixtures
of ice and salt. "The subject is respectfully submitted to the con-
‘sideration of the Convention, in the hope that it will be deemed of
sufficient importance to justify a reconendation from that body to
the proper authorities of every vulnerable locality, for the establish-
ment of a practice which may prove a preventive of great evils, for
which many have heretofore helplessly suffered.", Even though the
plan.would not have worked, as physicians were unaware of Aedes ae“ ti,
the last phrase is significant because Griscom's whole life centered
about alleviating the suffering of helpless New'Yorkers.34

The next year Griscom was still trying to have the Academy

agree on the non-co-unicability of yellow fever. At the June 15,

1859 meeting theznembers tabled his resolution to that effect, even
though the National Quarantine and Sanitary Convention had accepted
isimilar ones. Again in October, after he read a paper on yellow fever,
Griscom.attempted to have his resolution passed, and again it was
tabled. In its report on these meetings, the American Medical Monthly
editors thought that nembers were splitting hairs, although they did
look favorably on Griscom's report.35

Obviously there were still many advocates of the domestic origins

of yellow fever; but by the close of the century the theory advanced

by Griscom was the accepted one. "There can be no doubt that the

prevalence of the disease in the United States depends upon the

159

introduction of an exotic germ; but it also depends upon local conditions
which favor the development of this germ. " Of seven local causes that
helped spread the disease, two--unsanitary conditions and the abundance
of decomposing animal matter--were items Griscom had agitated against

years before.36

III

When Edward Jenner discovered that the mild cow pox gave
immunity to the dread disease small pox, the means for control of
small pox was established. Although there were difficulties at
first, because of fear and a few deaths caused by vaccination, the
practice was well established before the 1850's throughout most of the
United States. In Boston, for example, compulsory vaccination for all
school-age children was required, and from 1857 until 1859 there were
no deaths. The same was true of Providence, Rhode Island. In New
‘York, however, the situation was not as admirable; even though the
city had the means of total elimination of small pox at their disposal,
there were 425 small pox deaths in the first six months of 1858. Since
it was generally accepted that there were ten cases for each death,‘
that‘meant over 4,000 people contracted the disease. For the decade
of the 1850's the average was 400 small pox deaths--except in 1858 when
there were 681--and in the first five years of the 1860's it averaged
just under 400 deaths a year. (Indeed, in the first half of 1862,
the deaths reached 450, and they were expected to exceed 600.) The
experience of Boston and Providence proved that nearly all of these
were needless.37

Griscom*was aware that the then current etiology of small pox
held that it was present in the air and taken into the lungs, from

which it found its way into the blood. Medical science was unaware

160

of the exact cause of small pox, but there was no question about its
prevention. Serving committees for both the state and national
medical societies, Griscom examined the feasibility of providing
vaccine for the poorer classes. At the 1857 state meeting, a resolution
was offered which would provide depots for vaccine where the physicians
would be able to dispense it; unfortunately nothing ever came of it.
The AMA committee which reported on compulsory vaccination in l864’found
that "compulsory vaccination in this country is, at this time,
impractical." The co-aittee at first thought the idea a good one,
but they soon recognized problems. The general public was not suffi-
ciently aware of the safety and value of vaccination, and the idea of
compulsory vaccination was repugnant to the philosophy of freedom ‘
upon.which the country was founded. But the committee saw that if I
the public was educated to the value of vaccination, the fact that it
was compulsory would no longer be a problem.38

The public had two general complaints about vaccination. They
feared that it might cause disease and death, and they objected to
the physicians lack of unanimity on the necessity of re-vaccination.
(Because the innoculation was not permanent, some died of small pox
who had been vaccinated decades earlier, and some, therefore, concluded
that vaccination was useless. To decide the issue of re-vaccination,
Griscom called on a physician friend for aid. Griscom asked Dr.
Henry Cook, who lived in an isolated Long Island town, to make notes
on the necessity of re-vaccination. In a letter which Griscom was
permitted to print, Cook recorded his experiences. After a case of
varioloid reached the town one woman died and a man was quite 111,
‘both of whom'had been vaccinated years earlier. Cook proceeded to

re-vaccinate forty-five as a precautionary measure; it took effect

161
in thirty-one cases. By examining the vaccination history of these

people, Cook determined that re-vacc ination was needed every decade. 39

IV

Consumption, and related lung disorders, were the most deadly
diseases in New York, and they were directly connected with the city's
i-igration and tenantage problems. The poor European inigrants
spent several weeks in foul ships, and then the rest of their lives
in airless tenements. It was little wonder that they were especially
susceptible to consumption. Even if healthy when they left the homeland
they were "peculiarly exposed to inroads of disease, and to none
more than consumption. " When he was City Inspector, Griscom reported
1,339 consuption deaths, or a ratio to the whole mortality of l in
6.329.40

Consumption was directly related to the quality of air. Even
if the victim worked out of doors all day he was likely to shut himself
up in a close apartment at night. He was not, however, as prone to
the disease as those who spent all their lives in close quarters. "
Urbanites in general were twice as susceptible as country dwellers.

Several years after Griscom wrote Uses and Abuses of Air, he
began to agitate for the establishmsnt of a consumption hospital, and
in doing so he ran afoul of Dr. Reese. The "complaisant legislature"
granted a charter for such an institution in 1856. Reese thought there
was no need for such a hospital, and New York was not the place to have
one. ‘ The fact that "the most prominent and noisy . . ." trustee was
Griscom may have influenced Reese. The final blow fell when Griscom
was elected president of the hospital."1

In a more favorable view, J. Gotham Jr. reported that the

hospital was a state institution, with a number of prominent New Yorkers

162

on the Board of Trustees, among them Peter Cooper. A sanitarium was
planned which would allow the patients outdoor exercise in a pleasant
locality. That such an institution was needed was undeniable; each
year 6,000 New Yorkers died of lung disorders, of whom 1,500 died in
public institutions. Further 18,200 people yearly visited the
dispensaries, with diseases of the lungs and related disorders, such
as scrofula, a tubercule problem particularly troublesome to the
laborers of the city.“2

Reese was extremely vitriolic in 1857 when he reported that
Griscom and his associates had asked for $30,000 to support the hospital.
"we took occasion last year to expose this concern as a stale scheme
for giving a profitable monopoly of practice in this department to
certain parties who wish to figure as Consumption curers, by parading
their names in the newspapers as physicians to a Consumption Hospital,
thus creating the impression that they have peculiar or exclusive
skill in this specialty, and thus securing patients and fees."
Reese was able to report that the "rustic members" of the Legislature
had defeated the proposal, and then a few months later he reported

that the hospital was finished."3

V

Griscom was concerned with general hospitals as much as he was
with specialized institutions. During his medical education at the
University of Pennsylvania he was a junior and senior teacher at the
New York Hospital, and upon graduation he was resident physician for
six.months. {After an absence of ten years he returned as fourth
attending physician, remaining until 1865 when he retired as second
attending physician (see appendix I). The hospital, chartered in ’

1771 and opened in 1791, cared for the indigent with state funds, but

"ordinarily it did not offer a haven for immigrants."44

163
Since the hospital was in the heart of the business district it
received many accident cases. The hospital treated some immigrants,
but they remained under the care of the Commissioners for Emigration.
Sick.seamen were attended through an arrangement with the federal
government. All patients able to were expected to contribute to their
hospitalization at the rate of $4.00 a week; "other patients, whose
circumstances appear to require such aid, are received gratuitously,
and these usually constitute from one-third to nearly one-half the~
number of patients." Each year the hospital handled more patients--in
1856 the total of nearly 4,000 was 386 more than the previous year, and
each year more of the patients were indigent.45
Dr. Griscom's relations with the hospital were always warm.
Shortly after his return there in 1844 he wrote an article about the
flnportant cases of the summer. It was extremely busy, each bed was
filled and patients were turned away for lack of space. During the
three months of July, August and September the care was exemplary:
782 were treated, of whom
683 were discharged
501 cured
20 relieved
l transferred
27 requested discharge
7 were disorderly
85 died
2 eloped
"There were, on the average, about 150 patients under treatment daily,
for the team of 92 days; and the deaths from all causes were 85, being
less than one a day." Typhus contributed 467 cases; of the remaining
215 Griscom mentioned only forty-nine.“6
In one of his letters J. Gotham expressed his joy at being

associated‘with an institution as fine as New‘York.Hospital. "Its

organization is a very happy one, and the liberal spirit by which it is

164

governed and conducted renders it one of the most pleasant places of
professional resort in the city. " Griscom went on to explain a few
changes in the hospital; the competition for walkers (interns) and
residents was now open to all medical students once they reached a
certain level and the practice of the house was opened to observation
by students. The hospital was always in the forefront of education;
these changes simply improved its position.“7

Griscom was one of the several physicians who lectured to
students at the hospital. During one lecture, in which he reviewed
the cases that students had seen the previous month, he indicated the
type of clientele the hospital had. He went over several types of
fever present, and then carefully explained the diagnosis of delirium
tremens. At New York Hospital, he told the students, it was easily
spotted because the family and friends of the patient were not the
type 'who would hide the true cause of the illness."8

If New York Hospital was the best in the 1840's, Bellevue was
the largest. In addition to the hospital on Manhattan, there were
several related institutions on Blackwell's Island. Actually Bellevue
contained seven separate centers; the Alma House and hospital were on
Manhattan, the small pox hospital, children's hospital, male and
female penitentiary hospitals, and insane asylum were on Blackwell's
Island. A few years after his return to New York Hospital, Griscom
wrote four articles about conditions at Bellows. The Co-on Council
followed Griscom's expose with a study team to report on conditions."9

Griscom wrote that he had been "for some time past" an observer
of " the conditions at Bellevue. He thought those conditions "indicate
the most serious and disgraceful departure from the principles which
should actuate those having the care and goverI-ant of these extensive

charities." By thorough examination and extensive use of statistics he

165

concluded that Bellevue was one of the worst hospitalsin the country,
if not the world. During a July visit he found 1145 persons scattered
over the seven hospitals, all under the care of one physician. Even
though the number was sometimes larger, he only had eight assistants;
one in charge of the lunatic asylumband one in charge of the children's
hospital,and the other six for the remaining five buildings. (Griscom
found seventy-one patients in the children's hospital and 385 in the
asylum.) The first two assistants were graduates or licienates,
whereas the six were "all very young men, who seek situations for the
purpose of studying the practice of their art." Before entering
Bellevue they probably never wrote a prescription or conducted a
simple Operation; yet they were in charge of one hundred or one
hundred-fifty patients.50

The resident physician supervised both locations, even though
they were on different islands and several miles apart. "The improba-
bility of his doing this, or even of his giving the proper professional
counsel, in the acute cases alone, must be at once seen, even if he
had but naught else to engage his time and attention, and all were in
a convenient area." The resident supervised the nurses, who were
either paupars or convicts, oversaw all medication, and was responsible
for the Alma House registration and to the police for the penitentiary
hospitals. "Yet from the age and qualifications of the assistants, and
the number of the cases, there is not a hospital in the land in which
professional counsel of the most experienced kind is more required than
in this." Nhen.Griscom visited the hospital in July he found the
resident sick.with fever and two of the assistants resigned, yet no"
replacements were made.51 6

Griscom was not opposed to the use of students in the hospital,

but he wanted them placed under proper supervision. At New York

166

Hospital three resident physicians and three resident surgeons, and
six assistants cared for 250 patients. The Philadelphia Alma House
had the same physician-patient ratio, as did the other major hospitals
of the nation. To add to Bellevue's problem, the students were rotated
from building to building before they had an opportunity to acquaint
themselves with the procedures and practices. Finally, there was no
adequate instruction, so that "all the advantages of a systematic ‘
medical education are wholly lost, while the crudest notions alone
can be acquired."52

Griscom compared Bellevue with a mine--both possessed valuable
ore but both had to be worked. Bellevue's ore, knowledge, would be
gained only after it was made a teaching hospital. While popular
opinion believed the opposite, Griscom pointed out that such a
hospital provided its patients with the best care. The physician-teacher
was experienced, and his reputation rested on each case; therefore the
pauper was treated as well as the banker. The scrutiny under which
the physician-teacher worked prevented "the least display of harshness."
Since Bellevue was not a teaching institution "the absence of clinical
instruction is therefore a positive detriment to the patients and a
serious loss to the public weal, and to the science of medicine, which
is cultivated solely for the benefit of the public." Griscom called
on the authorities to open Bellevue to teaching, and remove it from the
"dark recesses of ignorance and death."53

Few denied Griscom's statement that "to relieve those laboring
under disease, and to endeavor to rescue our fellow-beings from death,
are among the first efforts of humanity, for which everything else is
disregarded or forsaken." To provide such care, well-run hospitals
were needed because medical breakthroughs and cures that prolonged

life were discovered there. As the years passed, the hospital was

167

losing its stigma as a place for paupers to go and die; indeed more and
'more private hospitals were being founded for paying patients.54

Dr. Griscom explained that it was not his intention to malign
the work or character of Dr. Hasbreuck, and consequently he did not
mention the resident by nuns. Instead he left the reader with the
impression that the resident was a victim of circumstances who could be
accused of nothing more than overwork. But he did condemn the system
which allowed such gross inhumanity, "especially amidst the profuse
abundance of willing scientific aid our study affords." Griscom was
merely interested in improving the quality of care at Bellevue by
bringing the abuses to the attention of the public. While he did not
dictate terms for the improvement of the hospitals, he offered suggestions.
Basically, the situation was allowed to exist because the people were
unaware of the abuses.55 X

To prove how bad the conditions actually were, Griscom compared

Bellevue with New York Hospital and a few institutions in other localities.

 

 

Year Hospital Admissions Deaths Proportion”
1839 Bellevue 948 245 l in 4
City Hosp. 1864 169 1 in 11
1840 Bellevue 1667 346 l in 4 7/8
City Hosp. 1797 173 1 in 10 3/17
1841 Bellevue 1874 501 l in 3 3/5
City Hosp. 2000 193 l in 10 7/20
Penn's Hosp. 785 67 l in 10 1/2
Boston Hosp. 404 26 l in 15 1/2
1842 Bellevue 2389 531 1 in 4 1/2
City Hosp. 1836 150 1 in 12 1/4
1844 Bellevue 2442 368 l in 6 6/10
City Hosp. 2191 155 l in 14
1834 All Parisian
hospitals 61785 5886 l

in 10 1/2

168
In a comparison with Copenhagen's Royal Free Hospital, Bellevue's
mortality rate was two hundred percent higher. Griscom then asked
Who, in viewing these facts, will not loudly join in
the exclamation, that the first promptings of humanity
call loudly for thorough and immediate reform in this
department, especially when materials for the purpose
are abundant, and without cost. Every life there
sacrificed may be the weight of a millstone upon the
necks of those who refuse to admit the light of science
and experience within the walls of that abode of sickness
and death.56
Any well-run hospital recorded diagnosis, treatment, and result
of each case as a part of the statistical analysis. These records
served a variety of purposes, from teaching to providing a basis for
suit against a doctor for malpractice. But adequate statistics such
as these were not kept in Bellevue or its related institutions;
according to Griscom's calculations, fully one-fourth of the patients
went to their graves without the benefit of adequate medical attention.57
When he considered that the resident and his two senior assistants
were well paid, Griscom was at a real loss to explain the dreadful
service. In addition to the lack of effective lay control, the only
explanation Griscom could offer was that the hospital was a political
football, the spoils of office overshadowing the interests of the
poor. The legislators, he wrote,
have thus suffered to exist, a system, which, under the '
guise of humanity, is productive of the most inhumane
results; which, inviting the poor and the sick to its
ostensible shelter, treats him with neglect and error.
May the demands of charity, a human consideration of the
wants of the sick pauper, and a more elevated regard for
the claims of science, stimulate our present city fathers
to an immediate correction of these glaring evils; may
they have the firmness and magnanimity to place the
management of these charities in independent hands, out
of the reach of those who, literally, grind the poor
to dust.58
It was not long before a response was printed in the Post; "L"

wrote an attack on Griscom's letters that was based more on misleading

169

information than fact. His refutations were weak at best; in regard
to the death figures, "L" maintained that Bellevue could not be compared
to New‘York Hospital,but he failed to mention the other hospitals
Griscom had cited. The resident physician, "L" wrote, provided
adequate supervision for the apprentices. Perhaps the oddest criticism
was on the management; "L" did not understand how Griscom could complain
of it as the hospital was under the control of the Common Council.‘
The fact that the council had an entire city to run and was not overly
concerned with the hospital did not occur to him.59

”L" accused Griscom of a number of things of which he was
himself guilty. He noted Griscom used a Egg gs 23555 (there was no
reason for Griscom to do so), but so did he; he attacked Griscom,
unfairly it might be added, for using vague arguments when none of
"L's” arguments could be substantiated; "L" accused Griscom of attacking
Dr. Hasbreuck, the resident, when in reality Griscom‘was careful never
to accuse the resident of anything but overwork. In general, "L"
avoided all the direct statements of Griscom, and never lade it clear
whether Bellevue had any good points.60

"L" did come out strongly against making Bellevue a teaching
hospital. He thought the patients at New York Hospital were badly ”“
treated because they were used as examples, whereas Bellevue patients
were "allowed to die peaceable in their beds. . . ." Yet what "L" did
not recognise was that the patients in New York Hospital did not die‘
with the distressing frequency as did those left to themselves in
Bellevue. In a second article "L" continued his tirade against Griscom
without ever really grasping the point of Griscom's articles--better

hospital care for the indigent was needed than the care they received

at Bellevue and Blackwell's Island.“

170

Shortly after Griscom's articles on Bellevue, the Common Council
appointed a ten-man investigating committee. A number of New York's
top physicians were included, and their findings closely paralleled
Griscom's. They recommended that the hospitals on Blackwell's Island
be administered separately from Bellevue, and that the number of
physicians be increased. ‘Hedical boards, which continued the reforms
suggested by Griscom, were soon given control of the hospitals. In
1848 the board ended the use of convicts and prostitutes as nurses
because, in addition to drinking the medicinal liquor, they were said
to be corrupting the morals of patients-~that is, when they were not
ignoring the patients. A full teaching course was introduced, with'
haspital rounds for the students, stiff entrance requirements and
close competition for advancement. As a result of these improvements,
the death rate quickly dropped.62

A decade later, when Bellevue moved to a new location, J.

Gothml Jr. took the opportunity to praise the hospital. "This insti-
tution, which was formerly a bone of political contention, tossed about
annually from one party to another, without reference to the good of
the patients, is now under the same kind of professional supervision
as ahaost all other large hospitals, having a strong staff of visiting
physicians and surgeons. . . ." It was also a good teaching hospital
because of the proximity of medical colleges and the free access given
medical men. Both residents and visiting physicians made the most of
the infinite variety of cases which presented themselves at Bellevue.63

In a lecture on.medicine during the Civil war, Griscom discussed
the horrible battlefield conditions and ways to avoid the suffering.
Adequate hospital space was needed; Dr. Griscom reported that after
one battle some soldiers were left in the rain for two days before they

were covered. His solution was simple (John H. Griscom was not a

l7l

military strategist): take tents to the battle-ground with the soldiers
for use as field hospitals. One type of tent was illustrated during
Griscom's talk; it provided adequate ventilation and was so constructed
that no-one had to lie on the ground. (Dr. Griscom also dealt with the
need for adequate ambulances, properly sprung so that the wounded
would not suffer. When adaulances could not be used he suggested a
European litter that was carried on a mule's back)“

During his European trip in 1865-1866 Griscom toured hospitals
in London and Paris, recording his experiences in letters to the Medical
_a_nd Stmcal Reporter. In London he visited the City of London Hospital
for Diseases of the Chest, guided by Dr. J. Hidson Bennett, attending.
physician. Griscom was very much impressed with the high ceilings,
ventilators and lack of crowding. The hospital treated many outpatients,
a function carried out in New York only by the dispensaries. Griscom
was invited to observe two operations at King's College Hospital. Later,
in Paris, he settled a question for New York's medical men--did Paris
have small pox hospitale Dr. Griscom wrote that they did not because,
due to of extensive vaccination, the small number of patients did not
justify a separate hospital, and there was no threat of spreading the ‘
disease, as the other patients were protected. Griscom did write,
however, that three cases in one hospital at the time he was there

seemed to contradict the alleged infrequency of the disease.65

VI
Vital statistics serve as a barometer for the public health; the
registration of births, marriages and deaths provide officials with
information that indicates which districts of a city are unhealthy, and,
to some extent, why. without such statistics, accurately recorded,

there can be little told about the salubriousness of a particular city.

172
A uniform nomenclature, in which each physician uses the same name to
describe diseases, is an integral part of the system.

Dr. Griscom's interest in vital statistics, or more particularly,
death registration, was three fold. First, accurate records which
included the cause of death, and an autopsy, whenever necessary, would
help reduce the number of unsolved murders. Second, adequate mortality
figures would prove more people died each year of consumption than
cholera, and the citizenry might realize the cleanups to ward off
cholera were not the only answer. Finally, adequate statistics would
provide material for future research into health problems.

Very early in his career Dr. Griscom became interested in the
collection of statistics, and this interest is reflected throughout
the rest of his medical life. Shortly after his graduation he was
asked to collect statistics on the occurence of influenza, cholera and
fevers in New York. The request came from Thomas Hancock, a friend
of the elder Griscom and author of an article on influenza in the
Cyclopedia of Practical'Medicine (published in London in the early"
1830's).66

Griscom's first official action came in 1842, when, as City
Inspector, he demanded a stricter law for death certificates. The
law of 1839 stated that each sexton of a church had to supply the ‘
City Inspector's office with an accurate list of interments, but the
required form was not lengthy enough to provide sufficient information.
There were no provisions in the law to prevent the removal of bodies
from the city limits for burial, and as this became more co-on, a
person could be murdered and buried outside the city without the law's
knowledge. But in 1842, according to Alfred B. H. Purdy,

Dr. Griscom originated that excellent ordinance preventing

the removal of the dead from the city, without a permit
from the City Inspector. . . . Compare his rigid

173

enforcement of this law, with the recent exposure of
that same office, just before the new'Doard of Health
took charge of the sanitary welfare of Gotham. What
can be said strong enough to convey the idea of one, in
authority, issuing blank permits, si ed, so that sextons
kept them in their drawers, without any physician's
certificate to justify such actions. How'many, who came
to their death by violence, have been rapidly hurried to
a secret grave and thus the end of justice been eluded,
a merciful Providence only knows. Even.when passed by
the Common.Council this bill was vetoed by the‘Mayor;
but by Dr. Griscom's energy it became a law over his head.
This work of Griscom gave the city its first complete bills of mortality.67
In mid-July, 1842, Griscom called the Common Council's attention
to the loop-holes in the burial laws (Henry Dunnell, City Inspector
in 1838, also suggested changes, but he did not follow through).
Beyond the question of justice, problems of inheritance and life
insurance were also created by hasty burials. Griscom proposed that
the captains of boats, keepers of bridges, conductors of railroads, and
all others who conveyed people from the city be subject to the same
rules as sextons. The fine for conveying or burying a body without a
proper death certificate was to be raised from $25.00 to $250.00, and
a more complete certificate was to be used. After attempts by the
Board of Aldermen to kill the bill which included these provisions, it
was passed and sent to the Mayor, who vetoed it on the ground that
the city did not have the power to make such changes. As a result of
Griscom's persistence, however, the law was passed over the‘uayor's veto.68
Griscom used mortality figures to analyze the city's health ‘
instead of simply enumerating deaths. He was the first to declare that
it was the "duty of the Board of Health to prevent disease as well as
remedy the conditions which inevitably caused it. . . ." With complete
mortality figures, health officials (assuming they were medical men)

would be able to locate and prevent epidemics. Had accurate records

been kept, Griscom could have built a stronger case against the

174

slaughter-houses. When he called for inclusion of the decedent's
occupation at the time of death, he attempted to determine which
occupations were the most dangerous. Such information might indicate
ways to make dangerous occupations healthier.69

As a part of his report as City Inspector, Griscom included a
secton on "Preventive Sanitaryflneasures," in which he provided an
interpretation of the statistics collected. In an attempt at uniform
statistics, he used the nosology compiled by the Registrar General of
England. He chose the English system, with a few modifications of his
own, because it "appears to approach nearer to a true scientific
classification than any other that has been observed, and is well
adapted to the purpose of exhibiting, in connection with each other,
the deaths by diseases of similar character." Griscom's report was
unique; those before his and most of those after his were little more
than i quick compilation of statistics. The report for 1839, for
example, prepared by William Walters consisted of ten pager-eight
charts and one and one-half pages of explanation (Griscom's report was
nearly fifty pages). To some extent Griscom did set a pattern, however,
for the reports that followed made at least a rudimentery attempt to
analyze the sanitary condition of the city.70

Griscom's tables were numerous and complete. He included, for
example, the nativity of the deceased; it appeared that the largest
group of foreign born.who died in the city were Irish, followed by the
English and the Germans; but his figures proved only thirty percent of‘
the total mortality was among the foreign born. The heavy immigration,
therefore, was not the cause of New'York's insalubriousness, as many
liked to believe. Griscom included tables which listed the number of
deaths in each of the city's hospitals, and also tables for those who

were residents of the city but who died elsewhere. He enumerated the

175
number of still births, and the number of deaths in each five year

age group--the unhealthiest group was children under five. Although'
others had included some of the tables earlier, Griscom's report is
significant because he used all of them together with a uniformity that
made the information.more valuable. He concluded that the total ratio
of deaths for men was one to thirty-six and one-half, and for women
one to forty-two and one-half. The nosology employed was divided
into eleven classes, each containing several diseases.71

Griscom was able to use aortality statistics throughout his
career; one of the best uses was in his sanitary study of 1845. He_
was compelled to go abroad for statistics showing the connection between
occupation and disease because these figures were not available for the
United States. Citing the report of his mentor, Edwin Chadwick,
Griscom proved that those engaged in the professions had a life expect-
ancy that was twice as long as that of common laborers. He also proved
dust the urban centers of England and the United States were unhealthier
than the rural areas. While their rural brothers were better housed and
worked in the open, the urbanite generally lived in a hovel and rarely‘
worked outdoors in the fresh air.72

A constant watch had to be kept on the progress of diseases in
New York if the public was tobe saved from their consequences, and the
best way to do this was through a careful collection of statistics.
This was the duty of the City Inspector, and, as Griscom pointed out, ‘
anyone with a simple knowledge of addition could keep the weekly billi
of mortality, but "to derive the proper and full advantage from the
returns of mortality, we must look beyond the mere name of the diseases,
and ascertain the sources of these diseases." To do this, a medical
aan.was needed because only a physician had the expertise to interpret

the facts, search out the causes, and bring about their prevention.

176

"All this knowledge can only be obtained, and the improvements properly
urged and applied, by an individual of good medical education, and one
who has a taste, and willingness for the work. "73

Massachusetts began to keep accurate statistics in l842--the
year City Inspector Griscom demanded them for the city of New York--
but New York State had not yet acted. Then, in 1847 the Legislature
considered a bill requiring each school clerk to send a complete record
of all births, marriages and deaths to the Legislature. Such reports
were to record the month and day of the event, sex, color, disease,
cause, residence and age of the deceased, and names, ages, dates of
birth and residences of marriage partners. While this law was not as
comprehensive as Griscom's--it did not include occupations--it received
his warm support. He presented a memorial at the February meeting of
the Academy asking the officers and fellows to sign it as an indication
of their support. The signed memorial was then sent to the Legislature,
and the 1.111 was passed in April. 74

Griscom's single most important contribution to improving vital
statistics came when he served as chairman for two National Medical
Convention (forerunner of AMA) Connittees. At the first convention,
in 1846, he moved that a co-ittee of five be appointed to "consider the
e edienc , and if deemed expedient, the 93.9.2: of reco-ending, and
urging upon the several State governments, the adoption of measures for
a registration of the Births, Marriages, and Deaths of their several
populotions." Griscom was appointed chairman, the other members of
the co-ittee being Dre. C. Emerson, A. Clark, C. A. Lee, and J.
Stewart. At the same meeting Griscom moved the appointment of a
co-ittee to prepare a nomenclature of diseases that could be used in
the registration of deaths. He suggested that such significant figures

in statistical analysis was Lemuel Shattuck, Drs. Edward Jarvis and

177

T. R. Deck be appointed to said comnittee; one motion from the floor
Griscom was made chairman of this cosmittee as well. Since both
co—ittees dealt with different aspects of the same subject, this was
especially important. 75

The next year Griscom delivered both reports, which were accepted
without dissent and ordered to be printed. At a later session it was
decided that a standing co-Iittee on registration should be appointed,
and Griscom was made its first chairman. 75

’ The co-ittee on registration found great need for uniform

statistics, thinking that physicians the country ever would see the
necessity and actively support such a move. Even though the mobile
population and the federal system of government made such reporting
difficult, "it is of such primary importance to the best interests of
the people, as to justify our urging its adoption upon the several
State governments, with the confident belief that when its merits are
once fully understood, all will unite in its support." An address
was prepared for distribution to the state medical societies, with a
sample form to encourage uniformity, because the couittee thought that
the physicians best understood the problem and would make the most
effective lobby. Accurate vital statistics would illuminate increases
of pepulation, the stability of the society, and its unhealthy spots.
"Dy co-encing a Registration now, our successors will be furnished
with the necessary material in time for any exigency that may arise."
Griscom saw the day when such figures would be as important in deter-‘
mining the public health as temperature and barometric readings.77

Registering vital statistics was virtually useless unless some
standard nomenclature of diseases was adopted. (Massachusetts reports

were excellent, but something national in scope was needed, as the same

178

disease often had several names.)

It is of great consequence to all of us to know when,
where, in what form, and under what circumstances,
sickness and mortality take place; and whether they are
uniform, or dissimilar in different places, or in the
same place in different seasons, and under different
circumstances. Wherever this knowledge is possessed,
remedies for the amelioration or extinction of existing
evils can be applied more intelligently, and with better
hope of success.78

Eleven items were suggested that would made death registration
unifonm and would include all the necessary information.
1. correct names and cause of death.
2. specific causes--not simply "inflammation."
3. use exact terms-~pneumonia rather than inflammation
of the lungs.
4. in multiple causes, list them in order of importance.
5. state, in months, weeks,and days the duration of the
disease.
6. if recurrent, list previous attacks.
7. surgeons should list number of operations, and
results.
8. if external cause, was it accidental or not.
9. when poison was used, list type and time between
dosage and demise.
10. disease should be clearly listed.
11. doctor or other qualified person should fill out
certificates.
Each suggestion was aimed at the most precise information possible;
the committee wanted to end the "act of God," or "unknown," causes.79
The committee adapted the nomenclature prepared by English statis-
tician William Farr. In every instance the simplest possible terms were
used to avoid confusion. There were three major classes, each sub-
divided into specific causes. The first class was epidemic or zymotic--
diseases, like cholera which endangered the public health. The second,
and largest class was sporadic--consumption and other diseases which
were not contagious. The third class was deaths not related to disease--
external causes such as hanging, malpractice or, oddly enough, hydro-
phobia.80
The committee presented a sample death certificate, which

included spaces for the name, age, sex, address, date of death,‘

179

condition (marital status), occupation, place of birth, names of
parents and residence, and place of interment. Space for primary and
secondary causes of death and duration of each was provided. The
physician and informant (the person who provided the personal information)
were both required to sign and date the certificate. This was a vast
improvement over the death certificates the conittee examined, which
presented such vague causes of death as ”abcess" or "amputation."
The form the cosmittee prepared included all the infarction Griscom
had deemed vital when he was City Inspector several years before, and
was complete enough to be strikingly similar to a death certificate
blank issued by the census bureau in the early twentieth century.81
The following year, in accordance with his appointment as
chairman of the standing committee on registration, Griscom reported
the activity of the various states. He was hopeful that the agitation
in the states resulting from his address would bring about the needed
reform. In at least two states, New Jersey and Georgia, there were
bills to require registration, and there was activity in several other
states. Griscom urged each meter of the AMA, to "feel the weight of
his responsibility, and exercise his influence in his local society
and section of country to set on foot a proper action for the purpose“
of bringing about the passage of legislation. Griscom felt the time
was‘near at hand; indeed, by 1852 seven-states had registration laws.82
In the next decennial year, the Census Bureau added a volume on
mortality to their compilations. The nosology used by the Seventh "
Census was a modified version of that adopted by the National Medical
Convention three years earlier. In 1853, when the New York Times
crusaded for adequate registration, they reported that the AMA class i-
fication was "a very good one. . . 3" 'As late as 1859 Edward Jarvis

reported that the AMA nosology was prepared with great care, and "it

180

is probable that no better system could now be adopted. . . ." Con-
sidering the fact that Griscom and his committee prepared this in
pre-gemm theory America, it is a tribute to the soundness of their
work that it stood until medicine was revolutionized in the 1870's.83
J. Gotham Jr. reported on vital statistics for New‘York City

during the year 1855. While the mortality figures (21,241) were
accurate, Griscom thought that the birth and marriage statistics were
inaccurate. "The law requiring the report of births and‘marriages is
not properly enforced. . . . we are sadly in need, in that department,
of men of the right spirit, and imbued with the true philosophical
order." What was worse, the mortality figures were not properly
enumerated; there were 5,465 deaths from respiratory complaints, but
only 255 were explained. "Many blunders, even more ridiculous than '
these, might be enumerated, were it worthwhile."84

" A new law to provide adequate registration was discussed before
the state medical society, and J. Gotham Jr. covered it in his column.
The plan.was to record all cases of diseases treated by a physician
in the state. "Next to a State registration of births, deaths, and
marriages, that of its medical and surgical practice would constitute
the‘most valuable addition to our knowledge of its sanitary character."
No action was taken in 1856 or 1857, and in 1858 Griscom was added to
the committee; but still nothing was done because they learned that the
American Association for the Advancement of Science had a cousittee of
statisticians to study the question. However, both committees petered
out with no results.85

"’ A project dear to Dr. Griscom was begun by the Medical and'
Surgical Heporter when it listed weekly bills of mortality in its
columns. In a letter in the October 10, 1860 issue, Griscom praised

the editors for their worthwhile service. "It will, undoubtedly cost

181

you no little labor, time and money, but you may be sure of a reward

in the gratification which your readers will feel, in having before
them, every week, a perfect coup d'oeil of the sanitary condition of the
country." He thought such an accounting might lead other cities to
follow suit, but unfortunately the editors discontinued, in 1861, the
practice before it caught on, probably due to secession. Griscom'had
offered two suggestions; that they include each city's population in
addition to its mortality, and second, that they use parentage rather
than nativity (this would distinguish second generation immigrants) of’
the deceased. He praised the editors for including still births,

which many did not, because he thought that they were a good indicator

of the sanitary condition of the city.86

VII
To the miasmist, diseases were caused by conditions within the

city, such as filth, or they were imported along the transportation
routes. In the port cities, this meant some sort of quarantine to
control those diseases which did not originate within the city limits.
Such regulations had first been used in sixteenthwcentury Venice.‘ The
Venetians chose forty days as the period of quarantine (it was either
the length of Lent, or the number of days after which diseases became
chronic as opposed to acute, that led the Venetians to choose forty);
by the nineteenth century most people felt that forty days was too
long. The commercial segment of society was opposed to it because it
raised prices and caused expensive delays, and it was not proven
effective in disease control.87

‘ This opposition from commerce and the marked differences in
quarantine regulations persuaded Philadelphia sanitarian Wilson Jewell

to call delegates from the Atlantic port cities to meet with in in

182

1857 to establish a "uniform system of revised quarantine laws." This
was the inception of the National Quarantine and Sanitary Conventions
of the late 1850's, held in Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York and
Boston. The 1857 meeting was composed of health officials, and, as
Griscom had no official post in that year he was not invited. He was
also unable to attend the Second Convention, although he did send a
letter of regret.88 A

The Third Convention was held in New‘York, and Griscom was
elected president. "Though evidently surprized at this choice," the
'Tigeg wrote, "he ran sanitary statistics, of course, since he is always
gushing with them.” Temporary president William Kemp relinguished the
chair to Griscom, saying that "it gives me great pleasure to resign my
place into your hands, for I feel that the interests of the Convention
will most assuredly be promoted greatly by your presidency over its
deliberations." In his acceptance speech Griscom made it clear that
the convention was concerned with internal as well as external sanitary
measures. Elisha Harris reco-ended the appointment of four connittees
to investigate drugs, food, civic c1eanliness,and architecture. When
objections arose on the grounds that the Convention was concerned only
with Quarantine, Griscom left the chair and argued so persuasively in
favor of the Harris report that it was adapted.89

Naturally enough, Griscom served on the committee appointed to
investigate the internal hygiene of cities, dealing with the specific“'
problem of waste removal and water supply. His report was accepted"
with the thanks of the Convention and was printed in the Transactions
as well as separately, which proves that Griscom and Harris had won out
over the segaent concerned only with quarantine. One reviewer praised
Griscom's report as the result of any years of patient investigation

"related to sanitary science." In the report, he said, "Griscom

183

condensed the fruits of his labors, in this department, for the public
benefit."90
Despite these sidelights, the primary concern of the Convention

was quarantine, and which diseases could be prevented by efficient
procedures. A. H. Stevens, prominent member of the Academy of Medicine,
accepted the shears of fate illustration in relation to yellow fever,
an idea which Griscom refuted. When C. B. Guthrie made the point that
although quarantines were imperfect they helped control this disease,
Griscom again left the chair to agree-imperfect though they were, he
said,“ they stopped the spread of yellow fever in New York. The Convention
went on record in favor of quarantine, stating that its effectiveness
rested with an absolute exclusion of infected articles and uniformity
of laws throughout the United States.91

‘ President Griscom spoke first at the New York meeting's closing
banquet. He connected morals and disease because, in his opinion,
the same abuses caused both problems. He told New York's Mayor Daniel
1'. Tiemann "that if you wish to improve the morals of those over whom
you are called to administer the laws, the first step to be taken is
to improve their health. "92

The following year the Convention was held in Boston, and Griscom

was again an active participant. He favored a resolution that would
require a certified pharmacist to handle the sale of all dangerous
drugs, and keep a record of all transactions. The idea was to stop
the illegal drug traffic, and eliminate the use of drugs in crimes
of violence. But, since the delegates could not agree, the whole
question was tabled. 93

" Griscom also served on the con-ittee of permanent organization,
as he was very much in favor of an American Sanitary Association (similar

to the New York Sanitary Association which he.helped found the previous

184

year). That it would be organized by the spring of 1861, which was the
date of the next Convention, he had no doubt. However, the Civil War
intervened, and the 1861 meeting did not occur. According to Harold
M. Cavins, these Conventions laid the groundwork for the American
Public Health Association, the national society that Griscom dreamed of.

Part of the Hippocratic Oath states, "that into whatsoever
house you shall enter, it shall be for the good of the sick to the
utmost of your power. . . ." Whether actively lobbying for the
collection of statistics, treating cases of consumption or small pox,
guiding a national convention, or lecturing students on medical theory
and practice, John H. Griscom's entire life was devoted to "the good
of the sick." Everything he did was an attempt to improve medical
science and make man's life--especially the poor man's-~more pleasant

and productive.

CHAPTER V NOTES

1John H. Griscom, Anniversary Discourse Before the New York
Academy of Medicine (New York, 1855), 33-35.

2John Duffy, A History of Public Health in New York City, 1625-
1866 (New York, 1968), 586-88.

3J. 8. Chambers, The Conquest of Cholera (New York, 1938), 190-
92. John C. Peters, A Treatise on the OriginL NatureLPreventi‘on4 and
geatment of Asiatic Cholera (New York, 1866), 75-80.

"Peters, Asiatic Cholera, 23-25, 94-99, 1oo-os.
51bid., 3-6, 39, 53, 60-61.

6Allan Nevins and Milton H. Thomas, eds. , The Diary of George
Templeton Strong (New York, 1952), II, 94, 177-79. It was during the
1849 outbreak that a sanitary connission was appointed by the Board
of Health to investigate the sanitary organization of New York City.
Their conclusion was something Griscom had discovered ten years earlier--
the Health Department was entirely ineffectual. "It requires an entire
re-organization." Unfortunately, they, along with Dr. Griscom and the
rest of New York City, would have to wait for nearly twenty years for
the needed reform. N. Y. C. , _B:oard of Health, Repogtmof the Proceed-
M of the SanitarLComittee of the Board of Health, in Relation to
the Cholera, as it Prevailed in New York in 1849 (New York, 1849),
36-37.

7NYAM,‘Minutes, Aug. 4, Sept. 1, 1852.
81bid., July 5, Aug. 2, 1854.

9Letter from John H. Griscom, Paris, Jan. 20, 1866, M83, XIV
(March 10, 1866), 196-97.

1°John n. Griscom, "The Where, the When, the Why, and the now
of the First Appearance and Greatest Prevalence of Cholera in Cities,"
NYAM,Bulletin, III (Feb., 1866), assim.

llIbid., 8.

12Ibid. , passim.

131b1d., 11.

141b1d., 12.

15Ibid., 21.

1"Charles Rosenberg, The Cholera Years (Chicago, 1962), 196.
Griscom, "Cholera," 21-23.

185

186
17Griscom, "Cholera," 22-23.

18"Discussion on Cholera Resumed," NYAM, Bulletin, III (April,
1866), 48-49.

19StephenSmith, "Report on the Measures of Prevention and
Belief to be Adopted During the Prevalence of Epidemic Cholera,"
NYAM, Bulletin, III (May, 1866), 59-62. "Discussion on Cholera," 50.
For some reason Griscom did not feel that cholera was an imminent
danger to New York.

20Smith, "Report on Prevention," 68.

211nm, Minutes. June 20, 1866.
“ 22N.W.J. Heath, "Asiatic Cholera, As it Appeared on the
Steamship 'England,' in April, 1866," NYAM, Bulletin, III (Sept., 1866),
131-39e

23"J. Gotham, Jr.," "Editorial Correspondence," NJMSH, IX (Sept.,
1856), 513. '

24.13.13” (Oct., 1856), 513.

ZSNYAM. Minutes. Aug. 6, Oct. 1, 1856, Aug. 5, 1857. Griscom
again spoke on yellow fever before the Academy, on "The Personal
Communicability of Yellow Fever," but his remarks were not'printed.
'May 18, 1859. Thirty years later Albert Buck agreed with Griscom that
yellow fever was not endemic anywhere in the United States. Albert
Buck, L Reference Handbook of the Medical Sciences (New York, 1889),
VIII, 55-59.

26John H. Griscom, A History, Chronolggical and Circumstantial,
of the Visitations of Yellow Fever at New’Yorki with Supplemental
Repgrt (New‘York, 1858), 2-17. It also appeared in.AMM, IX (Feb.,
1858), 81-117. Griscom noted the work of Noah Webster, N. Y. May,
and John Cruger. The history began in pre-colonial days with the disease
that decimated the New England Indians in the winter of 1618-19. Webster
concluded that disease was yellow fever, but Griscom thought it was
typhus. However, Alden Vaughn concluded it was either measles or
plague. [New'England Frontier (Boston, 1965), 21-22.

27Griscom, "History of Yellow Fever," 18-19.

28Ibid., 22-23. Griscom noted that the disease was not present
in the colonies during the American Revolution. Webster attributed this
to either the presence of comets or a sign that God was on the colonists
side; Griscom'thought it was directly related to the interruption of
foreign commerce.

29Ibid., assim. J. Gotham reported on the outbreak at Fort
Hamilton, where there were sixty-three deaths from 175 cases. The
disease spread there because the ships were forced to anchor close
to the fort, the infection spreading via the atmosphere, and indirectly
through the rags, bedding and clothing. "Editorial Correspondence,"
NJMSR, 1! (Nov., 1856), 561-66.

187
30Griscom, History of Yellow Fever, 24-35.

3lIbid., 29-30.

32"Bditor's Table," gag, v11 (Nov., 1856), 685. "Editor's
Table," VIII (Sept. , 1857), 564. "Quod Brat Demonstrandum," X
(Does, 1859), 881-830

33".]. Gotham, Jr. ,' "Editorial Correspondence," NJMSR, X
(Hay, 1857), 247-49.

3"Second NQSC (Baltimore 1858), 17- 20. Griscom' s proposals
were accepted and referred to the Comittee on Quarantine and were
never heard of again. The following year a W. A. Royce presenteda
plan similar to Griscom's. His received the same fate. Third NQSC
(New York, 1859), 86.

35urau, Minutes, June 15, Oct. 5, 1859. "Editorial and‘uisc-
ellaneous," Ag, XII (Dec., 1859), 461-62.

36Buck, Reference Handbook, VIII, 45-46.

37John H. Griscom, Report of the Sanitary Association (New
York, 1859), 12- 13. Griscom, Anniversary Discourse, 36. John H.
Griscom, Sanitary Legislation, Past and Future (New York, 1861),
10-11. Duffy, History of Public Health, 583. J. Gotham, Jr. wrote
of the small pox problem on two occasions, appalled at the masber of
needless deaths. "Editorial Correspondence," NJHSR, X (March, 1857)
130-31, XI (March, 1858), 198-99. Griscom continued to watch the small
pox figures, and reported to the NYAH in 1865 that one week had forty-
two small pox deaths while the previous week had thirty-three.
Minutes. Jan. 18, 1865.

”James F. Hibberd, Chrm. , "Report on Compulsory Vaccination,"
AHA, Transactions, XV (1865), 161-66. "Proceedings," NSNY Transactions,
(1857), 248-49. NYMI, I (June 15, 1864), 102.

39John B. Griscom, "Is Revaccination Necessary, and When?"
NJNSR, VIII (Oct., 1855), 487-88.

4°John H. Griscom, Annual Report of the Interments in the Gig
33¢! County of New Yorkaor the Year 1842, with Remarks Thereon, and
a Brief View of the Sanitary Condition of the Gig (New York, 1842), 154-56.

41"Hditor's Table," A_1‘_l_g, VII (Jan., 1856), 52. "Editor's
Table," castes, 1856), 175-76.

42"J. Gotham, Jr. ." "Editorial Correspondence," NJHSR, IX
(March,1856), 128- 29. John H. Griscom, The Sanitary Condition of the
Laborigg Population of the City of New York, with Suggestions for its
I_mprovement (New York, 1845), 19- 20.

43"Bditor's Table," w, VIII (Feb., 1857), 112-13. "Editor's
Table," (March, 1857), 180. "Editor's Table,"'(Hay, 1857), 307. In
addition to his interest in a consisaption hospital, Griscom was one of
several physicians who petitioned the Legislature and brought about the

188

establishment of the first inebriate asylum in the world. N.Y.S.,
Senate, lecond Annual Report of the New York State Inebriate Asylum,
Doc. No. 45, 87th Sess., 1864, 15-16, 21, 25.

“Duffy, History of Public Health, 481-82. Samuel W. Francis,
"Biographical Sketches of Distinguished Living New York Physicians ,"
14__S_R_, XV (Aug. 4, 1866), 118-19. NYH, Rejort of the State of the New
York Hospital and the Bloomingdale Asylum for the gears 1843-68 (New
York, 1868), passim.

45m, Annual Report, 12.

“John H. Griscom, "Su-Iary of, and Observations Upon, the
Medical Practice of the New York Hospital in theHonths of July, August,
and September, 1847," NYJMCS, IX (Nov., 1847), 347-54.

47"3, Gotham, Jr.," "Editorial Correspondence," NJNSR, IX (JUIY:
1856), 534.

“John H. Griscom, "Synopsis of a Clinical Lecture," 35;, I
(Oct. 27, 1860), 289-92.

49011ffy, fiistog of Public Health, 484. G. , "Observations on the
Organisation of the Hospitals at Bellevue and Blackwell's Island," Ee_w
York BveninLPost, Oct. 30, Nov. 1, 5, 6, 1845.

5°Ibid., Oct. 30, 1845.

51Ibid., Oct. 1, Nov. 1, 6, 1845. With the lack of supervision,
and 'the age of the students, Griscom thought i-orality was inevitable.
"Many a time have been heard within those walls, mingling with the
groans of the suffering and the prayers of the dying, such sounds of
revelry as were wont to echo by the walls of a college, whence their
authors have been permitted prematurely to escape. . . ."

5zIbid., Nov. 1, 1845.

53Ibid., Nov. 5, 1845.

54161d., Oct. 30, 1845.

”Rich, Nov. 1, 1845.

56Ibid.

5715“,, Nov. 5, 1845.

5815“,, Nov. 6, 1845.

59L. , "Hospitals, Alma Houses, 5:," New York Evening Post,
Dec. 5, 6, 1845.

6015161., Dec. 5, 1845.
51_Il_>_id., Dec. 5, 6, 1345.

62Duffy, History of Public Health, 483- 85. "Bellevue Hospital,
It's History and Organization,‘ LJMCS” XVI n.s. (Hay, 1856), 392- 93.

189

53".]. Gotham, Jr.," "Editorial Correspondence," NJMSR, IX (June,
1856), 309. "Bellevue Hospital," 392.

64John H. Griscom, "The Causes and Prevention of Some of the Most
Important Diseases of the Am. A Discourse Delivered Before the New
York Sanitary Association," M: XVIII (Dec., 1862), 402-04, 413. The
next year Griscom chaired the AMA committee to investigate ambulances
and report to the President on the feasibility of an ambulance corps.
They were discharged in 1864, but their report was not printed. Minutes,
AMA, gansactions, XIV (1863), 25. XV (1864), 30.

65John H. Griscom, "Hospitals of London and Paris ," Egg, XIV
(March 17, 1866), 216-17. °

66Letter from Thomas Hancock to John Griscom, Liverpool, June
5, 1832, in the New York Public Library.

67Alfred E. M. Purdy, The Medical Register of New York, New
Jersey, and Connecticut for 1874 (New York, 1874), 274-75.

68N.Y.C., ByLaws and Ordinances of the Mayor, Aldermen and
Comonalty of the City of New York (New York, 1845), 354. N.Y.C.,
Proceedings of the:§oard of Aldermen, XXIII (July 18, 1842), 91-94.
(Sept. 5, 1842), 258-61. Board of Aldermen, Doc. No. 32, Oct. 17,
1842. Proceedings of the Board of Aldermen, XXIV (Nov. 28, 1842),
28-30. (Feb. 1, 1843) , 336. Journal and Documents of the Board of
Assistants, n1 (April 17, 1843), 332-33.

59.1. J. Walsh, History of Medicine in New York (New York, 1909),
1, 285-86. Griscom, Annual Report, 206. Charles F. Bolduan, Over a
Century of Public Health in New York City (New York, 1916), 5-6.

7OGriscom, Annual Report, 149-54. Perhaps feeling responsible for
the high ratio of deaths Griscom offered a partial explanation; New York
had well stocked, charity hospitals, to which the indigent of the surround-
ing area came during the winter, and where many of them died. Annual
Re art, 157.

71Ibid., assim.

726riscom, Sanitary Condition, 21-22.

73Ibid., 54. Griscom, Annual Report, 206.

74NYAM, Minutes, Feb. 3, 1847. N.Y.S., Laws of the State of New
York, Ch. 152, 70th Sess., 1847, 148-49. U.S., Mortality Statistics of
the Seventh Census of the United States (Washington, 1855), 7-8.
Unfortunately, the New York law quickly fell into disuse.

75."!41nutes," mc, Proceedings (Philadelphia, 1847), 20-21.

75Ibid., 34-35, 43.

”John H. Griscom, Chrm. , "Report of the Comittee to Consider
the Expediency, and (if expedient) the Mode of Recomending and Urging

upon the Several State Governments the Adoption of Measures for a
Registration of the Births, Marriages and Deaths of Their Several

Populations," MC, Proceedings (Philadelphia, 1847), 125-31.

190
73932., 129.
791111;” 134-36.
309351., 137-44.

31111141., 141, 144-45. 0.8., Bureau of the Census, Registration
flirths and Deaths (Washington, 1904), 5. In his history of New
York'sState Medical Society, J. J. Walsh found the dual reports of
Griscom "very full and explicit. " gistog of the Medical Society of
the State of New York (New York, 19.07), 181.

82J. H. Griscom, Chrm. , "Report of the Standing Cos-ittee on
Births, Marriages and Deaths ," AMA, Transactions, I (1848), 339-40.
'Minutes," AMA, Transactions, VIII (1855), 49, 54. Mortality Statis-
tics of the Seventh Census, 7-8.

 

83Morta1ig Statistics of the Seventh Census, 10-16, 17-28.
New York Times, March 19, 1853. Edward Jarvis, "Report on the Law of
Registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths," AMA, Transactions, XI
(1858), 533-34.

8‘WJ. Gotham, Jr.," "Editorial Correspondence," NJMSR, IX
(Pabs, 1856), 86-87.

85922-5 X (July, 1357), 358-59. "Abstract of Proceedings,"
usnr, Transactions, (1856), 215-18. (1857), 245-46. (1858), 501,
505-“.

wasJohn H. Griscom, "Letter to the Editor," M_§_R_, V (Oct. 20,
1860), 73. After the Civil War Griscom prepared a blank book, which
was printed for the use of families to record their vital statistics.
He recs-ended it for the use of information that the family would not
want in their family Bible, but which would record all information
related to health and the "private sanitary history" of each family
mower. John H. Griscom, The Fami1y_Record, Biographic and Photographic.
Arranged for Recording in Detail Incidents in the Life of Each Member
of the Family (New York, 1868).

87"Quarantine and Health," Nil}. (Oct., 1860), 442-46, 449-50.
John H. Griscom, "Improvements of the Public Health, and the Establish-
ment of a Sanitary Police in the City of New York," MSNY, Transactions
(1857), 113-14. Grich maintained that this the causes of epidemic
diseases were still hidden to medical science, no method of control
should be overlooked. -

38M (Philadelphia, 1857), 37-43. Second Nqsc (Baltimore,
1858), 17-20.

89mm: Ngsc (New York, 1859), 15-18, 211-16. New York nus.
April 28, 1859.

9Omrh1rd NQsc", man, v (Sept., 1861, 832-34).
91:61d., 367-68.

92%. , 677-79. At the banquet General Prosper M. Wetmore spoke

191

thus of Griscom; "John H. Griscom, bearing a name always dear to the
lovers of science, has devoted almost a lifetime to the same noble
daject; Griscom, who bears our banner now, and whom we follow with the
confidence and hope that always attaches to an able and faithful
leader. . . ." 690.

”Fourth NQSC (Boston, 1860), 38-45, 7, 70, 146.

CHAPTER VI
GRISCQ‘I AND THE METROPOLITAN HEALTH BILL

When regard for health shall

exceed the desire for gain, and

the cry of humanity be heard

above the calls of party, then

the sanitary condition of the

city and state will be improved.
New York Assembly, 1861

Most of the significant advances in the broad field of public
health during the years of John H. Griscom's active career resulted
from legislative action. Beginning with the change in the law'preventing
the unauthorized removal of bodies from the city, passed as a result of
Griscom's insistence in 1842, through the AMA action in favor of state-
wide registration laws, and the periphery areas, such as the 1855
immigration act, most activity strengthened the legal framework. With
this in mind, Griscom suggested to the New'York.Academy of Medicine
that a memorial be sent to the State Legislature in 1856--a memorial
which began the lobby that was largely responsible for the 1866
Metropolitan.Hea1th Bill, not only revolutionizing public health in
greater New York, but also providing a model for other cities.

Reform was needed because the health laws and organization dated
back to the early nineteenth century, when the city‘s population had
been less than 75,000. By the mid-1840's the population was about
350,000; there having been no significant legal changes the old health
laws simply could not handle the increased population. Three separate
departments looked after the city's health. The first, the Health Office,

was established in 1796 to take charge of Quarantine. The Health

Officer, Health Commissioner and Resident Physician (epidemic cases
192

193

were referred to him)'were state appointees, but generally not involved
with internal health matters. The City Inspector's Office was created
in 1804 to protect the internal health of the city; the City Inspector,
his assistant and twenty-two health wardens (one for each ward),
were responsible for the health of the populace. The final group
was the Board of Health, made up of the Mayor, Recorder, and Comon
Council. They rarely met as the Board of Health because, once convened,
they could meet in perpetual session. Hence, the Mayor was not likely
to gather the Board of Health, except in cases of rare emergency.1

As the city became more and more unhealthy, the physicians,
city officials in favor of change, and informed laymen banded together
in voluntary associations to improve conditions. However, the reforming
zeal of these men.was blunted by the numerous and varied opportunities
for spoils and graft which were the province of the party in power.
Although corruption made their job more difficult, it did not stay
reformers like Griscom, who called for slum clearance, ventilation,

pure food and drug legislation, and health education.2

I

Dr. Griscom's first_official action in relation to improved
health legislation came shortly before his removal as City Inspector.3
Late inHApril, 1843, he sent a communication to the Board of Aldermen,
"recommending a Reorganization of the Health Police." His rationale was
simple--"no department of the government of a great city can be deemed
of more importance to its inhabitants, than that devoted to the preser-
vation of the general health." The prevention of disease, endemic and
epidemic, and the removal of nuisances were necessary for the health
and happiness of the general public, in addition to being the first

step in lessening the impact of crime and pauperism in the city.

194
However, to effect such a change the health inspectors (sanitary police)
would have to be highly trained, competent people. They must be able
to determine the nature of the nuisance, and the best means of prevention;
they must also be dedicated to the preservation of the public health.
Since the usual health wardens of New York were cartmen, grocers,
painters, or men without visible means of support, such standards
were out of the question. "It is plain that these qualifications for
an efficient Health Police (and their necessity it is presumed none
will gainsay), can be found only in the ranks of the well-educated
portion of the medical profession."4
Griscom planned to reduce the number of health districts from
twenty-two to twelve sanitary districts by using the boundaries of the
city's dispensaries. The new officials would be called health inspectors,
and together with the City Inspector would constitute the city's health
police, directly responsible to the Board of Health. In addition to
searching out nuisances, the health inspectors would see that every-
one in their respective districts was vaccinated. They would take
care of the professional needs of the police, who were usually treated
haphazardly if they were injured in the line of duty. By uniting the
health districts with the dispensary districts, the dispensary physi-
cians would serve as the health inspectors.
The combination of the salaries of the two officers
‘would enable them [dispensary trustees] to select from
the body of the profession, men of greater experience
and qualifications. This would insure to the poor who
depend upon those valuable institutions for all their
medical aid, a larger amount and better quality of
attendance; while it will at once be perceived that the
labors of the Dispensary Physician will be lessened in
proportion as the sources of the ills, which, in the
former capacity, he is called upon to administer to.

The dispensary physicians were aware of the nuisances because their

duties required them to go into the tenements and treat patients.

195
Further, if they were health inspectors, they would be able to avoid
or prevent nuisances by maintaining a constant vigilance on health
problems. The city would save money and lives by avoiding the false
economy of massive clean-ups to avert epidemics.5
With physicians as health inspectors, the department, it was
hoped, would be raised above "the corrupting atmosphere of partizan-
ship, and we should then no more hear of public duties neglected for
fear of making a political enemy. . . ." Is it any wonder that Griscom
was removed from office after one short year? The city had the talent,
the funds, and the basic organization to put this plan into effect
in 1843, thereby relieving "thousands of suffering and depressed
people" but it was not to be, as the city fathers were not about to
give up control of that department which afforded tremendous oppor-
tunities for graft.6
‘ Removal from office did not silence Dr. Griscom, as he continued
the fight in his 1844 address on the sanitary condition of the laboring
classes. When the city council refused to act on the measure, Griscom
delivered it as a lecture and then had it printed. In 1874 E. M.
Purdy wrote of Griscom's efforts:
From that time to the present a continued warfare has been
in existence between philanthropists and sanitarians,
and political speculators; and it is likely that, though
matters may mend to a certain extent, the all-powerful
dollar will find many advocates, while the prevention of
disease and the welfare of the poor will ever want a
few friends among a lobby rule. For many years Doctor
Griscom launched his annual pamphlet, portraying troubles
and unfolding the remedy; but though some were convinced
and not a few seconded his views, hired voters and
moneyed influence postponed the cure.7
Until the'mid-1840's the post of City Inspector was occupied by
a physician, but then the practice of awarding it to non-medical

people started. Thus, with non-professionals in the health warden

posts, and a non-professional as head of the internal public health

196

organization, the city reached a new low. Griscom told his 1844
audience that not one of the present incumbents was endowed with a
medical education, a point which he reiterated throughout his career.
In 1857, for example, he told a group of physicians that the wardens
were paid $1,000 a year for doing virtually nothing. They made
inspections only after a complaint was made. To make matters worse
they maintained their usual occupations "unconscious of any professional
responsibility." He made it clear that the combined evils of the
tenement and the filthy street would be partially alleviated because
of the inspections and the powers of the health police, who would be
in a position to end cellar residences and order the clean-up of foul
alleys and courts. "Is it not then, clearly the duty of the appointing
powers, to fill the offices having the control and direction of
sanitary matters, with men of the largest experience and most culti-
vated capacity in medical science, having regard to the important
consideration that a man may be a good prescribing physician, without
the kind of knowledge or the taste requisite for the due discharge of
public duties of this character." The dispensary physicians had both
the desire and the temperment to carry out these duties.8

“Not only could these physicians put an end to nuisances, they
would be in a position to educate the people to the dangers of living
in filth. "Their time would be principally devoted to the purpose of
teaching the poor the rules which should regulate their household
operations; and the value of fresh air, ventilation, cleanliness,
temperance, would form.constant themes for them." Education of the
poor would alleviate future problems, and make the passage of legis-
latioanore important. If Griscom's health plans were put into effect,

but nothing was done in education, it would be a hollow victory.

197

These two themes of legislation to improve the health department and
education of the poor were constant with Griscom.9

In his review of the Sanitary Condition, Gouverneur Emerson
struck right to the heart of the problem when he said "few people have
a notion that legislation for the preservation of health in the poor
and laboring classes is any part of public duty, which seems confined
to measures for taking charge of them only when reduced by actual
disease to helplessness." Emerson concurred completely with Griscom's
conclusions, quoting extensively from the report. He hoped, as did
Dr. Griscom, that more people would make the legislators aware of the
horrible conditions in the slums, because that was the only sure road
to real reform in the areas of health, housing, and sanitation.10

Those City Inspectors who followed Griscom generally followed
his example. Cornelius Archer, City Inspector in 1845 and 1846, called
for the same kind of improvements that Griscom wanted--an improved
sanitary police, stricter registration, and free public baths. unfor-
tunately Archer was not a physician and was therefore unaware of the
pgmm raised by the health abuses. As he was forced to call on
medical personnel to corroborate his findings, the Archer reports were
not as vigorous as Griscom's. Archer complained about the dirt, but
not the system which allowed its continuance.11

When the First Committee of Public Hygiene filed its report for
the AHA, two of the questions dealt with the legal aspects of the
sanitary situation. In answer to both queries, Griscom responded that
Newjork laws were far from adequate, but he thought that they were
improving. It was hoped that the new city charter would allow the
health departnent more power. If the laws regarding the number of
passengers on an emigrant ship were enforced on land, Griscom wrote,

the terrible overcrowding could be partially alleviated.12

198

Griscom, perennial chairman of the New‘York.Academy of‘Medicine's
Public Health Committee, prepared a report ostensibly on the dispensary
system, but in reality it was a proposal to reorganize the Health
Department. In the summer of 1852 Griscom and his committee outlined
the shortcomings of the dispensary system.in treating the indigent
poor, and their report was printed in full in the New‘York Times, from
which the other papers copied at least the more important parts. This
report was presented to the Academy on July 7, printed in the Lime;
a week later, revised early in August, and then printed for distribution
to city officials in September. "The report was received with great
favor by the Academy. . . ."13

The ideal solution was to end poverty, but as Griscom was a
realist, he approached the question from the point of view of adequate
medical care for the indigent sick. Griscom was well aware of the
gospel dictum, "for you always have the poor with you. . . ," and
realized that they could become carriers and spread disease and death
all over the city. "Hence the necessity in all civilized communities,
not more on account of benevolence to the poor than for the sake of
the well being of all, and their protection against the ravages of
disease, for some provision for the dispensation of medical aid to the
indigent, upon such a basis that, while it will afford to all the
requisite succor to them in actual sickness, will also supervise their
condition at all times, with a view to its arrest or prevention."
Griscom directed his appeal towards the middle and upper classes on
behalf of the poor, hinting at control of poverty by control of the
diseases which created it.14

Griscom made the distinction between public and private hygiene.
Those diseases which originated from causes within the body were the

subject of private hygiene, and were unaffected by public health

199
measures. Those diseases which originated from causes without the
body-~consumption, small pox, cholera, and a host of others--were the
subject of public hygiene. This class was divided into extra- and

intra-domiciliary causes, a distinction used again in the Anniversary

 

Discourse, a few years later. The first dealt with the filth outside
the house, and the second with the overcrowding and poor ventilation

of the tenements. It was the latter which was more dangerous because
the public was unaware of it. When one drove through the streets he
could see the filth, and sense a coming epidemic; but the intra-
domiciliary causes went unnoticed by outsiders, unless they were trained,
and the inhabitants, uninformed, did not change things. Therefore

Griscom warned against acting like the blind Pharisee who cleansed

only the outside:

To do the poor and the subject of public Hygiene full
justice, the Health Inspector must penetrate into their
private dwellings; he must open the closed sashes and
cut windows where there are none, he must ventilate
their workshops, their bedrooms and their school-

houses; he must pump the stagnant water from the cellars;
he must connect their drain pipes and privies with the
public sewers, white wash their walls, fill up the
hollows, and drive the troglodytes from their caves to
the open air.15

When Griscom was a physician in 1834 at the New York Dispensary,
and then later at the Eastern Dispensary (1842-1856), he realised the
wasted talent that could be used for sanitary inspections. He wrote

in 1852:

The duties of the Dispensary physicians carry them in the I
very track of the nuisances which require to be corrected,
and how great a proportion of the rheumatisma, the fevers,
the inflammations, the various forms of scrofula, the‘
pulmonary and other diseases are attributable to the damp
cellars, the filthy tenements, the foul yards, courts, and
alleys, in which the poor are crowded, can be known only

to them who spend much of their time amid these wretched
scenes, where they are powerless for any preventive

action that may occur to them.

200

The last phrase is the key; the city officials ordered massive clean-
ups to prevent cholera, yet they refused to spend a few dollars to
allow those who had it within their power to prevent much of the disease
and death to which the city was subject. Griscom had not changed his
argument in the ten years between this report and the earlier one when
he was City Inspector. Unfortunately, this plan of using dispensary
physicians in the dual capacity did not allow the city fathers their
spoils.16

The entire dispensary system*was outmoded; it began when the
population was 150,000. In 1850 the population was nearly 500,000, and
the funding and organization.were inadequate to meet the needs, much
like the whole Health Department. There were two reasons, according
to Griscom, why the physicians had not moved to improve the dispensary
system; in addition to having no control they felt the medicine
practiced there was sub-standard. Since the positions were not lucra-
tive, few of the experienced physicians felt moved to volunteer their
services. Griscom thought that if the entire profession was made
aware of the problems, then some solutions would be presented and
acted upon; therefore he presented his report to the Academy which
was a good cross section of the profession.17

Griscom and his committee favored a complete overhaul of the
dispensary system because the care of the sick poor was an obligation
not to be trusted to the hands of a few. "It is a public interest,
and the public should provide for it as bounteously and as efficiently
as they do for the cause of education." The solution remained the
same; replacement of the inefficient dispensary system with health
police. Public health had reached new heights of scientific discovery,

making the problems of the past avoidable. As one example, Griscom

201
pointed to the sewer system, which could carry off waste, but did not.
Again, hundreds of thousands of dollars were expended each year to
clean the streets, but still "the air grows more and more tainted
with disgusting odors." The reasons for this and other problems were
the lack of adequate inspections and law enforcement. 18

The dispensary physicians complained because they were overworked.
Griscom's plan of expanding the personnel to allow more physicians per
district, coupled with their increased control would reduce their work
load. Further, there would be less to do because the physicians would
be improving the health of the area residents by disseminating infor-
mation, enforcing laws, and ordering changes. The physician would not
only treat the case of typhus, but would remove the source of the
disease by ordering the cleaning of the yard or alley, or closing the
tenement or cellar.19

This new plan of operation would eliminate many of the objections
to the dispensary system. First, by providing better pay it would
attract experienced personnel. Second, the districts would no longer
be unmanageable, and the patients would receive better care. Finally,
the lack of supervision would be eliminated because more mature physicians,
needing less supervision, would be employed.20 .

The emphasis in the paper on the evils of filth and imprOper
ventilation, and the similarities between this and the 1842 report
indicates that it was mostly, if not totally, from the pen of John
H. Griscom. The New York Medical Gazette's editor realized the impor-
tance of the work, but was over optimistic about reform. "It is an
able document, and will soon be published, when it will attract, as it
deserves, a very large share of public attention. We hope the public
authorities will be moved to some prompt and effectual measures of reform

in the department of the City Inspector, where it is imperatively demanded.21

202

In 1852 a new attack against the city officials was launched by
Griscom. .At a meeting of physicians, presided over by Thomas Cock,
Griscom was unanimously nominated as their candidate for City Inspector.
The physicians met to examine the subject of public health, and as the
Democratic and Whig candidates did not propose any improvements, they
nominated Griscom» Later in October, the Tribune reported that they
were heartily in favor of the physician's candidate, but they refused
to support Griscom because they thought that would help the Locofoco
candidate. {A few days later they publicly endorsed the Whig candidate,
who, with Griscom, was defeated by the Democrat Thomas Downing. (As
Downing was later indicted by a grand jury for "downright villainy--
corruption, peculation, robbery. . ." Griscom was obviously a better
choice.) Election results showed that the physicians polled about
ten percent of the vote.22

The opportunities to improve society by improvement of the
. public health were of primary importance to Dr. Griscom, and his closing
comments in the.Anniversary Discourse of 1854 reiterated his plan for
health improvements. First was a broad based educational program for
the schools, in which each child would receive education on human
mechanism and physiology. There were a number of suitable texts
available (Griscom himself had written one), but in case the educators
felt the need for a new one, Griscom suggested a cash prize to stimulate
the medical profession to produce a suitable text. As for the teaching
of such a course, "to every school,especially every public school in
this city, state and the United States, there should be attached a
medical man as one of its corps of tutors, who, by spending a few
hours a week in instructing its classes in this interesting branch of

science, would exert an influence for good in the matter of individual

203

and public health, in the protection of the people against the nuisance
and danger of charlatanry. . . ."23
He further advised the formation of a voluntary association to
deal with hygiology (a term coined in the mid-nineteenth century to
refer to public health). "Its objects of inquiry and action would
comprise the entire field of the preservation of public and private
health, in all its varied and multitudinous relations." Such an
organization was needed to unite the labors of physicians and sanitar-
ians and then disseminate the information. It would also establish
adequate registration procedures. In his lecture Griscom said:
Such a society would study the true method of city
sewerage. . . . It would infuse into the public mind,
into our legislative bodies, and our magistracy, a
more intelligent regard for the proper construction of
private and public edifices of every description; it
would point out where and why certain diseases prevail,
and how they might be avoided; it would obtain an
influence in the proper regulation of health measures
and the enactment of sanitary laws, which would be of
incalcuable benefit of the commercial prosperity of
this and other cities, and the happiness and comfort of
their every inhabitant.
Griscom saw this dream turn into reality when he helped found the
New York Sanitary Association in the winter of 1858-59.24
This third suggestion was the establishment of the health
policeuthe'most important ingredient in his plan of reform. Using
the 1854 City Inspector's office as an example (any year would do),
of the twenty-nine people directly involved, there was only one medical
man, and he was in a clerical position. Even though few argued with the

concept of having medical men for medical positions, New York was in

the DarkHAges in this regard. "We need to know the causes of the

 

diseases, where they are, what they spring from, and how to avoid them;
information which can only be obtained and properly disseminated by

men of good medical education, and possessing the proper taste and

energy for such work." In all of this, Griscom's purpose was never to

204

condemn those in power, but to point out the need for proper medical
education. Public health needed trained personnel as much as the trans-
Atlantic steamer needed a trained captain. 25

Griscom was the first, and one of the most important sanitarians
calling for reform, but he was not the only one. The 1854 presidential
address of the New York State Medical Society was an accolade to the
reform physicians. "The public are indebted to the philanthropy of
our profession for those valuable suggestions, which have resulted in
such sanitary regulations as now, in a great measure, protect our

cities from the ravages of those fatal epidemics. . . ."25

II

The activity from 1842 to 1854 might be considered the prelim-
inary sparring between a few physicians and the city and state govern-
ments over the issue of major health reform; then the period which
comenced in February, 1856 can be characterized as the campaign for
a metropolitan health bill-~one which would encompass the greater New
York area, for in that year there was a bill before the State Legis-
lature to establish a new city charter for New York. At the February
meeting of the Academy, Dr. I. M. McNulty offered a resolution calling
on the members to memorialize the Legislature in favor of improved
sanitary regulations. A comittee of three, including Griscom, was
appointed to examine the situation and recomend action. The next
month the memorial was sent to the Legislature, which declared that "a
large portion of the annual mortality of this city results from diseases,
whose causes are more or less within control, but which are totally ’
unchecked by any public administration of proper sanitary precautions,
and that from this neglect, in addition to a very great and unnecessary

loss of life, the city and State endure an incalculable detriment in

205

in their commercial and moral interests." This memorial was the
beginning of a decade long war on the State Legislature, the City
Inspector's office, the city government and the apathetic population
of New York City to force passage of a bill to place control of the
health of New York Port in the hands of professionals, and out of the
reach of political hacks.27

Griscom used his column in the New Jersey;Hedical and Surgical
Reporter to advertise the.Academy's memorial and his own campaign for
changes in the health laws. J. Gotham wrote that "the administration
of our public sanitary affairs is, at present, and has been for many
years past, confided entirely to the hands of nonrmedical men, a
large proportion of whom are said to he possessed of only a very
moderate, comon education. " Not all medical men were in favor of
refomm, however; a few’months later Dr. Reese editorialized that the
health of the city had never been better (Griscom agreed) and that it
was the result of the work of the sanitary officials (a theory which
Griscom and several other physicians vehemently denied). Reese wrote
that "if he [the incumbent City Inspector] is sustained by the Board
of Health, our citizens will have no cause of regret that this office
is not filled by a medical man. . . ."28

Later in the same year theAMA joined the New York Academy and
Dr. James Newman delivered a paper in which he expressed his agreement
with the earlier report issued by the Committee of Hygiene, of which
Griscom was the New'York member. Newman saw the need for strong legis-
lative action to control the purity of water and air as long as there
were poor people.29

The following year the State Legislature debated a number of

health bills, one of them prepared by Dr. John H. Griscom. To clear

206

up the situation, the state medical society appointed Griscom chairman
of a committee to investigate methods of improving the health of New
York City in particular, and large cities in general. Griscom's report
was forwarded to the Legislature, where it was included with the docu-
'ments of the Senate. Griscom wrote thus:

"With the abundant and excellent material afforded by

that great city a model sanitary police may be created,

which for efficiency and good results, would be unsur-

passed in the world, the good influence of which would

be felt throughout the State and country."
Following his report, a resolution was adopted that "the thanks of this
society are hereby expressed to Dr. Griscom, for his very able, inter-
esting and scientific report. . . ."30

In general, the report dealt with the various epidemic diseases
that were totally, or at least mostly, preventable--typhus, for example.
Griscom made the point again that there was simply no equity in the
health departments of the city. The fifteen dispensary physicians had
made over 67,000 visits in the last year, for which they each received
$400. Compare this with the health wardens, non-professionals, who
had received nearly $1100 for fewer than 300 visits, and "it will be
readily and correctly inferred . . . that the dispensary physicians and
health wardens never meet."31
Since England was the leader in public health reform, Griscom

naturally pointed to its success in this area. London reported a
reduction of thirty-one percent in.mortality after rigorous health
measures were put into effect. Liverpool and other English cities
reported shailar results, and there was no doubt that the massive
clean-ups, and control of filth would improve the health of all cities.
Given this, Griscom moved into a discussion of the duties of the

health officers. "The very first duty which should be required of

an officer of health is, vigilance in the discovery of the actual

207
gxigtence of disaggg." Since this required a man familiar with the
causes and symptoms of illnesses, a health officer needed careful
medical training.”

Among his lesser duties, the health officer would make reports
on the source of disease, or the circumstances which aided its disper-
sion. The sanitary officer would be aware of particular afflictions
which caused increases in the city's mortality as well as the general
complaints. Griscom again called for a complete renovation of the
health department to control the abuses which killed off large numbers
of the tenement poor. The sanitary officer who could fulfill the
obligations Griscom outlined would have the power to issue cease and
desist orders to the slaughter-houses, gas works, and other noxious
establishments. He could order landlords to clean up their property,
ventilate their apartments,and close cellars. He would be in a position
to order architects and contractors to put in more windows, install
plumbing. and make larger rooms. He could force the city to extend
the Croton water system and sewers. Finally tenants would be required
to clean up their apartments and to refrain from throwing garbage in
the yard, street, or hallway. Under such a system, hopefully, "the
routine of daily labor and daily cleaning should prevent any accumu-
lation of noxious substances, and render unnecessary any cleaning
works cf magnitude to meet the extraordinary visitations of disease."
A little later Griscom added "we need scarcely add that the sanitary
department of every city should be empowered by law, to enforce all
measures calculated to promote these important results."33

Two periphery areas in which sanitary officers would aid the
poor would be inspection of food and drugs. Bread, for example, was
adulterated with "potatoes, plaster of paris, alum, and sulphite of

copper. . . ." The federal government controlled with the importation

208
of adulterated food and medicine, but this simply resulted in the
local production of fraudulent products. Because he had less to spend,
the slum dweller was especially susceptible to tainted food and
medicine.“

Griscom persisted with his plan of making the dispensary phy-
sicians serve also as the sanitary police. "There cannot be a question
that had the two systems of preventive sanitary police, and dispensary
medical aid, been united in one, under an energetic administration,
during the period of their mutual existence, the expenses of both would
have been many, many times saved, together with innumerable lives."
Unfortunately, the past half-century had seen the continuance of two
separate institutions that did not cooperate in any fashion, to the
detrflment of the city budget and the laborer's life expectancy. All
this had to change if New‘York was to take her rightful place among
the more healthful spots in the world, and to this end, Griscom said,
it was the duty of the Legislature to "interpose between us and disease
those safeguards of science and law which are able to save us from a
large proportion of this loss of property, health and life." Improved
public health would reduce crime, vice and pauperism while it increased
the wealth and structure of the city and the nation.35

‘This report of Dr. Griscom and his committee was presented to
the medical society on.February fifth; that the committee had been
appointed only three days earlier suggests that Griscom had done a
great deal of work before the meeting. Whether or not he knew that
the New‘York.City delegates would be called upon to report on the health
bills before the Legislature is unknown; what is known, however, is that
he was inthmately acquainted with the subject and was therefore chosen

by the delegates to chair the committee and present the report.

209

As with‘most of the committee reports presented when.criscom‘was
chairman, this one was prepared by him..36

J. Gotham was hepeful that the Legislature would pass the med-
ical reform bill that he had prepared. It would provide the model for
the rest of the nation, a fact which made the bill an issue of importance
to urbanites everywhere. Even though petitions and memorials were
received from physicians and medical organizations, including the New
York Academy, the 1:111 did not pass.37

Since Dr. Griscom left no personal papers or journal, all mater-
ial related to his lobbying activity comes from medical journals; the
fullest accounts are the unfavorable reports of Dr. Reese. It was
Reese who sent a petition against the bill, and he was quite pleased
when it failed. He reported that after Griscom had spent weeks in
Albany he was unsuccessful in the passage of his bill, which would
have ended the City Inspector's office as it was then organized.
The new bill would have put the appointment of medical men into
medical hands; the Academy of‘Hedicine, for example, would have been
consulted in the appointment of the physicians to serve the dispensary
posts and of the executive head to replace the City Inspector. Reese
accused Griscom.of selfishly desiring the executive post for himself
(along with any other paying position), but this was the petty complain-
ing of a short sighted doctor. In a few years Reese himself would be
calling for reform.38

Griscom was not the type of man to give up in the face of adver-
sity; the next year saw him again innAlbany lobbying for the health
bill which he had prepared, and which was endorsed by the Academy.
Reese again accused Griscom of simply creating a fat office to occupy,
and gleefully reported the bill's defeat. Reese was, however, in a

distinct minority, as Griscom was appointed chairman of the Academy's

210

special committee to memorialize the Legislature. The New York
Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor also sent a
memorial.39

Griscom offered several resolutions to the state medical society
in support of health reform in New York (It was at this 1858 meeting
of the society that Griscom was nominated for permanent membership,
an honor accorded him two years later.) The resolutions protested the
msanitary condition of New York and other large cities, and called
upon the Legislature to pass the health legislation before them.
After some discussion the resolutions were adopted, thus putting
the state society strongly in support of Griscom's health bill.“o

Later in the year the New York Times joined the campaign for
improved conditions. For the next eight years the '_1‘_i_._me;_s_ actively
supported reform legislation before the state government, and they
closely reported the debates for their readers. The paper bemoaned
the fact that untrained personnel were in such important places, and
agreed with the mjority of physicians who loudly called for reform.
Its "great hopes that a reform will be initiated at once" did not
come to pass, however.41

Just before Christmas the 11mg reported that a movement, which
began in the Academy to improve the sanitary condition of the city,
had resulted in the formation of the New York Sanitary Association.
The physicians held five informal meetings through the fall and early
winter, and then on December 21 they held their first public meeting.
After a general discussion of the sanitary evils of the city, a
constitution was proposed and accepted. Provisions were made to promote
personal and public hygiene, to disseminate information on the laws of
health and their application, and to best utilize the existing health

agencies. John 11. Griscom was among the founders and he was one of the

211

prime movers of this organization, which would do a great deal in the
coming years to force passage of sweeping health reforms.“2

The Association's first report was submitted in 1859. Griscom,
who was vice president and chairman of the committee to procure health
legislation, prepared most of it. It is much the same as the earlier
reports that called for health improvements in the city because the
problems were the same, and there were only a few ways to say that the
filth in the street and the cramped, disgusting quarters of the poor
were the causes of the high mortality."3

That the Association was a product of its time is undeniable.
It began as an attempt to inform the city officials, and then the
public, of the need for sanitary reform in the city. With an active
membership of 250, the Association's regular meetings showed a rising
interest on the part of the general public. The meetings "have afforded
the proper opportunities for a free interchange of thought and the
discussion of a great variety of practical questions relating to sanitary
improvements and various departments of hygiene." The Association had
other interests; it was concerned with the establishment of a health
journal, improved drainage, control of adulterated drugs, and other '
related issues, but improvement of the city's health was uppermost.“

The constitution of the Sanitary Association was completed by
February, 1859; Reese‘reported that Drs. Elisha Harris, Griscom, David
Reid, 'and John Natson were the leaders of the movement. Reese had
begun his change towards health reform by this time, as he wrote that
the phys ician-reformers were backed by public spirited laymen who were
in favor of reforming the health department, "irrespective of politics ,
and agree with the claim of our profession, that medical offices

should be filled by medical men, and not by party demagogues who know

212

nothing of sanitary science, and care less, going in only for the
spoils." In addition to the conversion of Meredith Reese, the reform-
ers gained the help of the Mayor when he nominated a physician for the
post of City Inspector.45

Griscom kept the subject of health reform before the Academy of
Medicine. He presented facts and figures from the office of the City
Inspector, "the writer's intention being to prove the necessity of an
earnest investigation of the questions relating to the Public Health."
In October, 1858, he asked the president to increase the menbership of
his connittee, and sixteen fellows, including President Simon Batchelor,
were added to the Section on Public Health and Legal Medicine. Nine
months later Griscom reported that the efforts of the Section to force
change were unsuccessful because the Mayor failed to endorse their
reforms. In an interesting exchange, Dr. McNulty asked Griscom
whether he had informed the Mayor that it was not necessary for him to
appoint a physician as City Inspector. "Dr. Griscom replied that he
had not done so. The discussion stopped here, the President declaring
it out of order."46

The demand for reform again reached Albany, and in February,
1859, a special committee of the State Senate presented its report on
the sanitary condition of New York City. In this long document they
presented the testimony of twenty physicians, two city officials, in-
cluding the incumbent City Inspector, George V. Morton, and eight other
witnesses. The first witness to appear was John H. Griscom, and those
who testified after him generally referred to his testimony. Griscom
himself was present for the remainder of the hearings in the Mayor's
office, frequently adding cements and taking part in the questioning

That the connittee was appointed in April, and held meetings in New

213

York City fromnmid-October through mid-December, indicates the compre-
hensive nature of the report.47

The report of the five Senators, led by Smith Ely, Jr., of the
Fifth district, New'York City, was divided into two sections; a small
section with the conclusions of the committee, and the bulk of the
report made up of the witnesses' testimony. The committee raised
specific questions in three general areas. Witnesses were asked to
cement on New York's mortality in comparison with other cities and if
it was higher, why that was so, and what means were available to reduce
it. The committee concluded that New'York was decidedly more unhealthy
than other cities. As to the second question, ”the causes of the
excessive mortality are mainly attributed to the over-crowded condition
of tenement houses; the want of practical knowledge of the proper mode
cf constructing such houses; deficiency of light, imperfect ventilation;
impurities in domestic economy; unwholesome food and beverages; insuffi-
cient sewerage; want of cleanliness in streets and at the wharves and
piers; and finally, to a general disregard of sanitary precautions;
the imperfect execution of existing ordinances, and the total absence
of a regularly organized, efficient sanitary police." There were so
many suggestions offered to correct these abuses that the committee
did not feel they could print them in the report's introduction;
instead they referred the reader directly to the testimony. They
noted that the mortality of the city was rapidly increasing, and
thought the increase was directly connected to the rapid rise in
papulation. The only solution was for the state to step in and
improve the law.48

.The connittee quoted extensively! from the 1853 AICP report, which
Griscom had prepared on the tenement house problem (see chapter III).

In general, the Senators strongly reflected the influence of Griscom,

214

as the problems were those which he had exposed as early as 1842. That
Griscom testified first, questioned many of the subsequent witnesses,
and cross-examined the City Inspector is indicative of the comittee's
esteem for the doctor."9

Friday, October 22 , was the first day devoted to testimony. In
his opening remarks Griscom reaffirmed his belief in the duty of
government to protect the lives of the citizens who made up the strength
of the state. He used his extensive correspondence with European
sanitarians to prove that the health of New York was inferior to that
of the major European cities. He based his testimony on a comparison
of New York with other cities, and with the New Yark of earlier days.
Using tables and charts, Griscom proved that New York had become un-
healthier in recent years, and that it was still on the decline. He
made the distinction between internal and external causes of disease,
and carefully spelled out for the comittee the effects of various
diseases on the rate of mortality. Small pox killed 425 people in the
first six months of the year, and it was totally avoidable. But his
most devastating cements involved a comparison of the New York of 1859
with the London of 1665. With bubonic plague raging in the latter city,
the London of earlier days was only slightly more unhealthy than New
York. Nineteenth century London was far healthier than New York,
simply because it had strict sanitary codes.50

To explain the causes of the high mortality, Griscom listed all
the evils he had revealed in past years. The filth, poor ventilation,
lack of sewers, slaughter-houses, cellars, tenements, and the crushing
poverty were the primary causes. The whole question of sub-tenantage
and a fair return on property were listed as evils to be remedied
before real reform could comence. When questioned by connitteeman John

Mather on the causes of the mortality, Griscom quickly listed eight.

215

Chairman Ely asked Griscom whether he could recommend remedies, to
which he answered,"Well, in a word I suggest as a remedy, 'remove
the causes.‘ If you ask how they are to be removed, I say by legis-
lation in the proper direction; and that direction is indicated by
science, by the example of other cities and by common sense." In
his earlier testimony Griscom listed a number of diseases that were
causing a rise in the mortality because they were on the increase,
and each of the diseases was preventable. "There is no question about
it at all. I can prevent them in.my own house; I d2 prevent them
there, and in the houses of my patients, where I have authority."51

Griscom was asked if he could control the diseases in the
tenements, and his answer was an emphatic yes. Then, in a brief
exchange with Richard Schell, Griscom cut to the heart of the problem:

Mr. Schell.--There is a statute law conferring authority
upon the proper officers, to have these errors corrected;
why is it not exercised sir; I would like to ask you
that question.

Mr. Ely.--(interposing)--Because I suppose, there is a
limit to the power of the officials.

Dr. Griscom.--No, that is not the reason. Rather, the
reason is because the officers don't know how to carry
out those laws in the proper manner.

Mr. Schell.--That is the best reason in the*world.

Dr. Griscom.--Incompetency is the word. When an
individual appointed to an office of this kind is called
to see a case of small-pox that is said will prove fatal
if not immediately attended to, if the health warden is
a grocer on the corner, or a carman, it frightens him
and he runs away.

Mr. Schell.--Doctor, we have a board of health here in
which there are three physicians, and of which the city
inspector is a member.

Dr. Griscom.--The commissioners of health have nothing
to do with the general health of the city, except that
when a case of malignant disease is reported it is their
duty to visit and examine it. But for the ordinary
sanitary regulation of New'York there is no medical man
in office, and there has not been one in office for
fifteen years.

After he had cited the health act of London, which required medical

men in medical positions, Griscom stated his own thoughts on the

216

subject, which was to put the dispensary physicians in charge of the
public health. Ely supported Griscom's plan, and his hill. Putting
responsible people in charge and forcing landlords to care for their
buildings, by levying $250 fines if necessary, would ease the burden
on the poor and make for a cleaner New York.52

John McNulty, sometime member of the Academy's public health
committee, and one of the Academy's officers, testified next. "Of
course, Mr. chairman," he said, "I will not be able to give you as full
and lucid a statement as Dr. Griscom has given, because . . . he has
made the subject a matter of study for several years. . . ." Much of
what McNulty said was in support of Griscom's testimony; on two
occasions he specifically stated that he was in complete agreement
with Griscom's testimony and saw no reason to repeat what the sanitarian
had already made clear. During this testimony, as with the others,
Dr. Griscom was there, offering suggestions and coments, and drawing
out the witness for the benefit of the cal-littee.53

There was little change in the testimony of the phys ic ians--they
all saw the same causes and the same cure for New York's excessive
mortality rates. When Prof. Alfred A. Post testified, cmitteeman
John Mather questioned him as to the health ordinances of the city; and
Griscom, apparently concerned that Mather was not getting to the heart
of the issue, took over the questioning on infant mortality. When
Post stated that many healthy foreigners left the city while their less
able-bodied companions remained behind, Griscom asked if the character
of the infant mortality among this class was not connected to the
residences. Post agreed that it was, and Griscom then asked whether
they were native children who died. Post replied yes, native children
born of foreign parents. Griscom then said to Post, "I asked the

question for the purpose of hearing from you whether an improvement

217

in the residences would save them, although they are the children of
foreign parents." Post's answer: "It would, undoubtedly, to a very
considerable extent." Apparently satisfied that his point was made
(i.e., insigration was not the major cause of mortality), and that the
questioning was on the right track, Griscom allowed Chairman Ely to
resume.5‘

When D. E. Reid, the English sanitarian and ventilation expert,
testified before the Senators, he and Griscom were involved in a dis-
logue on the necessity of an efficient sanitary police. There was
some feeling on the part of city officials that physicians would not
want to serve as health inspectors, and since Reid had brought the
subject up, Griscom asked, "Does the appointment of a medical man as
a sanitary policeman degrade him in any way?" Reid answered, that on
the contrary, it was an honor for a physician to be in a position in
which he had the opportunity to prevent disease instead of merely
treating it. "If a medical man by any proper preventive system can
step many diseases where he formerly cured some, and had no proper
opportunity of combatting others, he is contributing more essentially
to the public service. . . ." A few minutes later Griscom again asked
Reid, this time more specifically, whether the spirit of the physicians
in.New‘York.would allow them to take a post as health warden. Reid
responded that there were several different ways a physician could
serve, and this was certainly one of the most important.55

Reid was the last physician heard before the committee got the
official view from Richard Downing, superintendent of sanitary inspection,
and City Inspector Morton. Since Morton was not ready to testify
immediately after Reid, Griscom and‘McNulty discussed the qualifications
of the chief health official. Griscom thought that the man should be

well versed in sanitary matters, and the inspection of European

218
sanitary arrangements would help. He favored the health officer's
having "an almost arbitrary power" in regard to the city's health. In
regard to EurOpean sanitary matters, Griscom recomended that the
comittee ask Robert M. Hartley, Secretary of the AICP, to testify on
European sanitary conditions, as he had just completed an extensive
tour to study their health. McNulty objected, but Griscom's arguments
were more persuasive, and Hartley was invited to testify. (It was not,
however, possible for him to attend.) When Morton did not show up, the
comittee scheduled Downing to testify on Tuesday, and Morton to
follow him. 56

Downing admitted that he was unfamiliar with the sanitary
arrangements of other cities; he would leave that to the City Inspector.
He conceded that the sewerage system was in a poor state. He maintained
that since filthy people would always live in the city, and the state
laws were "as full and ample as possibly could be devised," some nui-
sances would always be present. He felt stronger powers given to the
City Inspector would be unjust, and really unnecessary because the
health department had all the power it needed--after an epidemic struck.
It was exactly this mentality of locking the barn door after the horse
was stolen that put New York in its unsanitary state.”

Homoeopathy, an irregular practice not recognized by most regular
physicians, was the training of Dr. Henry Dunnell, who was City Inspector
in 1838. According to Dashing, Dunnell was the last physician-- who
provided real leadership in that office. "But Dr. Griscom, who held the
office in 1842, left no visible evidence of having attempted by any
ordinance or otherwise, to enlarge the powers of the city inspector, or
to do more good than those who had preceded him." To praise a homoeo-
path in front of a regular practitioner was an obvious slap in the

face, but the consent which mentioned Griscom by name was such a patent

219

lie that it hardly deserves consent. If nothing else, Griscom's inter-
ment law revolutionized registration in New York. Downing maintained
that all the improvements in the public health were the result of the
work of the last two City Inspectors, neither of whom were M.D. 's; the
fact that the public health was rapidly deteriorating apparently did
not influence Downing's thinking. In fact, he thought that conditions
were so good that he "would not regard any change in the City Inspector's
department as of any benefit to the public health of New York. . . ."53

After his testimony had been completed, cross examination by
Mather, Ely, Griscom and McNulty destroyed it. When asked by Mather
about the law preventing the removal of bodies from the city without
a permit, Downing answered that he had no idea how long it had been
in effect, because he was a "young man, comparatively speaking."
When asked by Griscom the symptoms of cholera infantum, he said he did
not have any idea; he followed this with an announcement that he did
not miss a medical education at all. He also had no conception of the
causes, or cure, of typhus.59

George Morton, City Inspector, testified at length, constantly
repeating the same point-~a medical education was not a prerequisite
for the City Inspector. After a few members of the committee had A
questioned him, Griscom asked the'City Inspector a series of questions.
After three attempts to get Morton to answer whether or not he was
capable of performing a vaccination, Morton finally said he never had
vaccinated, but would be competent to do so. Perhaps the most devas-
tating question and answer exchange was related to still and premature
baths. Griscom, and most of the medical profession maintained that
still births were a barometer of the health of the city. When Griscom
asked Morton's Opinion, all he could respond was "that, sir, certainly

our medical men should be able to answer." Whether he realized it or

220

nOt, he was saying, in effect, that Griscom was right-medical men
should run the health departmentf’0

Street cleaning machines were a device which Griscom had argued
for in years past, to no effect, simply because machines could not
vote and therefore were useless to the political boss. Mr. R. A.
Smith demonstrated his street sweeping machine before the committee,
but they did not have enough opportunity to test it. They did note
that it removed a lot of the dirt more cheaply than the means in use
at the time. 61

D. F. Condie reviewed the Senate report on the health of New
York, and reported the main conclusions from the testimony "of many
of the most eminent physicians. . . ." The conclusions he cited were
all related to the testimony given by Griscom. Since Dr. Griscom was
the first to testify, it was difficult to present new material. Condie
concluded, along with the comittee, that the "excess of mortality
beyond that of other populous comunities, are mainly attributable . . .
to a general disregard of sanitary precautions, and the total absence
of a'regularly organized, adequate, and efficient sanitary police."62

The health bill prepared in 1859 by Griscom and the New York
Sanitary Association easily passed the Senate, in part as a result of
the committee report and in part because of the many petitions and
memorials, one of them from the NYAM. When the bill reached the
Assembly, its key supporters there refused further support when they
learned that its passage would cause three friends to lose their
jobs.63

The Ting; urged the people to support the findings of the Senate
committee, and the Griscom health bill, which they printed in an
editorial. The significance of this bill is that it represented a

compromise measure, not as strong as Griscom wanted, but constructed

221

with passage in mind. The Mayor, presidents of the Board of Supervisors,
alderman and councilman, the president of the Croton.Aquaduct Board,
medical members appointed by the medical colleges, and a member each
from the institute of architects and the commissioner of police made
up the board which allowed for the political, medical, police, engin-
eering, architectural and financial interests of the city to be equally
represented. The major changes envisioned by Griscom was the end of
the City Inspector's office and the establishment of an independent
board of health. Several months later, after the bill's defeat, the
ggggg_reported, in relation to the high infant mortality, that as long
as the board of health "is left at the mercy of irresponsible greed and
the uncontrolled lust of gain, we must expect Herod steadily at his work
among the children of the poor."64

In 1859 the office of City Inspector was still the main health
office; the medical profession therefore, pushed for the election of a
physician to the post. Among those listed as possibilities, John
H. Griscom was the most qualified, according to the profession. The
office was given to Daniel E. Delavan, who was not a physician.65

The next year the Legislature was again besieged by the medical
profession in support of Griscom's health bill. A revised bill was
prepared by Griscom.and the Sanitary Association which was an improve-
ment over the earlier bill because the framers now had "a better know-
ledge of the health laws of other cities, both foreign and domestic."
Introduced in February the measure was referred to the committee on
incorporation of cities and villages, who reported in favor of the bill
in March. The films; again urged passage and offered a practical suggestion--
it asked the friends of sanitary refoma to assemble in Albany to force
passage, because all too often a few people were able to defeat a bill

by active lobbying. In a note of quite desperation the Times editors

222

begged the legislators: "give us at once a thorough, efficient, non-parti-
san Board of Health, with power sufficient to place New‘York under
constant sanitary supervision." If the bill needed amendment, the
‘23523 suggested that it be modified after passage.66

“Again the office-holders of this city," Griscom wrote, "one of
whom, from the City Inspector's Department, itself, was a member of
Assembly, so wrought upon the fears and pockets of the friends of
those measures, that the Health Bill was again defeated. . . ."
The glass editors were equally bitter. "We are perfectly aware that
it is hopeless to command the attention of a Legislature absorbed in
schemes of public plunder and private gain, for a measure which merely
involves the lives and the health of a million of people."57

In 1861 there were a number of health bills presented, including
the one by Griscom. ‘Again the Assembly prepared a committee report
in favor of the Griscom bill, which involved the tri-county area of
New York, Rings, and Staten Island. They felt that passage of the bill
would come‘when "regard for health shall exceed the desire for gain,
and the cry of humanity be heard above the calls of party. . . ."
To prove the necessity of the health bill the committee quoted from
‘many authorities on public health, the first of them Dr. Griscom. For
their section on atmospheric conditions they relied entirely on Griscom's
Uses and Abuses of.Air, using it also to prove the unhealthy state of
the public schools. The committee also praised the work of the New
York sanitary‘Association, which led the campaign for health reform.
"To these men are due those investigations into the sanitary condition
of the city, which have startled and instructed the public mind on
this subject." The bill passed the House but was defeated in the
Senate. "It is averred that about $30,000 was raised in this city,

among the office-holders and expended to defeat the Health Bill. . . ."

223

Griscom waxed eloquent about this last defeat of a health bill that he
had prepared: "The dying eagle saw on the arrow whose barb had pierced
its Vitals, feathers plucked from its own wing; so, through the salaries
of its officials, the taxpayers of this city supplied the motive power
of the machinery which did this death-dealing work among themselves."68

Philip VanIngen, historian of the New York Academy, erroneously
credits Griscom with beginning the campaign for health reform in 1861.
It was in the fall of the year that Griscom urged "that a comittee of
five of whom the President shall be one, be appointed to cooperate
with the New York Sanitary Association, in endeavoring to obtain a
reformation in the laws pertaining to the Public Health of this city,
and in their administration. " Griscom's resolution was adopted, and
the comittee formed. According to VanIngen, "this was the beginning
of an effort which resulted in the establishment of the Metropolitan
Board of Health, the precursor of our modern Department of Health." His
point was that the emphasis had shifted from the establishment of a
Board of Health for New York City to a more radical plan--the estab-
lishment of a Board of Health that would serve a multi-county area.69

Late in November, 1861, Griscom delivered two lectures before
the Sanitary Association, in which he lamented the past failures and
hoped for future passage of sanitary legislation. The addresses were
given in the fall of the year because at that time the "friends of it
sanitary reform" began their drive for passage of a health bill. Griscom
was‘quick to point out they were only a minority; most people had not
demanded reform, being indifferent "to their own death records." He
teld his audience that year after year the Legislators listened to
appeals "in behalf of the thousands of dying infants" and were turned
from their drive for reform at the last moment when "the demon of

bribery drops a golden curtain between them and the pictures of desolate

224

misery which have so moved them. . . ." Their pockets were filled with
money and the city cemeteries filled with those who died before their
time. 70

In this propaganda tract Griscom again spelled out the classes
of diseases that infected city dwellers, and noted that the city's
"sanitary measures were in a state of retrogression. "For the past
twenty years the city's health had been in the hands of machine
politicians, and while the cost of public health was on the rise, so
was the mortality. ."In this respect the city of New York has pursued
a course directly the reverse of that of almost every other large
city." The constant improvements in sanitary science made this discre-
pancy even worse. Griscom again made the point that the strength of
the state rested with the people, and, therefore, New York was weakened
with each passing day. To prevent this, Griscom argued that it was the
duty of the state to provide for the health of its inhabitants, not
only to protect itself, but because it was the inherent right of the
individual to have a healthy place in which to live.71

In concluding his addresses, Griscom summarized the sanitary
arrangements of the city as they existed. In a comparison with the
United States Sanitary Commission, he outlined what could be accom-
plished. The Commission pledged that wifih $50,000 it could save 50,000
lives. This was markedly dissimilar to the city's three health organ-
izations which spent ten times that much and allowed (caused?) the
death of 50,000 citizens over the past several years. To make matters
worse, the office of assistant health warden.was created in 1861. Each
assistant was to be paid $1,000, making the health department more
expensive but not necessarily more efficient.72

Griscom saw two requirements for attainment of true sanitary

reform. As there were many diseases which know no boundaries, the

225

first was a national board of health. He thought, however, that
Article Ten of the Constitution prohibited that. The state was the next
logical division for a board of health, but passage of such a bill was
so unlikely that the Sanitary Association turned to the metropolitan
New York area for a sanitary board. The second requirement was thorough
education for every sanitary officer, and the simplest way to insure
that was to appoint medical personnel.73

A glowing editorial review of the report on sanitary legislation
appeared in a Philadelphia journal. "From an excellent address, read
before the New‘York Sanitary‘Association recently, by Dr. John H.
Griscom, we learn some facts relative to the sanitary condition and
health arrangements of New York City. . . ." The editors were shocked
at the condition of America's largest city,and thought that "some
Hercules in sanitary science, like the author of the pamphlet before
us. . ." should drive the party hacks from office and replace them‘with
qualified physicians. The editors were sure that if they lived in New

York, they would join Griscom in his efforts for reform.74

III

The year 1862 saw the separation of Dr. Griscom from active
campaigning for the health bill. A.bill was presented in the Senate
which would unite the metropolitan area under one board of health,
‘with representatives from the counties in question. Four of the seven
members would be physicians,and two would be police commissioners. This
arrangement would effectively separate health and politics. That year
also saw the beginnings of the Council of Hygiene of the Citizens
Association, and this organization, devoted to a number of reforms,
must be credited with the final drive to secure the‘Metropolitan Health

3111. 75

226

Although Griscom no longer lobbied for the bill, his role in the
past had been such that he was still attacked. A minority report of
the Assembly, prepared by David S. Coddington, supported a milder
health bill, one which did not call for sweeping changes. In the
report Coddington accused Griscom of abandoning health reform‘when a
different bill was introduced. "Where is Dr. Griscom, with his rising
death rate and falling prosperity, his damp eye and shocked bosom,
since his bill was abandoned?"76

Griscom responded to Coddington's attack in an open letter
printed in the New‘ggrk Times. Griscom answered each of Coddington's
statements as he pointed out the representative's faulty logic and
inaccuracies. By twisting death statistics, Coddington had made New
York look healthier than it actually was. (What Coddington wanted was
enough reform to silence the reformers, but still allow for graft.)
Griscom suggested that Coddington could make New York look even health-
ier if he disregarded all deaths due to small pox, or scarlet fever.
Coddington lived on Fifth Avenue, where 300 dwellings averaged five
persons apiece. "There all that ingenuity can devise, or wealth
purchase, contributed to the comfort and health of the occupants of
its palatial mansions." But one block away in the Fourth ward there
were fifty-nine buildings which housed over 1,500 people. Less than
twenty-five percent of the children went to school, and two-thirds of
the adults were illiterate. There were thirty-three cellar residences
and twenty grog shops where fifty prostitutes plied their trade. "Such
a picture as this had probably never been presented to your sight or
your imagination. Permit me to say that thirty years experience as a
practitioner of medicine, in connection with the Dispensaries and

Hospitals of this City, have made me familiar with such scenes, and

227

thus it is that I have become convinced of the necessity of a reform."
To Coddington's charge that he had deserted the health bill Griscom
replied that he had not "haunted the halls of the legislature" because
he felt the lobbyists there were all very capable. The bill being
discussed was everything Griscom wanted in health reform, being much
stronger than the bills he had prepared for the Sanitary Association.77

This was Griscom's last public statement regarding the passage
of the Metropolitan Health Bill. He ceased active lobbying, even
though much remained to be done, because he realized his presence in
Albany was more of a hindrance than a help. Over the years Griscom
hadmade many enemies, and certainly his article on sanitary legis-
lation, in which he outlined the bribes and corrupt bargains that
defeated successive health bills did not endear him to State Legis-
lators. Realizing this, he left active campaigning to Stephen Smith
and Dorman Eaton, the physician and the lawyer who jointly prepared
the bill which passed in 1866.78

’Even after Griscom "retired" from the lobby, attacks against
him continued. A letter in one of New‘York's medical journals called
for the establishment of a prize of $1,000 "for the best essay on
sanitary improvement in reference to New York. . . ." The winner
would be in charge of the health of the city, instead "of worn out
and incapable old fogies" like John H. Griscom and Joseph Smith.79

Following Griscom's example of 1842, the Citizen's Association
made a sanitary survey of the city in 1864, and fittingly enough, Dr.
Griscom reviewed it in the American Journal of the Medical Sciences.
As might be expected, the elder statesmen of the health movement used
the review as an appeal for new health legislation. He also presented

a report on the City Inspector and his inadequacies, along with the

228

shortcomings of the office itself. "The entire sanitary service is in
the hands of carmen, mechanics, grog-vendors, common labourers,
et id genus omne."80

About the same time the survey was made, the Council of H.giene
of the Citizen's Association sent a circular to several leading phy-
sicians, asking for their advice in updating the health laws of the city.
Griscom's reply stressed the evils and corruption of the City Inspector's
office, and party politics in general. "It is vein, in my judgment,
to expect any improvement in our health arrangements, from any law
which leaves the power in the hands of men appointed by, or amenable to,
the city authorities." For this reason Griscom was very pleased with
the state appointed tri-county health board.81

The bill failed to pass during the years of the Civil Whr, the
interests of the state being otherwise directed. At the war's conclusion,
however, the bill was guided through both houses of the Legislature, and
signed by the Governor, becoming law on February 26, 1866. The new law
created a Board of Health with four police commissioners, the Health
Officer, and four gubernatorial appointees, three of whom had to be
physicians. They were required to appoint an experienced physician as
sanitary superintendent, who was to have two assistants. Broad powers
gave these men full and complete control of the city's health. They
could, as Griscom so dearly wanted, issue cease and desist orders
to anyone who created a nuisance or unhealthy situation, and the power
of the police was there to support their actions. For their success
one need look no further than the blunted cholera epidemic of 1866
(it was in part fear of cholera that helped ensure passage), which "was
limited to a comparative handful of cases."82

‘More important is the fact that the bill served as a mode183 and

an inspiration--public health took precedence over machine politics.

229

Its passage was made certain as early as 1842 when Griscom called

for a "Reorganization of the Health Police." From that small beginning,
Griscom argued, cajoled, lobbied, and berated the medical profession,
politicians, and the general public through a number of articles,
pamphlets, addresses, and reviews into passing strict health measures
that would reduce the senseless mortality among the laboring classes

of New York City.

CHAPTER VI NOTES

1John Duffy, Aggistory of Public Health in New'York City, 1625-
1866 (New'York, 1968), 279-81. N.Y.S., Assembly, Report of the Committee
on the Incorporation of Cities and Villages, on the bill entitled "An
act concernm g the Public Health of the Counties of New'Yorklgxing_,
and Richmond," 83rd Sess.,‘March 9,1860,,Assembly Doc. 129.

2George Roses, Aggistgry of Public Health (New‘York, 1958), 240.
Duffy, History of Public Health, 356-74. Howard D. Kramer, "Early
‘Municipal and State Boards of Health," HEM, XXIV (Nov.-Dec., 1950).

3In.hisAnnual Report, City Inspector Griscom said that simple
concern for people was enough to force legislation prohibiting cellar
residences. "The power given to a magistrate to pull down a building,
whose risk of falling endangers the lives of the inmates or passers-by,
may with equal reason be extended to the correction of the interior
condition of tenements, when dangerous to health and life. The latter
should be regarded by the legislator and executive, with as much
solicitude as the property of citizens." John H. Griscom, Annual
Report of Interments in the City and County of New York for thegyear
1842,,with Remarks thereon,_and a Brief View of the Sanitary Condition
of the City (New'York,1843), 175- 76.

 

"John H. Griscom, "A Reorganization of the Health Police,"
Board of Aidermen.April 24, 1843, Doc. No. 111, 1313-15. The occupations
cited, and numerous others, were the norm for the health wardens.

 

51h1d., 1316-21.

6Ibid., 1319-21. Griscom's reports were reviewed in the NYJM,
LI (July, 1843), the reviewer being in complete agreement with Griscom
on the necessity of trained physicians serving as health police, as
opposed to cartmen and grocers, who usually occupied these positions
of importance. 99. Thg_New'York Tribune, which joined the reform forces
later, noted that the Board of Aldermen received Griscom's report,
along with a communication "respecting the removal of dead animals
.from the city." April 25, 1843.

7Alfred E. M. Purdy, The Medical Register of New York, New
Jersey and Connecticut for 1874 (New York, 1874), 275.

8John H. Griscom, The Sanitagy Condition of the Laboring Popu-
lation of the City of New‘York, with Suggestions for its Improvement
(New‘York,1845), 43-50.

9Ibid., 50- 54. John H. Griscom, Uses and Abuses of Air (New
York, 1850,1970), 140-44.

1OG[ouveneur] B[merson], "Review of The Sanitary Condition. . .",
as n “0’. (April, 1845), 396-400.

11n;r.c., City Inspector's Reports, 1845, 1846, passim.

230

231

12John H. Griscom, "Hygiene of New York City ," AMA, Transactions,
11 (1849), 458.

13NYAM,‘Minutes, July 7, Aug. 4, Sept. 1, 1852.
14hew York Times, July 13, 1852.

15_];___bid. , John H. Griscom, Anniversar Discourse Before the New
York Academy of Medicine, November 22,1854 (New York, 1855), 37- 38.

16New York Times, July 13, 1852.
172—12.
18.19.42-
19222.
20.1112.

21"New York Academy Of Medicine," NJMGJH, III (eh-11y 15, 1852),
188'89e

zzNew York.Tribune, Oct. 3, 25, 29, Nov. 6, 1852, Oct. 23, 1855.
23Griscom, Anniversary Discourse, 51.

241319., 52-53.

2?;ggg., 54-56.

26Jenks S. Sprague, "Annual Address ," MSNY, Eansactions (1854),
14-15.

27NYAM, Minutes, Feb. 6, March 5, May 6, 1856. In its report on
the February meeting, the Times noted that the matter was warmly debated
for one and one-half hours by Dr. Griscom, and others. Feb. 8, 1856.
N.Y.8., Assembly, 83rd Sess., March 9, 1860, Assembly Doc. 129, l.

28"J. Gotham, Jr. ," "Editorial Correspondence," NJMSR, D!
(March, 1856), 128. AMG, VII (July, 1856), 442. Reese and his journal,
the American Medical Gazette, joined the drive for health reform much
later than Griscom, but that did not stop Reese from accusing Griscom
of stealing "his" plan for health reform. Griscom wrote the Mayor,
urging health reform along the lines he had been using for the past
thirteen years, yet Reese accused Griscom of copying the idea from the
pages of the Gazette. The story is ridiculous, for Reese admitted
the plan was first suggested by him in 1850, fully eight years after
Griscom suggested it to the Board of Aldermen. _A_M_q, VI (Nov. , 1855), 517.

 

29James M. Newman, "Report on the Sanitary Police of Cities ,"
AMA, Transactions (1856), 453-72.

232

30"Abstract of Proceedings ," MSNY, Transactions (1857), 256-57.
N.Y.S., Senate, Report of Select Comittee relative to improvement of
Public Health4 and a Sanitary Law in the cigy of New York, 80th Sess. ,
March 11, 1857, Doc. No. 115. John H. Griscom, "Improvements of the
Public Health,and the Establishment of a Sanitary Police in the City
of New York," MSNY, Transactions (1857), 122.

”Griscom, "Improvements," 122.

3?;2;g., 115-16.

3%;pgg., 116-17.

34gpgg , 113-19.

351219., 120-21.

36"Abstract of Proceedings," m (1857), 249-50.

37"J. Gotham, Jr.," "Editorial Correspondence," NJMSR, X (March,
1857), 130-31. N.Y.S., Senate, Journal, 80th Sess., 1857, 44,275, 410.
u.r.s., Assembly, Journal, 80th Sess., 1857, 64-65. Duffy, History of
Public Health, 543'“.

389115;, VIII (May, 1857), 307. N.Y.S., Senate, Report of the
Select Coumsittee appointed to investigate the Health Department of the
city of New York, 82nd Sess., Feb. 3, 1859, Doc. 49. As regards medical
men and the City Inspectorship, Reese wrote in 1861 that although
Griscom was one of three medical candidates being considered by the
Mayor, "we should not be surprized if the doctors should all be laid
on the shelf, and the old wheel horse of the Democracy should receive
the nomination." 911g, x (Jan., 1859), 76.

391mm, Minutes, May 5, 1858. Afi, Ix (April, 1858), 237, 243-
44. N.Y.S., Assembly, Journal, 81st Sess., 1858, 90, 188. N.Y.S.,
Senate, Journal, 81st Sess., 1858, 34.

40"Abstract of Proceedings," 143m, gramactions (1858), 594-95-

 

“New York Times, Nov. 20, 1858.

421h16., Dec. 22, 1858.

4311!“, Reports (New York, 1859), 5-15, 22.

“ness, Second Annual Report (New York, 1860), 3-8, 17, 20-21.
Griscom's report was printed in the AM, XVIII (Dec., 1862), 401-18.
The Association only prepared two reports (1859, 1860) and apparently
petered out after the passage of the Metropolitan Health Bill in 1866.

455113, x (Feb., 1859), 154.

46111111, Minutes, Oct. 6, 20, 1858, July 6, 1859.

47N.Y.S., Senate, 82nd Sess., 'Feb. 3, 1859, Doc. 49, ssim.

233

481616., 1-8.

491bid., 14-16, passim.

5°Ibid., 24-29.

511bid., 34-35.

S""Ibidu 35-41. New York Times, Feb. 4, 1859.

53N.Y.s., Senate, 82nd Sess., Feb. 3, 1859, Doc. 49, 43-59.

541616., 76-77. Griscom did the same thing when his close
friend and associate Joseph Smith testified. The doctor spoke of the
need for control of the number of people per apartment, and Griscom
asked him whether a window connecting with the open air for each
bedroom was necessary. Smith agreed, modifying the statement to make
it a window or door. The point, however, was made.

55Ibid., 144-45.

5511514.

57Ibid., 149-53.

581bid., 153-55.

59Ibid., 156-58.

591§id., 160-98, 199-200.

611-114.. 208.

62D. F. Clondie] , Review ofR _eport of the Select Comittee
_ppointed to Investigate the Health Department of the City of New
York, A348, XXIX n.s., (Jan. , 1860), 180. The NYAICP also reviewed
the Senate Report, and spoke of the important testihony given by
Griscom. NYAICP, Sixteenth Annual Report (New York, 1859), 45.

63s;Y.s., Assembly, Journal, 82nd Sess., 1859, 214, 227, 419,

499-500, 594. John H. Griscom, Sanitary Legislation, Past and Future
(New York, 1859), 4-5.

Giggw‘Yorhyggnoo, Feb. 4, Aug. 31, 1859. NYSA, Re orts, 15.
GQQEQ, X.(June, 1859), 458-60 (Aug., 1859), 617.

“New York Times, March 6, 9, 14, 20, 1860. N.Y.S., Assembly,

Journal, 83rdr Sess., 1860, 273, 348, 579, 1100-01. Griscom, Sanitagy
Le islation, 5-6.

“Mink Times, April 7, 11, 1860. Griscom, Sanitary Legis-
latigg, 5-6. The New York Assembly prepared a report on the health
bill, and it followed Criscom' a thought so closely that he might have
prepared it. It found the same evils and reached the same conclusions
in regard to solutions, adding "no bill has ever been presented to the

234

Legislature based upon sounder views of public policy, or more urgently
demanded by the welfare of the people, than the health bill which we
now have the honor to report. . . ." Still, it did not pass. N.Y.S.,
Assembly, 83rd Sess., March 9, 1860, Assembly Doc. 129, 17, 23-24.

68N.Y.S., Assembly, Report of the Committee on the Incorporation
of Cities and Villages, on the bill entitled, 'An act concerningpthe
public health of the counties of New York, King; and Richmond, and the
waters thereof, 84th Sess., Feb. 7, 1861, Assembly Doc. 59, 7-9, 12-13,
35-40. N.Y.S., Assembly, Journal, 84th Sess., 107, 241, 292, 364, 588,
614. N.Y.S., Senate, Journal, 84th Sess., 62, 71, 429, 811-12, 906.
Griscom, Sanitary Legislation, 6-7. The Times was again in support of
Griscom's health bill. It further noted a change in the City Inspector's
office, the incumbent being replaced by a crony of Fernando Wood. I
Although Griscom was not at the meeting where this occurred, "he was
an object of special bitterness." New'York Times, Feb. 15, March 22,
April 6, Sept. 22, 1861. Dr. Reese accused Griscom of "running about
from one cityteditor to another, trying to get them to endorse and
advertise a certain "health bill which he had concocted. . . ."
Reese, obviously, did not read the Times. AMG, XII (April, 1861), 305.

69mm, Minutes, Oct. 2, 1861. Philip Van Ingen, The New York
Academ of Medic ine, the First One Hundred Years (New York, 1949), 115.

70Griscom, Sanita Le islation, 3-4.
711bid., 7-11, 12-22.
721b1d,, 23-28, 30-31.

73Ibid., 32-37. At the 1862 meeting of the State Medical
Society, T. C. Brinsmade called for the appointment of a comittee to
"draft a Sanitary Code for the State of New York. " Griscom was one of
the members, and at the 1863 meeting, in Brinsmade' s report, he sub-
mitted a code for New York City. The Central Board of Health,
controlled by physicians, would handle registration of vital statis-
tics and all matters pertaining to the health of the state. The Local
Board would care for streets, sewers, water, and the care of the sick.
It would also be composed of physicians. "Abstract of Proceedings," MSNY,
Transactions (1862), 478. Thomas C. Drinsmade, Chrm., "Report of the
Comittee Appointed to Draft a Sanitary Code for The State of New
York" (prepared by Griscom and Theo. L. Mason) MSNY, Transactions (1863),
337- 39.

74"Sanitary Arrangements in New York," 1183;, VII (Jan. 11, 1862),
349-51. '

75N.Y.S 8., Senate, Journal, 85th Sess., l862,36,45, 128,156,
593. New York Times, March 24,1862. Lport of the Council of Hygiene
and Public Health, of the Citizens' Association of New York, Upon the
Sanitag Condition of the City (New; York, 1865), vii.

76N.Y.S., Assembly, Report of the Minorpty of the Select Couittee
of Nine; Upon the Metropolitan HealthpBill for the City and Port of
New York and Counties of Riggs and,Rirclmond, 85th Sess. , April 7, 1862,
Assembly Doc. 203, passim.

235
77New York Times, April 21, 1862.

78Duffy, History of Public Health, 558-70.

79"Really Independent," um, 1 (July 27, 1864), 186-87. John
Duffy, leading historian of public health, cites Griscom and Smith
as first and third of the physician-reformers of ante-bellum New York.
History of Public Health, 567.

80John H. Griscom, "Sanitary Condition of New York City,"
AJMS, L n.s. (Oct., 1865), 419-28.

8l-John H. Griscom, Reply to the Citizens Association Committee
ofinquiry on the Sanitary Condition of New York Cipy (New York, 1864).

82Duffy, History of Public Health, 560-63. Gert Brieger, "Sani-
tary Reform in New York City: Stephen Smith and the Passage of the
Metropolitan Health Bill," 2‘31: XL (Sept. -0ct., 1966), 407-29.
Charles Rosenberg, The Cholera Years (Chicago, 1962), 192-93. For a
complete analysis of the passage of the bill in 1866, see Duffy,
Brieger, or the New York Times, winter, 1865-66.

83Susan Wade Peabody, "Historical Study of Legislation Regard-
ing Public Health in the States of New York and Massachusetts ," JID,
Supplement 4 (Feb., 1909), 24-29.

CHAPTER VII
GRISCOM AND THE NEW’YORK PRISON ASSOCIATION
I was in prison and you came to
me. Lord, when did we see thee
sick or in prison and visit thee?
Truly I say to you, as you did
it to one of the least of these
my brethren, you did it to me.
Matthew 25
The Anglo-American impulse for humanitarian reform that was so
prevalent during the middle years of the nineteenth century reached the
lives of most,Americans, including the prisoner, were he a convicted
felon or only a witness held for safe-keeping. In the 1840's, the
New'York Prison.Association was founded to safeguard the rights of all
those held behind bars, and to improve their condition in whatever way
possible. John H. Griscom was a member of many of the inspection teams
that criss-crossed the state. He also served in a variety of executive
positions, which varied from1Vice-President to Chairman of the Executive
Committee to Chairman of the Committee on Prison Discipline. His
name is attached to many of the executive papers as well as to many of
the NYPA's inspection reports. At the suggestion of the Association

he prepared an essay in 1868, on Prison H iene, which was praised in

both penal and medical circles.

I
Griscom came by his interest in the prison through his father,
John Griscom, who was instrumental in the founding of the House of

Refuge for juvenile delinquents. During a trip abroad in 1818-19, the

236

237

elder.Griscom visited penal and charitable institutions in England and
on the continent, and spoke to several leading reformers, including
Elizabeth Fry. When he returned to New'York he worked with the Society
for the Prevention of Pauperism (which he had helped form in 1817) to
establish a reformatory in the United States.1

In 1823 the elder Griscom was appointed chairman of a committee
to persuade to public to support a house of refuge, and in December
of that year the Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents
was formed to supersede the Society for the Prevention of Pauperism.
Incorporated by the state in 1824, it was authorized to establish a
house of refuge, which 1: did in 1325.2

‘Many years later Dorothea Dix wrote of the institution in
these words: "The House of Refuge in the city of New York, appeared to
me in all respects, one of the best regulated institutions of the kind
I have seen. It admits to some changes for the better, . . . but, as
it is, is one of great usefulness; it is a blessing to its inmates,
and to society."3

Unfortunately, the elder Griscom's activities in prison reform
for older offenders was not as successful. "In 1819 and again in 1821
he was instrumental in the passage of legislation which resulted in
the solitary system at Auburn. While the idea might have been of
value, no one stapped the contractor from building the cells three and
one-half by seven by seven feet high. Keeping the prisoners locked up
in such cells soon had a detrimental effect on their mental and physi-
cal health; within a few years however, the prisoners were employed in
the prison shops during the daytime and locked up in their cells only
at night, providing some improvement in their condition. (In his 1863
inspection report, Griscom vigorously attacked the smallness of the

cells. See below, p.238. The elder Griscom also preceded his son in

238
visiting the prison near the village of Sing Sing. He and an associate,
the humanitarian Thomas Eddy, visited the site, then called Mount
Pleasant, in 1825, and "found the prisoners busily cutting marble,
burning lime, laying masonry, and making iron beds for their own cells.“
The general condition of the prisoner was almost beyond belief.
Flogging, douching, and solitary confinement on bread and water were
comonplace, as were public hangings. The conditions in the prisons
were equally appalling; filth and disease were everywhere present.
But conditions were improving as the more responsible elements in
society called for an end to barbarous conditions. Indeed, during this
period Maine and Vermont did away with capital punishment.5
The improvements helped, but conditions were still frighteningly

bad. During his American visit in 1842 Charles Dickens toured the Tombs
in New York's Five Points district. The building itself was cold and
uninviting, made up of four tiers of cells. Each tier was in two
sections, connected by a bridge where guards chatted, dosed or read.
The novelist discussed the cells with his guide:

"Are those black doors the cells?"

“’3'."

"Are they all full?"

"Well, they're pretty nigh full, and that's a fact, and

no two ways about it."

"Those at the bottom are unwholesome, surely?"

"Why, we 19 only put the colored pe0ple in there. That's

the truth."

"When do the prisoners take exercise?"

"Well, they do without it pretty much. "

"Do they never walk in the yard?"

"C ons iderab 1e seldom. "

"Sometimes, I suppose?"

"Well, its rare they do. "
Upon inspection, Dickens found the cells small, with only a place to
wash, a table, and a bedstead. Light, and probably the only fresh air
to enter the cell, came through a small hole high in the wall. The

man in that particular cell had been there for one month without the

opportunity for fresh air and exercise, and he would be there for at

239
least one more month before his trial. The guide then led Dickens
across the bridge to the women's cells, which, with the exception of a
small hole in the door, were the same. The son of the man they had
just visited, a twelve year old boy, was shut up in one of these cells,

his only offense being that he was a witness against his father.6

II

Two years after Dickens sailed back to England, John W.
Edmonds was placed at the head of the Board of Inspectors of Sing
Sing Prison. Edmonds and his fellow inspectors were almost able to
eliminate the flogging of prisoners, substituting more humane punish-
ments. While prison life at Sing Sing was improving, Edmonds saw the
need for an organization that would educate the public and spread
reform beyond Mount Pleasant. Therefore, on December 3, 1844, he
inserted a notice in the Neijprk Tribune, calling for a public meeting
to organize a "prison reform association. " Within one week the New York
Prison Association was created, with Edmonds its moderate head. He
stood between the extremes of seeing the prisoner as totally vicious or
as someone who needed nothing more than compassion. "The new prison
association, he said, should wed itself to neither the congregate
nor the solitary method, but rather 'select from both that which is
wisest and best. "'7

After the organization was formally approved by those who were
present, a comittee was formed to improve the condition of all prison-
ers, guilty or innocent. Other connittees were appointed to examine
the diverse questions of prison discipline, management, and discharged
convicts, which included finding the latter a job and easing their re-

entry into society.8

240
Soon the INPA revealed that their program was to make a break
with the past. Whereas earlier reformers assumed that little or nothing
could be gained in a study of European conditions, the members of the
Association corresponded with the leading penologists of the continent.
They also looked into the possibility of founding a national organization,
but as this did. not materialize until 1870, most of their early work
was limited to New York state.9
A special act of the Legislature incorporated the Association
in 1846. Its charter stated the Association's three objects:
1. The amelioration of the condition of prisoners,
whether detained for trial, or finally convicted, or as
witnesses.
2. The improvement of prison discipline, and the govern-
ment of prisons, whether for cities, counties or states.
3. The support and encouragement of reformed convicts
after their discharge, by affording them the means of
obtaining an honest livelihood, and sustaining them in
their efforts at reform.
The charter demonstrated the Association's concern for justice; they
wanted the guilty punished and the innocent released. They felt justice
would best be served by better separation of the sexes, enforced
discipline, and separation of juvenile offenders, witnesses, and harden-
ed criminals. The Association worked to rehabilitate those who could
be reached, but they freely gave the police the names of those beyond
help. The charter granted the NYPA the right to inspect the state
penal institutions, and report to the Legislature "their state and
condition, and all such other things in regard to them as may enable
the Legislature to perfect their government and discipline." It must.
be added that the Association performed more as a lobby than as an
official arm of the Legislature. 1°
The work of the Association was divided into three departments

to correspond to the aims set forth in the charter. The detention

department visited and assisted those awaiting trial; during the course

241

of their operations they were able to free many first offenders or
innocent victims. NYRA investigations also turned up evidence which
assured speedy arrest and trial of the guilty. The discharged convict
department helped men recently released find employment. In addition
they gave advice, and assistance--food, money,or clothing--where
needed. The prison discipline section inspected the penal institutions
of the state and made annual reports to the Legislature.11

The results of the NYPA and its work are nmpressive. After
fifteen years of existence the Association had visited and counseled
50,750 prisoners. Their activity and intervention had resulted in
the release of 17,605 innocent people or youthful offenders. They had
aided 6,973 prisoners with food, clothing,or money while 2,578 had
been found honest employment. The Prison Discipline Committee had
visited and investigated the situations at seventy-one prisons on the
state and county level and had carried on an active correspondence with
pehologists and philanthropists. "Organized under a legislative charter
of ample powers, the Association possesses great facilities for investi-
gating prison abuses, alleviating prison miseries, and reforming prison
inmates. For persons thus situated--who, though fallen, are still our
brethren--we, as members of the Prison Association, interest ourselves,
and during the past year, have materially assisted 1075 discharged

prisoners to regain their lost position and character."12

III
The year after the Association's founding, John H. Griscom
joined the Committee on Prison Discipline. For the next twenty-five
years he served on that committee, sometimes in addition to other
duties*within the Association, and always carrying out his other reform

activities. He held such positions as Chairman of the Executive Committee

242
from 1855 until 1864, fourth Vice-President from 1854 until 1859 and
then third Vice-President from 1866 until 1872. In 1867 and 1868 he
chaired the Committee on Discharged Convicts and then served on that
committee until his retirement from the Association in 1873. In
1853 he chaired the Committee on Prison Discipline.13 Obviously, in
this organization.as in so many others, Griscom provided constant
leadership directed towards improving "how the other half lives." As
a contemporary of his noted:
For fifteen [actually twenty-five] years he was a.member
of the Prison Association, and was for ten years chairman
of its executive committee. It has for its object an
annual inspection of all the prisons in the State, and
mmch that is connected with sanitary regulations. Not
a few of the amended laws of the state, in reference to
the physical welfare of the prisoners, are due to his
zeal.14
Griscom's earliest work in prison reform related to prison
discipline. The general duty of this committee was to supervise "the
internal organization and management of prisons in which convicts
are confined, embracing the moral and physical influences to be exerted
on the prisoners during their confinement." The committee's respon-
sibilities included:
health, which included cleanliness, diet, ventilation,
medical treatment and dress.
classification, by age, sex, crime, and number of offenses.
‘morals, instruction and visitation rights of prisoners.
supervision of prisons, appointment of officers and their
qualifications. ‘
comparison of prisons in New‘York and other states.
tabulation of accurate statistics.
prison visitation. 15
As a Gothamite, Griscom was especially interested in the condition
of the penitentiary on Blackwell's Island. In 1846 a committee was
formed to investigate the penitentiary, and one of their first actions

was to send a memorial to the Canon Council. "It is a reproach to

the city,and to the administration of criminal justice. It is alike

243
inimical to the comfort, health, moral government, reformation, and
punishment of its inmates." It was so overcrowded that some prisoners
had to be transferred to the city prison. The prison was overcrowded
and this condition resulted in the mixing of condemned men with wit-
nesses and those awaiting trial. "The state of things in the Peni-
tentiary is subversive of order, incompatible with reformation,’and
destructive of the diet and of punishment."16
‘Much of the problem was related to the practice of jailing

vagrants with hardened criminals. To alleviate this, the special
committee recommended the establishment of a workhouse for vagrants,
which would save the city money (the labor of the inmates would pay
for their keep), rehabilitate them (the guards would serve as moral
instructors) and reduce the overcrowding. The strength of this plan
lay in the fact that it was extremely successful with the youthful
offender; in 1845 there were 662 vagrants, seventy-one under twenty
and 460 under thirty. With the right kind of help, these wayward
youths could be taught an honest trade. "To erect and conduct a
prison which will prevent the natural contamination of prisoners, which
by its own labor shall relieve the honest part of the community from
the burden of its support, and which shall bring to bear upon a
neglected and degraded portion of our population every practical
appliance for education and‘moral refonm, are the ends which the Prison
Association now proposes to itself."17

' The committee on the workhouse had a sub-committee, chaired by
Griscom, concerned with the location and erection of the structure.
From.July until October, 1846, he reported the progress of the group
as they examined floor plans of the Poor Law Commissioners, which
Griscom thought could be adopted, in modified form, for New York City.

Furthermore, in searching the official city records he discovered that

244
a cost analysis had already been made. He concluded that the
employment of convict labor would result in lower construction costs.
(Griscom never made mention of the controversy between labor organizers
who complained that convict labor hurt their cause and the officials
who favored use of such labor because of its economical benefits.
Apparently, Griscom did not see the connection between low wages and
convict labor, or if he did, he failed to mention it.)18

The next year the Executive Comittee of the Association reported
that the workhouse had not been built because they were unable to get
the necessary funds from the Col-son Council. Yet the Association was
"confident that patient perseverance will yet overcome all obstacles."
It did, because a temporary workhouse was completed by mid-June, 1849,
which, with a pOpulation of 250 imates earned $2,000 a week in its
first six months. The city penitentiary, with over twice as many
prisoners, earned considerably less. In a letter attached to his
report, Superintendent of the workhouse Harman Eldridge wrote:

I have no hesitation . . . in saying, from daily and
careful observation, that with buildings properly adapted
for a workhouse, with a view to the classification of the
various grades of characters, and with stringent rules and
regulations for its good government, that it will not
only ameliorate and improve the moral condition of the
inmates, but it will be more satisfactory to the taxpayers
of the city of New York. 19‘ .

While the workhouse proved a success, the situation at Blackwell's
Island was not as good. It was one of the largest penitentiaries in
the United States and Europe, yet the administration was badly in need
of reform. The discipline was so lax that some criminals lookediforward
to a few months on the island as "rather pleasant." While the NYPA made
some progress in cleaning up Blackwell's Island, there was still s great

deal to be done before the penitentiary could be considered a first-

rate institution.20 (This was only a few years after Griscom's dis-

closures about the hospitals on Blackwell's Island. Ch. v, Sec. v.)

245

Finally, at the beginning of the Civil War a permanent workhouse
"for the purpose of receiving all disorderly persons, and persons
committed as vagrants, and to keep, detain and employ them, &c." was
erected on Blackwell's Island. The NYPA had discovered that the project
was beyond its means, and the Common Council was not very much interested
in its construction; nevertheless, "the workhouse, proposed and for many
years earnestly labored for by this.Association, has been erected, and

is now in happy and successful operation."21

IV
Dr. Griscom became involved in the inspection of prisons early
in his association with the NYPA. As early as 1845 a Prison Discipline
sub-comittee was appointed to inspect the city prisons and submit a
report. Griscom was among the five members who, after discussing the
type of criminal incarcerated, spoke of the ventilation:
Each cell will provide pure air to the lungs of its
inmates, (supposing it is pure when he enters it, which
it is not), for a period of thirty minutes; he then
begins to re-inhale the air, and it may easily be
perceived that in the morning, after twelve hours'
confinement, the atmosphere must be of a very offensive
description.22
The cells themselves were bad enough, but for punishment of the incorr-
igible two air-tight holes were used. The prisoner was confined to
one of these for one or two days, depending on the severity of his
offense. The committee was decidedly opposed to such treatment: "if
the keeper of‘a prison cannot be permitted to maim a convict for
life, neither should he be allowed to subject him to such a horrible
ordeal as this, inevitably sowing the seeds of disease, which half a
lifetime of the best air and nourishment may not eradicate."23
As‘might be expected, prison officials were not always happy to

see the‘members of thenAssociation on an inspection tour. When the NYPA

was incorporated, however, the Legislature had made it its duty to

246

inspect prisons regularly. One of the first inspected by Dr. Griscom
was Clinton Prison in the far north of the state, near the city of
Plattsburgh. Called Dannemora after the Swedish ore center, it was an
attempt on the part of the state government to mine iron ore through
the use of convict labor; although the ore gave out ten years after
the prison was opened in 1844, the other prisons were so badly crowded
that the state was forced to keep it open. Although the ventilation
was primitive and inadequate, Griscom and Judge J. W. Edmonds gave the
prison a clean bill of health. This report was, as were all Griscom's
reports, carefully documented; it included a number of tables which
listed the prisoner's vital statistics, and the mortality of Dannemora.
Among the more favorable aspects of the prison noted was the end of
the silent system, the most severe punishment being solitary confinement
on bread and water. The inspectors happily reported that many oppor-
tunities existed for the men to improve themselves. The next year
two different gentlemen toured Clinton Prison and were equally impressed
with the facilities. They did not, however mentioned the inadequate
ventilation, and in general their report was not as complete as
that of their predecessors.24

Inspections of the various prisons of the state was good in that
it brought the public into the prisons to see what was happening; but
if it went no further, then it was little more than a gesture. After
four years of work, the Executive Committee was able to say that "the
paralysing thought, that man, once fallen, is irreclaimably lost, is
fast losing its influence, and society is awakening from the dreary
night of hopeless indifference to the sun light of a more promising
day."25

Griscom and his fellow inspectors exposed numerous evils which

would have otherwise gone unnoticed. "In this manner was obtained the

247

clue of numerous abuses, which through our instrumentality, were corrected,
but which never met the public eye in the annual reports made to the
Legislature." The.Association exposed cruelties which the wardens
never included in any of their official reports. For example, one
inmate was beaten with a hickory club and repeatedly jabbed with
bayonets. Finally, covered with blood, he was dragged out and given
fifty lashes, after which he was confined for eight months on bread
and water. "Yet not one word of this affair ever reached the public
eye except through our report." Dr. Griscom was one of five members
of the Executive Comittee who signed and transmitted this report to
the state authorities.26 ?

Another section of this same report contained figures used to
illustrate the Association's activity. In 1847 the number of lashes
laid on at Sing Sing equalled only three percent of the 1843 total.
Further, “in the language of a person recently discharged this society
has given convicts new'hope, a new hold on the community, they feel
as though they were no longer hunted as wild beasts, but cared for as
rational beings and they are determined so to conduct while in prison
as to merit our assistance when they come out." Since it was generally
accepted that the state government had little interest in the treatment
of the prisoner, the NYPA filled this void. Within the.Association
Griscom was actively working to further the humanitarian work.27

Unfortunately the State Legislature was not entirely in favor of
this help. During an extra session in 1847 the NYPA was made the subject
of an attack by a Senate committee. The Committee on State Prisons had
been called to inspect a prison, and they had concluded that the NYPA
was undermining discipline, agreeing with the State Prison Inspectors
Board that the.Association's inspections interfered with the normal

discipline and order of the state penal institutions. The NYPA was

248
also accused of preventing the correction of abuses in criminal justice.
Therefore, in 1848, the Board of Inspectors adopted a rule which
virtually eliminated prison inspections.28

Through the early years of the 1850's Griscom was chairman
of the Prison Discipline Committee, the problems with the Legislature
continued. While the NYPA had the legal right to inspect, the State
Inspectors refused to grant its members access. Griscom lamented
the end of the inspections: ”These examinations," he said, "had they
been continued, most have led to a more careful and honest discharge
of the duties imposed, and would have undoubtedly tended materially to
a higher discipline, and a more conscientious discharge of duties."29

Because of the interdict placed on their activities, the Prison
Discipline Committee was forced to present a shorter report for 1851.
Before 1851, Griscom and his fellow committeemen had been concerned
with prison inspections and comparison of various systems; now they
were forced to turn their attention to other activities. For
example, ”spotting" by police must be ended. Just before a prisoner
was released the police would come up and observe him, on the premise
that "once a rogue, always a rogue." The committee thought that many
men "have left the prisons with virtuous resolutions who have been
driven back into crime by the knowledge that the watchful eye of the
police was upon them. . . ." The committee also called for a reexam-
ination of the policy of executive clemency which made it impossible
for the poor to be pardoned.30

In 1852 the NYPA's entire report was given over to its right to
inspect prisons. It had had a suit in court to force the Prison
Inspectors to allow them.access, but the Association withdrew it hoping
for a favorable response from the Inspectors. Despite the ban, the

Prison Discipline Committee had been able to inspect several prisons

249
in the New York City area, and reported the institutions to be in a
deplorable condition. The gist of the report was that more inspections
were needed to improve conditions, and the ban‘was lifted.31
Until the last year of his chairmanship of the Executive Committee,
Griscom was too busy to inspect any prisons. Then in 1863 he managed
to visit several houses of correction located in central New York.
He toured the prisons and penitentaries of the counties of Monroe,
Erie, Niagara, Orleans, and Schuyler and the Western House of Refuge
in Erie County during the early summer. (A penitentiary stood between
the county jail which housed minor offenders and the state prison which
was for hardened criminals. Penitentiaries were usually connected
with a workhouse. Generally, the opportunity for the reformation of
criminals was greater there than at either the county or state prisons.)
At the Monroe County penitentiary Griscom found the food and clothing
allowance adequate but the water and ventilation sub-standard. Al-
though there was a library, there was no opportunity for secular
instruction. Inmates were allowed to write to relatives and receive
visitors once a month. In general his reports were more complete and
factual than those of other inspectors, in part because Griscom in-
spected everything--ce11 blocks, hospitals, workhouses,and libraries.
While in the county Griscom also visited the county jail, and found it
entirely wanting. "The premises were altogether in a most deplorable
condition."32
The Western House of Refuge was a juvenile reformatory with
which Dr. Griscom was very much impressed:
Here were found about 400 youths, in a spacious and even
elegant building, under admirable government and discipline,
well fed and clothed, receiving good school instruction,
and taught various useful trades and lessons of industry,

to fit them to act the part of good.American citizens,
as many hundreds of the former inmates are now doing,

250

who but for these institutions would doubtless have
become inmates of severe penal institutions.33

Unfortunately he was not as impressed with the rest of the prisons he
visited that year; in general he found them wanting in the area of
instruction, although most of them were relatively clean.
Two penitentiaries visited several times by Griscom were those
of Erie and Monroe counties. He saw them both for the first time
during the visits of 1863 and he returned in 1865, 1868, and 1870. Of
the two, the penitentiary at Erie was far superior. In 1868 he noted
that there were 200 cells for men arranged in five tiers in one
building and 80 cells for women in another building (at the time of
his visit the imstes numbered 167 men and 77 women); His report
reflected his pleasure:
The very salubrious condition and excellent management
of this prison, are illustrated by the fact that only
one death occurred during the present fiscal year, and
that resulted from a previous life of intemperance and
dissipation. Further no sickness whatever appears to
have been occassioned by local causes in the institution.
A more worthily and felic itiously managed prison is
probably not to be found in the United States.

The superintendent of the penitentiary, Charles E. Felton, had just

been reelected to a third term. The institution was almost self-

supporting, with the prisoners working to earn their own keep.“

The Monroe County penitentiary was also well run, but it was not
up to the standards of Erie. The former was much larger, housing 558
men and 166 women. Griscom found that both places had equal numbers of
foreign born and native American inmates. Although half of the prisoners
were intemperate he did not draw any conclusions about intemperance
and foreign birth. Both penitentiaries provided religious as well as
secular instruction, and both hospitals were excellent. He was pleased

with the ventilation provided at the county facilities, although he

thought water was scarce at Monroe. Finally, he reported that the men

251

and women confined in these penitentaries had cousitted minor offen-
ses.35

When Griscom visited these places in 1865 they were only two
stops on a very busy schedule, as he visited similar facilities in
several other counties as well. In his reports Griscom was mainly
concerned with the physical aspects of the building and the health and
well being of the prisoners. To keep the prisoners healthy location
was of prime importance, and Griscom thought that although the venti-
lation was poor at Monroe, its excellent location made up for the other
shortcomings. 35

or. Griscom visited county jails several times between 1864 and
1870, and saw little in the way of improvement (since the Metropolitan
Health Bill no longer occupied him, he was free to make extended trips
at this time). In 1868 he was one of three to visit 68 county jails;
their report, in which they discussed the jails individually and
collectively, took up half of that year's Annual Report. The crux of
the inspection reports was in seventeen tables which showed the causes
and nature of the crimes the prisoners had con-itted. Several tables
were devoted to marital status, age, sex, color, education, and religious
interest. In addition to these statistics, the reports were concerned
with the administration of jails and their place as schools for crime.
One evil that appeared repeatedly was the detaining of hardened
criminals, first offenders, condemed men, and witnesses in the same
cells. In the smaller jails men andwomen were occasionally confined
together. Finally, the trio addressed themselves to the physical
plant, the opportunity for moral and secular instruction, and the
cleanliness and health of the prisoner.37

In the spring of 1867, Dr. Griscom again inspected the county

jails in western New York. "With a single exception, no improvement

252
whatever in their moral or sanitary arrangement was observable." The
worst problem‘was the night sanitary facilities for the prisoners.
"Every prison cell is furnished with a night-pail, in which the poison-
ous emanations of the occupants are concentrated and retained for
several hours, giving forth their foul and poisonous gases to an
extent productive in all instances of more or less depression of vital
powers, and in some instances risking the production of typhoid diseases,
not only in the prison itself, but also in the adjoining buildings."
The.Waterloo jail was the exception which Griscom mentioned in his
report. It was a new prison in Seneca county, and the only one that
used disinfectants. Griscom devoted half of his report to outlining
the improved condition of that institution.38
Griscom returned to the same counties in 1868 and for a last
official visit in 1870. Things wereabout the same in 1868 as they
had been the previous year: "In general I feel obligated to report
that no very marked improvements were observed in said county jails,
as having been made since the last report of them, though it is grati-
fying to be able to state that in some instances the local managers
are more than ordinarily impressed with the importance of the reforms-
tory and hygienic interests of the inmates." There were no improvements
in the physical plants; the ventilation was still inadequate and odors
overpowering. Even though the NYPA had been investigating prisons for
years, Dr. Griscom's last report noted the same evils to be still in
existence: even though the NYPA had been investigating prisons for years,
Their internal arrangements are, for the most part, incon-
venient and unsatisfactory; old and young, novices and
professional criminals, the innocent and the guilty, are
generally huddled together in the daytime, and imperfect-
ly separated at night; there is little in the jails of
nwhat may be called discipline, and less use of moral
agencies for the benefit of their inmates; the prisoners

have no regular employment, no secular instruction, no
libraries, and generally, no provision is made for a due

253
supply of their religious wants; their sanitary condition,
as respects ventilation, drainage, air and sunlight, is
seldom*what it should be; overcrowding is not infrequent;
very often there is no adequate separation of the sexes;--
such is the detail-~by no means an exhaustive one--of the
imperfections, defects, and objectionable features of
our system of common jails. The sheriffs usually do the
best they can with the means at their command; but the
system itself needs a radical reform.39
While Griscom usually inspected the county jails alone, the NYEA
sent a committee to inspect the state prisons. Twice during the Civil
War and once inediately after it, Griscom served on the con-ittee
appointed to inspect the state facilities. In 1863 he and two others
visited Sing Sing. They were concerned with the physical plant, the
administrative personnel and the convicts. .Among their recommendations
was the immediate erection of a wall, to be built with prison labor.g It
was pointed out that the cells were far too small for the health and
wellbeing of the inmates. As regards the administrative personnel,
the committee examined the activity of the guards, the chaplain,and the
secular instructors. Griscom and his associates examined the health
of the prisoners, the amount of correspondence they were allowed, their
food, and their personal cleanliness, which included bathing, bedding,
and clothing. Ventilation, the treatment of diseases, and the prison
hospital were also investigated. The committee made a complete record
of the prisoners--number, age, sex, color, crime, length of sentence,
release, pardons, education, and occupation.were included in tabular
form.“0
The NYEA sent a committee of three the following year to examine
the prison at Dannemora, and Griscom'was again one of the members.
Whereas they had been generally displeased with the physical arrangements
at Sing Sing, they found Clinton prison to be superior:
To the better ventilation here found, conjoined with the

general salubrity of the situation, the regular hours
of labor and the good diet, is to be attributed the small

254

amount of sickness observed, cases of acute disease being

very rare, and such as require medical care Abe-ing mostly

hereditary in their origin, or the result of evil habits

prior to admission.‘*1

The physical condition of the prison had a great deal to do
with the mortality rate of the prisoners. Griscom reported that confine-
ment in an eighteenth century European prison was about the same as a
death sentence. As the sanitary conditions improved, the death rate
dropped proportionately; in Lyons it was one in nineteen from 1800 to
1806 whereas it had dropped to one in forty-three by 1820. New York
City provided an even better illustration. With the exception of the
city prison, sanitary rules were not followed. There, as a result of
the work of the medical officer, a Dr. Covel, there were no deaths from
cholera in 1849, even though the prison was located in the Sixth ward--
the ward hardest hit by the cholera epidemic. During the cholera
season 6,000 people passed through the prison, and despite its poor
construction, Covel maintained his perfect record. Thus Dr. Griscom
could say with complete assurance, that the sanitary condition of the
prisons and jails of the state was a prime concern to the government."2
As interest in humanitarianism developed, the method of disci-

plining prisoners was altered. There was a movement away from the more
primitive, barbaric means of handling men. Where the cat had been
used extensively earlier in the century, the douche or shower became
the chief means of control in the 1830's. The prisoner was stripped,
placed in a seated position and strapped down; then cold water fell on
his head more quickly than it could run off, giving the victim the
sensation of drowning. Some men were sick for months afterwards, some
went insane, and many died. Taking the prisoner was next in cruelty.

An iron bar, four or five inches wide and five or six feet long, with

a strap to fit around the neck and straps for the wrists, was placed

255
on the shoulders of the prisoner. Weighing from thirty to forty
pounds, it continually forced the man to stoop, but the more he stooped
the greater the pain. By 1847 all three of these tortures had been
outlawed, but Griscom.and his committee found numerous instances
where they were still in use.43 I
Dr. Griscom showed his concern for the treatment of witnesses
in this report, in which he again called for the separation of the
innocent witness from the convicted prisoner. He realized that the one
sure way to cure the evil of treating witnesses more harshly than the
guilty was to end the practice of imprisoning witnesses. "Their testi-
mOny may be required, and it is their duty to give it when called on;
but until they refuse to give it they are entitled to their liberty."
The report cited the case of a woman who had been swindled. She went
to the police and the swindler was arrested and immediately released
on bond. The witness, "not having amaesed wealth by crime, she was
not as fortunate as the accused in finding a friend to bail her, and
she was cast into prison and made to expiate the crime of daring to
enforce the law of the State by an imprisonment of 57 days." The trial
was held, the criminal fined ten dollars and both were released. The
woman was not given "one cent compensation for her loss of time and the
derangement of her affairs, and probably taught by her sufferings never
again to seek redress from the law on a similar occasion. "44
Detention of those accused of crimes was also a problem. Griscom
cited the case of a man and his son.who were held for five weeks and
then honorably released.
Who pays for their loss of character [Griscom wrote],
their loss of time, and of money? One would suppose it
would be a sufficient sacrifice for the good of society,
for an innocent man to be incarcerated for so long a

time, even if he was paid the ordinary price of a day's
labor, but to compel him to suffer the loss of liberty,

256‘

and the loss of money at the same time, is a sacrifice

too great to be borne patiently. This detention falls

most exclusively where it is least able to be borne.45

Griscom and the Prison Discipline Committee were concerned with
the confinement of prisoners within the bounds of health and cleanli-
ness. The committee favored the radiating prison plan, in which two to
four story cell blocks were connected to a central hub. The number of
spokes ranged from two to six, with four being ideal. Each cell block
had individual cells which could be converted to the congregate system.
The workshops and cafeteria were below the hub, the chapel above it.
‘With numerous barred windows, fresh air and sunlight were no problem.
"The plan enables the prisoners to be constantly engaged, whether in
work, study, instruction, sleeping, feeding, or other necessary occupations,
and thus preventing the ennui and the diseases created by idleness."
Such a prison would be self-supporting. The primary advantage to Griscom
was, however, the individual cells which.would keep hardened criminals
from first offenders, thus preventing the prison from becoming a seedbed
of crimml‘6
One subject close to Griscom's heart was the compilation of

useful statistics. We had labored long and hard for the adequate regis-
tration of vital statistics. He had concluded that the prison records
kept in the United States were not equal to those of Europe. On his
suggestion, therefore, the Committee proposed that the crimes be divided
into two classes--those against person and those against property.
under each, the inmates' age, sex, color, health, state of instruction
(literate or note), place of conviction, sentence, occupation before
conviction, manner of discharge, number of convictions, and marital
status would all be included. To be of value the statistics'must be

kept on a yearly basis, and in the same general form. Ohlthough the

necessity for such records was recognised, they were not kept during

257

Griscom's lifetime.“7

railure on the part of prison officials to adopt suggestions from
the NYPA was nothing new--as early as 1846 the Prison Discipline Committee
had called for the establishment of district prisons instead of the
inadequate county jails. This would haVe made possible the use of the
individual cell system, and in the long run.would have saved the state
‘money as such prisons were self-supporting. .Albany and the surrounding
towns operated such a system, and in five years they earned $1,013.07
over expenses. The Committee was convinced of the success of the
plan. "We have no doubt that the several counties of the State would
be entirely relieved from the support of adjudged crime, and the number
of such crimes be materially diminished." The failure of state officials
to adopt such a program at the time was attested to by the fact that
twenty years after the report was made Griscom was still inspecting
unhealth, crime-breeding, county jails.)48

The report of the Prison Discipline Committee in 1853 was the
fullest and most accurate report since the founding of the.Association.
Dr. Griscom covered all the subjects usually left untouched; cruel and
unusual punishment, treatment of‘witnesses, and fines. In regard to the
latter, he noted another instance where the legal system hurt the poor.
The rich man paid his fine and was freed with no real loss, but the poor
man, unable to pay, went to jail, and his family went hungry. "It would
seem, therefore, to be the dictate both of justice and humanity to
provide for the poor some means of escape from the severity of this
sentence other than the discretionary powers of judges who are liable
to the same frailties, and are influenced by the passions and feelings
‘with othernen."49 The following year, the Prison Discipline Committee

was under a different chairman and although the report was just as long

258

it did not include the charts and tables. The committee had made
fewer visits to the state prisons and county jails.50'

In 1863 Dr. Griscom.and his executive board were considering the
effect that the end of the Civil war would have on life in New‘York.
Griscomnwas chairman of a committee to investigate the necessity for a
new penitentiary and its costs. A. B. Tappan, a member of the State
Board of Investigators, sent the NYPA a letter calling for the new
installation because of the probable rise in the crime rate associated
with the end of hostilities. The new penitentiary could provide a
model for the older institutions to follow as well as easing the already
overcrowded penal system. This committee was concerned with the
physical aspects of such a structure; it maintained that it should be
located in a dry and healthy place and be well ventilated. "It may
be said with truth, that not one of the existing institutions can claim
to be properly and thoroughly supplied with fresh and wholesome air,
while in a great majority of them no attempt whatever has been made to
furnish it in any systematic manner, even by the ordinary method of
windows.“ Considering the tone of the report and the makeup of the
committee it is safe to assume that it came almost exclusively from
the pen of John H. Crisco-.51

While the NYPA investigated the need for a new penitentiary,
they continued to inspect the old county jails, of which there were
sixty-eight for the sixty counties of the state. For the most part the
sheriffs were honest, hard working, dedicated, and humane men, but the
jails were something else. Griscom‘wrote that their old, run down
condition was a disgrace to a civilized society:

Insecurity, scant room, crowded corridors, bad venti-
lation, vicious air, horrible odors, abundance of vermin,
want of personal cleanliness in the prisoners, too ample

facilities for outside communication, defective separ-
ation of the sexes, compulsory idleness, the absence

259
of all means of intellectual culture, very inadequate
agencies for religious instruction and moral reform, and,
above all, the promiscious association of prisoners of
all classes and all ages--forming, as they do, a fetid,
seething, mass of mutual contamination and pollution-«re,
if not universal, at least far too cannon points in the
picture presented by our cannon jails.
Griscom saw a simple solution; instead of the district prisons in which
no official interest was shown, build new county jails on the single
cell principle. This would eliminate the mixing of prisoners, and as
the buildings would be new they would employ the most modern princi-
ples of health and ventilation. 52
Party politics, which resulted in a lack of persmnence in prison
administration, was at the heart of the problem with the state prison
system. The Executive Conittee under Griscom's leadership wrote “that
"it is of the utmost importance that the government of our State prisons
should be freed from a controlling subjection to political influence,
and that some provision to that end should be incorporated into the
fundamental law, when the convention to revise the the [sic] Consti-
tution shall meet in 1864." Since reformation of the convict was of
primary importance, the careful selection of prison personnel, from
warden to guards, was an absolute necessity. Under the spoils system
this was as impossible as a well run health office in New York City.53
Related to the question of politics was the connutation system.
The system was poorly organized and it was sometimes difficult to tell
whether the prisoner was ready for release at the earliest possible
date. He could be freed after twenty months, but this did not give
prison officials enough time to evaluate his reformation, especially
when it is remeslbered that a change in office might mean a change in the
control of the prison. In addition, the system was so loosely structured

that almost any interpretation of a prisoner's record could be made.

This problem was partially eased when the new constitution went into

260
effect because it had a provision that called for the appointment of
experienced men to manage the prison.54
The dual problems of the incorrigible prisoner and rehabilitation
were of major concern to Griscom and the Executive Committee. He was
opposed to the system of contract labor because it stood in the way of
rehabilitation by introducing an outside element into the care of
prisoners and by adding to the communication among them. (To help make
their institutions self-supporting, prison officials contracted with
outsiders to use inmates as menial laborers. The convicts were released
in the custody of a foreman who paid the prison a certain amount for
their use.) The system allowed the incorrigible to influence other
prisoners; it also undermined prison discipline and generally retarded
reformation. Finally, it took up too much of the prisoner's time and
all too often it was detrimental to his health. Central to the rehabil-
itation of the prisoners were moral and religious instruction, and
these were hindered by contract labor as the prisoners were often
gone. Under the individual cell plan drawn up by Griscom and his
aseociates, however, instruction could be easily carried on in the
central. hub. 55
In 1864 Griscom spoke out at length on the question of sentencing

since the same crime often brought widely different terms from different
judges. He thought that very long sentences were of no real value and
could actually do more harm than good, because even though a prisoner
was separated from.his old associations, the length also separated him
from the hardships of life. Griscom‘wrote:

A prisoner, who has been for years a machine in the hands

of Others, loses at length the ability for independent

exertion. A.convict discharged from Sing Sing, some

years ago, had become incapacitated for walking other

than in the lock step practiced there; and even in the

streets of New'York, took his position behind whomever
he happened to be walking with, and trade invariably

261'

in his footsteps to the infinite amusement of the crowds
who beheld him.

It was the opinion of the Executive Committee that a tenm of from two
to five years was of sufficient length; if a prisoner could not be
reformed during that time a longer sentence would also be of no value.55
Whatever the length of sentence, there was always the problem of
releasing the prisoner who had no visible means of support. Since
idleness forced him back into a life of crime, Griscom suggested an
alternative:
We would propose as'a remedy that convicts be allowed
after the hours allotted to their taskrwork, to labor at
what is styled over-work, for which the state is credited
by contractors for the taskdwork, and at the end of the
term of imprisonment, the amount thus earned be paid to
them, thus affording means for a new start in life.57
During the first year of the Civil War, Griscom included in his
Executive Comittee report a statuary of the NYPA's work:
During its sixteen years of experience and effort our
association has steadily labored on in its philanthropic
work, amid many discouragements and against numerous
obstacles. Its committees have, at their own cost and
not without frequent personal sacrifice, visited such
of the prisons as they could; and, as our successive annual
reports attest, have fairly and frankly stated their
condition. These reports, we have reason to know, have
been of service in reforming abuses, in stimulating the
erection of better county prisons, in suggesting improve-
ments upon existing methods of management, and in influenc-
ing the more careful selection of prison officials.58
There were still a few points of contention between the NYPA and
the state government. The governor had called for salaried prison
inspectors the previous year, but Griscom thought this would open the
door for graft. There was also a plan in the Legislature to give the
well-mannered convict one day off per week of his sentence. Dr. Griscom
argued that this would only hasten the release of the cunning criminal
while the more impulsive but less dangerous individual would remain

behind bars for the full term.59

262
In his next report Chairman Griscom included statistics showing
the association's work over the previous twenty years:
55,714 people had been visited
5,630 people had been released due to work of NYPA
18,911 complaints had been investigated
4,908 complaints had been discontinued due to lack of
6,676 Sirzfiarged convicts had been sided with clothing,
money or both
2,729 discharged convicts had found employment; less
than five percent had returned to prison
7S inspections of state prisons had been carried out60
In 1862 a commutation law was passed in New York state which
allowed prisoners to work for their early release. After its passage
John V. Andrews, a prisoner confined at Sing Sing for a federal offense,
asked the District.Attorney for the southern district of New'York
whether the law applied to him. Attorney Samuel C. Courtney replied
that it did not. Courtney then wrote Griscom and explained the situation,
asking if something could be done to make state laws applicable to
federal prisoners when they were being held in state prisons. In
December, 1866, Griscom went to Washington as the NYPA Commissioner
appointed to see President Johnson on behalf of Andrews and the other
federal prisoners in New'York prisons. He presented Johnson with a
memorial, "with a view to obtain for United States prisoners, confined
in the penal institutions of New‘York, the same commutation.which is
allowed by the laws of the State to its own prisoners, for good
conduct and industry." Armed with a letter of introduction from
Senator Edwin Morgan of New York, Griscom called on President Johnson
on Saturday morning, December 8th. Ushered in to the President's
office immediately upon his arrival, Griscom found him to be in complete
agreement with the plan. Dr. Griscom'was sent to see.Attorney General

A. G. Stansbury, who drew up the required order and sent it to Johnson

for his signature.61

263

While in Washington, Griscom also called on New York's other
senator, Ira'Narris, to submit a draft of a plan for a general commu-
tation bill to apply in all the states. Harris introduced the bill on
‘Monday, and it was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. The
proposed law would have made federal prisoners subject to the rules and
regulations of the state prisons in which they were incarcerated (there
were no federal prisons at the time). They would also be eligible for

any benefits, the NYPA hoping that federal prisoners would be allowed

time off for good behavior and hardwork.62

V

Undoubtedly, the single most important piece of work John H.
Griscom did in relation to the NYPA was the submission of his report,
Prison gygiene. As usual his report was well documented. He quoted
from prison records, reports, doctors, wardens, and officials in addi-
tion to relating the experience of the prisoner. He collected mater-
ial from prisons in New York, Ohio, and England. To aid in understanding
the problem of disease in prisons he traced the history of "jail fever,"
thich was first reported in 1577. This report is illustrative of
Dr. Griscom's wide knowledge, varied interest, and thorough concern
for the betterment of human situations. All his findings were securely
grounded in facts gained by painstaking research.

Prison Hygiene stemmed from a request of the Executive Committee

after Griscom had relinquished the reins:

At the request of the Executive Committee, one of our
colleagues, Dr. John H. Griscom, has prepared a paper,

. for insertion in the present report, on the subject of

" prison hygiene. This report is a learned and exhaustive
discussion of the question to which it is related, and
is at the same time eminently practical in its suggestions.
It may be profitably studied by all who have any thing
to do with the construction and administration of prisons.63

Those entrusted with the control of prisoners were concerned not

264

only with the physical health of the inmates, but also with their
morals and discipline. To Griscom the inmate was a person in a
unique situation:
With the strength of a man, he is become, in many
respects, as a child. From being his own master, to
clothe, feed, and house himself how and when he pleased,
he is now passive in the hands of others, to be treated
herein as they may dictate. Deprived of all the aspir-
ations and prospective pleasures which sweeten life and
give a zest and stimulus to his feelings and functions,
both mind and body are immured in the narrowest possible
precincts, and pursue their unrequired labor in an
unending and never-varying routine.64
Obviously Griscom understood both the mental and physical problems of
prison life.
A key factor in the salubrity of a prison‘was its location.
Since the four grey walls cut off the view, a dry, readily accessible
location was more important than anything else. While Dannemora was
dry, it was seventeen miles from the nearest town; Sing Sing, easily
reached, was built too close to the Hudson.River, making the men's
cell blocks damp. Rheumatism and pulmonary disorders afflicted the
prisoners, while the locks in the cell doors rusted. A dry location
was important, but it also had to have the means for adequate drainage
and sewerage facilities as well.65
Even.with perfect physical conditions, if the prisoner was not
treated humanely he withered away. A correct balance between exercise
and good food was needed, because ”he who eats and does not worklgshall
surely suffer." In addition, the right kinds of food were needed--a11
too often the prisoners came down with scurvy as a result of dietary
deficiency. To counter this the Auburn prison physician.asked that land
beside the prison be set aside for the cultivation of vegetables by the

inmates.66

265
Nearly half of Griscom's report was devoted to the subject of

ventilation. He worked on the theory that the most important thing to
the human system was good clean air in abundance, because without the
necessary ventilation the individual could not benefit from wholesome
food, pure water, or sufficient exercise. Air underlay everything
else, but few people realized this. Whereas food is taken only three
times a day, and digestion separates the good from the bad, Griscom
pointed out that respiration goes on continuously and the lungs are
forced to take whatever air is introduced. "At all times, in whatever
position, the air respired should be in perfect purity. The slightest
deviation, by so much, impairs the sustaining and invigorating power."57
The problemuwith the air in prisons was the lack of ventilation; even
if the air started out pure, the prisoner was forced to reinhale it
several times during the night when he was locked in his almost airtight
cell. The typical prison had a scene such as this:

At the most favorable estimate, supposing no air to be

admitted into the building from‘without, which is the

fact, except by the occasional opening of a door, the

prisoners reinhale the air every two hours [based on the

size of the cell and the needs of the man]. Shut up

for twelve hours, they breathe it over six times, and

on Sundays being confined therein from noon, until six

the next morning, the same air passes through the lungs

nine times. Nor is this all; there being no specific

or sufficient method of changing the atmosphere of the

prison, even while the prisoners are in their workshops

through the day, they must enter nearly the same atmos-

phere they quitted in the morning, and this must be

repeated for weeks and months.68
While the regular cells at Sing Sing were bad there were nine cells for
solitary confinement that were even worse. These were virtually air
and light-tight and were opened only for the prisoner to receive food.
”The air of one of these cells was tested with lime water by the

writer, and was proved to consist of an immense proportion of carbonic

acid gas."59

266

Several different diseases prevailed because of the unhealthy
atmosphere in the prisons; by far the worst was typhus, known in its
prison appearances as jail fever. Reported cases date back as far as
1577 when William Camdem (1551-1623) recorded a case in an Oxford jail.
It was in his discussion of typhus that Griscom best illustrated his
research abilities. Not satisfied to document his paper with cases of
his own acquaintance he cited several cases from history and then
quoted extensively from Dr. John W. Francis of New York, who had been
active in the city prisons in the early part of the nineteenth century.
To Griscom the answer to this problem‘was simple:"There cannot be much
doubt," he wrote, "that a great proportion of the fever reported as
occurring in prisons in the present day are due to the vitiated atmos-
1here of the cells and workshops.”70

'Griscom offered a partial solution to the problem. By surveying
prisons it was learned that most used night vessels, "which pervade
not only the cells in which they are placed, but also the area of the
balls. The application of a disinfectant would totally obviate this
most serious nuisance, and this can‘be accomplished by the occupant of
each cell, in a most simple, easy and economical manner, by the use of
a neat and simple apparatus in the form of a cover, called the READY
DISINFECTOR, recently contrived for this purpose. "71

Taking care of the physical needs was only part of prison
hygiene; it was equally important to see the prisoner constructively
occupied. "In nearly every one of the county jails they pass days,
weeks, and often months without any exercise whatever, being confined
to the cells and corridors in total idleness, without even opportunity
of exercise by walking outside the building." This way of life

affected the entire system and ruined the health of the inmates, but

267

Griscom was careful to warn that the reverse, overwork, could also be
dangerous, especially if the individual was poorly fed. 72

Griscom's final concern in this report was with the punishment
of prisoners. This, he argued, was very much a part of prison hygiene.
He was completely and unequivocally opposed to the cat and the shower,.
both of which were still in use, however limited. While his answer to
the discipline problem‘was perhaps too simplistic, he was on the right
track when he expressed his concern for human welfare. The answer was:

to encourage good behavior by offering rewgrds therefor.
The convict being deprived of all the advantages of

every relation of life, personal, social, political, ac,
an encouragement to hope for their restoration by an
offer of the enjoyment of advantages while in confinement,
and more especially by the prospective abbreviation of
his term of sentence, would doubtless be found the most
rational, easy and effective method of maintaini
discipline, and encouraging future good conduct.7

Griscom noted that prison hygiene was but a part of the larger
system of public health. Both were vitally important to the health
and well-being of society in general and of the prisoner in particular.
How the inmate was treated would determine his future course. If the
prison was to turn out individuals ready to work in society it was
necessary for the system to treat themnas human beings, not as animals.74
Prison Hygiene was reviewed for the Western Journal ofiuedicine
by James I. Hibberd. He was free with his praise:
Any one interested in the subject treated of in this
brochure, can find in it important facts, practical ideas,
and sound common sense, presented with the author's
usual force and point. It is not written for the pro-
fession,.but was intended for persons connected with
prisons, and those interested in the general welfare of
prisoners, and the style and language are adopted to
such readers.
Nibberd noted that while Griscom's ideas on discipline might work with

the average prisoner, they were a little idealistic. There were always

exceptions "where the moral feeling of the prisoner can only be reached

268
by some kind of direct application to the skin. "75

While the reception of the article was favorable, unfortunately
the results were less than satisfactory. Larger cells with more adequate
ventilation had been called for before Griscom's time, but his argu-
ment "appeared to enlist the authority of science behind the reform."
However, no cell block reached the optimum of four cubic feet of fresh
air per minute per person that Griscom called for, although a few
wisons moved in that direction. 76

Even if the ventilation was not improved to any marked degree,

Dr. John H. Griscom did aid in bringing about humanitarian reforms on
behalf of the prisoner. His contribution in this field may not have
been as significant as Dorothea Dix's, but it was comendable. As a
result of his leadership the NYPA was able to help thousands of prisoners
both before and after their release. His activity, codined with the
reform impulses of the day and the activity of the Prison Association,
helped bring an end to cruel and unusual punishment. The numerous
inspections of prisons, and the Annual Reports to the Legislature
brought abuses before the public eye which led to reform. As in public
health reform, Griscom's major role was as an early muck-raker; he
exposed evils, abuses, and sundry other problems in the hope that a
public outcry would lead to more humane treatment.

Some reforms were made, but many of the abuses that Griscom found
in American prisons in the nineteenth century can still be seen in the
prisons of the mid-twentieth century. In his book on crime, former
Attorney General Ramsey Clark concerned himself with the same type of
reform work that Griscom did a century earlier. Clark, as did Griscom,
maintained that "rehabilitation must be the goal of modern corrections."
Clark also found the same inequities with the penal system; it segregates

the convict so totally from normal society that he is unable to function

269
when he is released. Even before trial and sentencing, which is still
as mmch a problem'because "some judges sentence long, some short," the
corrupting influence of the prison is hardest on the poor, because they
are unable to raise the necessary capital to be freed on bail. Again
the words, and the thought, are so similar they could just as easily
be Griscom's as Clark's--"for the want of a few hundred dollars
millions of impoverished Americans have suffered in jail awaiting
.American justice."77
Unfortunately, the causes are still the sane, and apparently no
closer to solution now than they were then Griscom carried the banner
of reform to the people:
Host crime in‘mmerica is born in environments saturated
in poverty and its consequences: illness, ignorance,
idleness, ugly surroundings, hopelessness. Crime
incubates in places where thousands have no jobs, and

those who do have the poorest jobs; where houses are
old, dirty and dangerous; where people have no rights.78

CHAPTER VII NOTES

1W. David Lewis, From Neggate to Dannemora (Ithaca, 1965), 77.
David M. Schneider, The History of Public Welfare In New York State,
1609-1866 (Chicago, 1938), 212-215, 319-321.

2Schneider, 319-321. Blake McKelvey, American Prisons (Chicago,
1935), 14-15.

3D. L. Dix, Remarks on Prisons and Prison Discipline in the
United States (Philadelphia, 1845), 94. “

l‘Lewis, From Newgate,137-138. McKelvey, Prisons, 8.

5Charles Dickens, Merican Notes (Gloucester, Mass. , 1968),
102‘“.

51bid., 104.
7Lewis, From Newgate, 214-221.
31b1d., 221.

9Ibid. , 222-223. There was an attempt to found a national organi-
zation in 1859. The American Association for the Improvement of Penal
and Reformatory Institutions was organized in Philadelphia in September
of that year. They held their first formal meeting the following year
in New York. Thirty delegates from all over the United States gathered
for the November meeting, among them John H. Griscom. When their
officers were elected Dr. Griscom was chosen the first president. The
remaining officers came from seven states, some as far away as Indiana.
The meeting adjourned to meet in Baltimore the following year on the
third Tuesday of October, 1861. Apparently the Civil War interrupted
their plans as they never met again. "Notices," £2, XVI (1861),
35-37. ., .

1OE.C. Wines, A Brief Statement of the Objects and Results of
the Prison Association of New York Duriggrthe Seventeen Years of its
Existence (New York, 1862), 3-5. NYPA, Sixth Report, 118-l9.

11John T. Hoffman, et.‘ al., The Work of the Prison Association
of New York, its Character and Results (New York, 1870), 3-ll.

' 12Wines, Brief Statement, 3-5.

l~3NY1’A, Annual Re orts, 1844-1873, assim. There were several
important people connected with the NYPA during the period Griscom was
active. Tocqueville, Beaumont, Dorothea Dix, and Edwin Chadwick, the
pioneer English sanitarian, were among the corresponding members in
1846. Among the elected officials for the same year were Theodore
Frelinghuysen, Chancellor of NYU, and Benjamin Butler, 0.8. district
attorney. In 1863 Samuel Morse and Peter COOper were on the executive
connittee which Griscom chaired.

270

271'

“E. M. Purdy, ed. , The Medical Register of New YorkLNew
Jersey and Connecticut for 1874 (New York, 1874), XII, 276.

15NYPA, Tirst Report, 7.

16NYPA, Third ReJrort, 35.

"£12.42.” 36-38.

1892.11.51.” 40-43.

19mm, Fourth Report, 10. ms, Fifth Report, 50-51.
“hem, Sixth Report, 46.

2l-NYPA, .E_iLhteenth Report, 48-49.

22mm, First Report, 81-86.

233351., 84.

“Lewis, From Newgete, 260-262. NYPA, Tflrd Report, 43, 112-126,
Fourth Re ort, 207-214.

2SNYPA, Fourth Report, 9-14.

26.929.-

27Tb_i_¢_l_., 15-16.

281215., 9-23, passim.

29NYPA, Eighth Report, 22-23. Tenth Report, l9-45, 3.3.2.13-
301ma, Sixth Report, 44-46.

3l-NYPA, Seventh Report, 2-50, assim.

32mm, Nineteenth Report, 203-211, 302-305.

331.11%!” 225-226.

3“NYPA, Twenty Fourth Report, 480-81.

35mm, Twenty Sixth Report, 89-92.

36NYPA, Teenty First Report, 77-93.

37mm, Entieth Report, 174-357, 153113.

381121211, TwenelThird Report, 208-212.

39NYPA, Tyenty Fourth Report, 429-434. Twentl Sixth Report, 89.
l'oNYI’A, Nineteenth Report, 55-150, pgs_s_i_m_.

411nm, waentieth Repert, 46-48.

. 272

42John H. Griscom, "Improvements of the Public Health and the
Establishmcnt of a Sanitary Police in the City of New York," MSNY,
Teensactions (1857), 112-13.

43mm, pighthReport, 23-26.

44Ihid., 27-28.

451bid., 31-32.

46Ibid., 35-36.

47Ibid., 36-40.

481bid., 30-31.

49Ibid., 28-29.

SONYEA, Ninth Report, 40-62.

51NYPA, Nineteenth Report, 437-442.

52NYPA, Twentieth Report, l4-16.

s3NYPA, Nineteenth Report, ll, Twentieth Report, 15-16.

54The voters did not approve another recommendation of the NYPA,
which called for increased appropriations to enable a group to visit the
European prisons in.much the same way Tocqueville and Beaumont had
visited the prisons in this country. Dr. Griscom was active in the
preparations of both the memorial and the amendment to the constitution
which allowed for an experienced board of governors to manage the
prisons. NYPA, Twentieth Report, 14-25, 110-112. ‘Tweney Third Report,
65-80, Twang: Fifth Report, 475-476.

55NYPA, Eighth Report, 35-36. Nineteenth Report, 13-29.

55NYEA,‘Tgentieth Report, ll-12.,

57NYPA,.§leventh andJTwelfth Reports, 19-22.

53NYEA, Sixteenth Report, 13.

59Ibid., 14-15.

5°NYRA, Egghteenth Report, 39-40.

61NYPALTwentypSecond Report, 75-76.

62Ibid., 75-76. The bill passed the Senate late in January,
1867, but died in the House. 0.8., Con essional Globe, 39th Cong.,
2nd Sess., 1866-1867, XXXVII, Part 1, 36, 674, 729.

63NYPA, Twengy Third Report, 34-35.

_ 64John a. Griscom, Prison gzgiene (Albany, 1868), 3. The report
was a part of the Twenty Third Report of the NYPA and was also printed

separately.

 

273
“£21.21.” 3-5. Compare this with Dorothea Dix's consent that at

Sing Sing the "situation of this prison renders the cells damp, even
fires in the cells fails to correct this disadvantage." Dix, Remarks,

45.

“crioeon, Prison Hygiene, 5-8.
571313., 9.

531134., 10.

59949., 11.

70133., 12-19.

71333., 13.

72.12.13” 19-20.

73_I_b__i_¢_1_., 20-22.

74T_bi_d., 22-23.

75m,"Review of Prison gygiene,"y_3_n_§, III (July, 1868), 426-27.
7fiicRelvey, Prisons, 58.

77Ramsey Clark, Crime in Amerge (New York, 1971), 200-04.

7811) 1d. , 40-410

CHAPTER VIII
CONCLUSION
For as a dark body, behind which
there shall be a blaze of light,
becomes invisible, so shall I
soon be forgotten.
J. H. Griscom, 1859

Sometime after 1872 Dr. Griscom retired from his medical practice,
probably about the same time he left the New York Prison Association,
the last reform group to which he was attached. Then he entered the
Bloomingdale Asylum for the Insane, and died there an.April 28, 1874,
fromivague causes. Exactly why he died at a mental hospital is unknown--
the death certificate is unreliable, but one obituary cited "softening
of the brain" as the cause of death. .Another reason could be that
Dr. Griscom chose Bloomingdale and was admitted because of his long
association with New York Hospital GBloomingdale was its affiliate).

Its location, on what is now Columbia University, in upper Manhattan,
would have been tranquil and far removed from the cares and prdblems of
the city with which he had been involved for so many years.

His death was reported in many of the leading medical journals
and New‘York newspapers of the day. The.Hedical and Surgical Repgrter
of June 6, 1874, gave one of the more complete accounts. After his
education, it listed his major publications and the important accomplish-
ments of "this prominent physician and philanthropist. . . ." When the
New'York Academy learned of his death they offered the following resolu-
tion: "That the.Academy enter upon its‘minutes their appreciative sense

of the long public services rendered by the deceased, his untiring

274

275

industry in the pursuit of knowledge, his efforts in the cause of sound
science, more especially as regards improvements in ventilation, in
his spirit and intercourse, kind and genial, in his views and influence,
highly conservative, in his official trusts, diligent and self-sacri-
ficing, he was an honored master of an honored profession. "1

Dr. Griscom's career was diverse in that the type of reforms
proposed varied significantly. As an example, he vigorously attacked
the women's fashions of the day, which called for tightly laced corsets
and the hourglass figure. This, he argued, was contrary to nature and
good health because it restricted the lungs, and made free and easy
breathing difficult. (Dr. Griscom must have been the darling of the
womn's rights leaders.) Yet at the same time it can be seen that this
reform, as nearly all his others, was related. No matter what the
area of concern, the approach was always the same, fresh air, in plenti-
ful supply, was the answer.2

In the very strictest sense, Griscom was a failure as a reformer.
But, in this context, so were all the others who have made it their
life's work to ease the condition of the poor urbanite. Tenements still
abound, slum are on the increase, and the work of men such as John
H. Griscom and Jacob A. Riis is long forgotten in the poorer wards of
Hanhatten. While they brought about many improvements in the laws and
attitudes towards poverty, the urban slum is a witness to their overall
failure. Health reform did come about, as did housing reform, yet still
people are forced to share sub-standard housing with disease bearing
rats.

The question, however, can be raised--was this the fault of the
reformers, or of the‘society in which they lived? The fact that many
still live as poorly as did the people Griscom visited is not the

fault of the reformer, as much as it is the apathy of the society which

276
allows such things to continue. In still another light, although
conditions are bad today, they would be much worse had it not been for
the work of Dr. Griscom.

Some of his efforts resulted in an end to the cellar residences,
which in itself vastly improved the quality of life. That people should
be forced to live in environments in which a mole could not exist was
simply beyond the grasp of a man like Griscom--hia moral code did not
allow for such mistreatment. The dampness that led to a chronic cough,
the darkness that contributed to eye disorders, the cold that all too
often ended in pneumonia; all these problems were intolerable to
Griscom, and partly as a result of his activity they became intolerable
to enough New Yorkers that cellar residences were restricted.

His concern for the laborer's dwelling also reached above ground;
he was just as shocked with the quality of life in the rear buildings
or the small, ill-ventilated tenements which faced on streets filled
with garbage. The rooms were too small, and many apartments [were so
arranged that the bedrooms were windowless and virtually unventilated.
Even when there were windows, or holes which allowed for some small
exchange of air, the air outside was as foul as that inside. Further,
the buildings were so close together that often windows did not help.
Again, the work of Dr. Griscom can be seen in the laws that provided
for more ventilation via air-shafts, or windows, and for more open
space per lot, which made the air shafts and windows more effective.

Because ventilation of apartments was successful only if the
air outside was better, Griscom involved himself with cleaning the
streets. ' In every major report he presented, demands for cleaner
streets can be found. Remove the pigs and the slaughter-houses, insti-
tute more efficient means to empty privies and sinks, and extend the

sewer and water systems to the poorer districts of the city were among

277
Griscom's plans for a cleaner New York. These changes would greatly
reduce the filth in the streets, and as time went on they were insti-
tuted in a piecemeal fashion.

The adulteration of drugs was another sapect of the same problem.
Griscom was a member of an AMA committee to investigate the problem
in 1854 and a State Medical Society co-aittee in 1861. In this instance
their activity brought about a petition drive in which the port cities
asked the President and Congress to enact legislation to control the
importation of adulterated medicine.3 I

The emphasis on egalitarianism led to the prevalence of quackery;
many people did not believe that a medical education was necessary to
practice, and they preyed on the poor and the uninformed. Homoeopathy
was such a practice in the eyes of Dr. Griscom, an irregular practice
introduced from Germany which subscribed to the belief that "like cures
like." The homoeopathist would administer small doses of medicine that
in a healthy person would produce the symptoms of the disease he was
trying to cure in his patient. Homeopathy served a very worthwhile
function in the days when heroic medicine (the practice of bleeding
and purging patients with strong medicine) was under attack, but whether
or not the technique cured anyone is debatable. Griscom lumped the
homoeopathist together with the quacks and irregular practitioners of
the day and declared a plague on all their houses for cheating the poor,
and adding to their misery.“

That Griscom was among the first to contemplate public health
reform is undeniable. A check of leading medical journals of the day,
beginning in 1830, reveals that very little was being done to improve
the health of the poor in the cities. The only notable activity was
being carried on in England, and it was not until 1842, when Griscom

exposed the evils in New York, that the public was amde aware of what

278
needed to be done. While others, Benjamin McCready for example, had
examined the relationship between occupations and diseases, no one had
taken the study into the house. In the United States, Dr, Griscom
was the first to see the connection and write extensively about it. If
men were forced to live like animals, then it must be expected that
they would soon lose those features which distinguish them from the
animals.

The sincerity of his interest is readily apparent when one
considers his year as City Inspector. Instead of simply turning in
the brief list of mortality, in the tradition of most of his predecessors,
he prepared a long report in which the causes, as well as the means of
preventiOn, of diseases were carefully outlined. He did this because
he thought that a brief enumeration of the deaths of the previous year
did not live up to either the spirit or the letter of the law which had
created the office of City Inspector. Griscom‘was the first to take
the office seriously enough to spend his time crawling around the slums
and cellars of Manhattan. His vivid illustrations and broad knowledge
of the prOblem could only have resulted from first hand experiences, to
which was added the judicious use of other reporters' experiences.

The reviews of the City Inspector report, and the Sanitary_Condition,
which grew out of it, attest to the importance of these works and the
esteem in which they were held. "We hail this report," Samuel Perry
said in the New‘York Journal of Medicine, "with particular pleasure, not
only on account of its intrinsic value, but as indicating the dawn of a
brighter era. . . ." Gouveneur Emerson thought that the report reflected
"great credit upon Dr. Griscom." He also reviewed the Sanitaex Condition,
and concluded that "nothing effectual will ever be accomplished in regard

to these matters until the subject has been agitated again and again,

279

by individuals alive to its great importance." That Emerson saw Griscom
as such an individual is clearly evident in the tone of the review.
The New York Journal of Medicine also covered this expansion of the
City Inspector's report. "The author of this truly able and philan-
thrOpic discourse, has made himself widely and most favorably known to
the reading and scientific portion of the public, by his luminious
report, while filling the office of City Inspector. . . ."5

Since pro-germ theory public health reform began in the United
States with Griscom's two reports, it would be profitable to examine
the relationship between.them and the activity which resulted. There
were four major points in the 1842 report which were expanded and
delivered to the public in 1844. Sickness and mortality among the lower
classes was high in proportion to their numbers. To make matters
worse, most of the diseases were preventable. Equally important was
the fact that, according to Griscom, the physical deterioration of
the con-unity and the individual led to an ever increasing incidence
of‘moral lapse. His conclusion included suggestions for easing the
condition of the poor. To cite George Rosen, "this study already con-
tains in essence the principles and objectives that were to characterise
the American sanitary reform movement for the next thirty years."6

‘That the reform movement was directly influenced by Griscom for
only thirty years after the publication of the Sanitary Condition is
attributable to the introduction of the germ theory in the 1870's.
Griscom's theory of causation of disease was, in a word, wrong. The
1miasma theory and the atmospheric theory which were universally held in
the days before Lister, Pasteur, and Roch did not lead to the prevention
of disease. The filth in the streets which Griscom.attacked so vehe-
mently did not directly cause cholera, typhus, small pox or dysentery

(although certainly living in damp cellars did aid in the spread of

280

lung disorders), but the fact remains that they were influenced by

that filth. The major epidemic diseases of the early nineteenth century
were all under control in the United States before the discovery of
micro-organisms and the cause of disease. The filth reduced the laborer
to a being less than human; to wallow constantly in such disgusting
surroundings and be unable to provide any better for one's family
seriously hurt the individual's sense of manhood. Griscom remained
convinced of the importance of the miasmiat theory partly because he
felt that a cleaner New York was vital to the improvement of the lower
classes, and if the emphasis was taken from the garbage, then fewer
improvements might be made. Also, Griscom was a practicing physician
and not a laboratory researcher; he was not an innovator when it came

to medical theory.

In whatever reform he was involved, Dr. Griscom sought to

alleviate the suffering of the poor, which was the goal behind nmny

of the humanitarian reforms of the period. Any deprived group --
immigrants, prisoners , or day laborers, reaped benefits” from the work
he did. In each of the reform movements Griscom never .recomended the
d irect use of money which, according to the theory of the day, would
cause pauper ism. He rather suggested other means of improvement which
would ease the condition of the laborer and make it possible for him

to find a job and earn his own living. Such reform were meant to
raise the poor without breaking their spirit and turning them into paupers.
Most of the reform recomended by John H. Griscom came about A

during the last half of the nineteenth century, mainly because Griscom
was a gadfly. So long as he was alive and active, he kept the condi-
tion of the poor before the eyes of the public. He contributed to
medical journals in the hope that the professionals would act. He sent

letters and articles to the public press to reach a broader audience

281

and enlist the sympathy of the masses. He lectured at every oppor-
tunity to share his first hand knowledge of the problems with as many
as possible. He realized that reform could only come through the Legis-
lature and only after the people were sufficiently aroused to demand
it. Therefore, he directed his energies in activities which kept the
problem before the public. In this respect he was much like the more
well—known reformer of the late nineteenth century, Jacob A. Riia.

Riis was a newspaper reporter by profession; Griscom was a
physician. The approach of these two men was therefore different,
even though they dealt with the same problem. Where Griscom discussed
ventilation and filth and their effects on morals, Riis was more con-
cerned with exposing the problems to the public eye via the more sen-
sational events. The Children of the Tenements is a collection of
vignettes about life in the slums, each one, Riis must have hoped,
heart-rending enough to force a change. "The Cat Took the Kosher Meat"
is the story of Rose Baruch and her family, who were too poor to own
an ice-box, so stored their meat in the air shaft. The meat fell off,
and in trying to retrieve it before the rats could get it, Rose, a
wayward girl of seventeen, fell and broke her back. A Ten Years War
is also a vivid book; in it Riis describes one corner of Porsyth Street
where a man killed his wife and was hanged for the crime. Across the
street another man murdered his wife, and then took his own life, while
in the same row there was another suicide. Riis's point was simply that
the quality of life in that block, as in hundreds of others, was so
low that peOple put others and themselves out of their misery. He
used this type of illustration to catch the reader's eye, and help him
reach the conclusion that it was the slum, and not the individual, that
was guilty of murder.7 Griscom, however, to get the conmunity to reach

the same conclusion cited examples of deaths due to controllable

282

diseases, or poverty caused by the ill health of the bread winner
resulting from the damp cellar. In either case the point was the
same; society, and not the individual, was to blame.

Although he never mentioned Griscom by name, Riis cited his
accomplishments:

Slowly, with many setbacks, we battled our way into
the light. A Board of Health had come with the cholera
panic of 1866. The swine that ran at large in the
streets, practically the only scavengers, were banished.
The cholera and the yellow fever that had ravaged the
city by turns never came back. The small pox went its
way too. . . . We acquired tenement house laws, and the
process of education.that had begun'with the foraging
ground of the swine was extended step by step to the
citizen's home. Short steps and cautious were they.
Riis saw that drunkenness resulted from inferior dwellings. "I have
known homes . . . that made drunkards by the shortest cut. "I know
a dozen," Riis wrote, "from‘which, if I had to live there, I should
certainly escape to the saloon with its brightness and cheer as often
a nd as long as I could. . . ."3 Griscom‘was of the exact same opinion,
although it is doubtful that the Quaker physician would have gone so
fer as to state that the hovel would drive him to drink.

'In a thought that closely paralleled Griscom, Riis wrote that
"justice to the individual is accepted in theory as the only safe
groundwork of the commonwealth. When it is practised in dealing with
the slum, there will be shortly no alum."9 This was the keystone of
Griscom's argument for the forty years he spent in the slums, and it
is truly unfortunate that it was not recognized in those forty years.

Riis saw the importance of cleanliness just as much as did‘
Griscom, and he happily reported the opening of the city's first public
bathhouse a few blocks from the infamous‘Mulberry Bend. Not only

cleanliness, but all the other amenities of human life were denied

the tenement dweller:

283

The tenement itself, with its crowds, its lack of

privacy, is the greatest destroyer of individuality, of

character. As its number's increase, so does the

element that becomes criminal for lack of individuality

and the self-respect that comes with it.
The sentiment is so similar it would be difficult to say who wrote this
unless one knows that it comes from Riis' book.10

There are many comparisons that can be drawn between the work

of Griscom and Riis, but one that is especially relevant comes from
Riis's most famous work, How the Other Half Lives, a phrase, which,
incidentally, appeared in Griscom's Sanitary Condition. "That ignor-
ance plays its part," wrote Riis, "as well as poverty and bad hygienic
surroundings, in the sacrifice of life is of course inevitable. They
go usually hand in hand. " Riis went to a Mott Street tenement with a
charity doctor (in another time the doctor could have been Griscom) to
find a child stretched across two chairs, near death with peritonitis.
He described the situation: "The whole family, father, mother, and four
ragged children, sat looking on with the stony resignation of helpless
despair that had long since given up the fight against fate as useless."
Starvation was the cause of the child's illness, brought about because
the father's hands were crippled from lead poisoning and the mother's
eyes were nearly gone because of a long neglected disease. "The
children," continued Riis, "cried with hunger. They had not broken
their fast that day, and it was then near noon. For months the family
had subsisted on two dollars a week. . . ." The doctor gave instructions
to ease the child's pain, and left money to provide food for the rest
of the family. Riis went back an hour later, and found the family "feeding
the dying child with ginger ale, bought for two cents a bottle at the
peddlar's cart down the street. A pitying neighbor had proposed it as
the one thing she could think of to make the child forget its misery."11

John H. Griscom might well have visited another dying child in the same

284
place a few decades earlier.

Griscom could be compared with reformers from various time
periods to show that many of the same evils still exist. Harry Manuel
Shulman studied New‘York's slums during the 1930‘s depression, and
found the same grinding poverty. Parnell Street, on the lower West
side, had houses built in colonial days, which had been divided into
flats with a "front parlor facing the street, a back kitchen facing
the yard, and two inner bedrooms having no direct light or ventilation.12

That such conditions still exist attests to the fact that the
work started by John H. Griscom in the humanitarian period of the
nineteenth century, and carried on through the progressive reform
era of the twentieth century is still unfinished. Improvements,
however, were made: the death rate turned downward, light and air
began to reach the back.bedrooms (although the new'laws had loop-
holes), and the streets became cleaner and more pleasant. Had it not
been for the work of Dr. Griscom.and other reformers the increasing
death rate and declining salubriousness would have shortly made the
city uninhabitable.

With his constant emphasis on clean air and water, Griscom can
be described as an early ecologist, or conservationist. He saw that
the way of life of the urban laborer was far inferior to that of the
country dweller, or the Indian. Indeed, in the.Anniversary Discoursel
Griscom drew the following comparisons:

‘Man . . . is presented to us in two general conditions.
The first embraces all the circumstances to which he is
expected in a state of nature; the second, those in his
artificial or civilized life. Of the first condition, a
type is seen in the NkA. Indian, whose home and whose

larder are the forest and prarie. The second finds a
representative in the denizen of the polished city such

‘9 our own metropolis. . . oNow what are the most striking
differences between these two extremes of earth's inhabi-
tants? They are briefly such as these:

285

The one shuns companionship, except to a very limited
extent; the other lives continually in a crowd.

This, lives free to range over earth, and lake, un-
confined by aught save his buffalo robe and bower of
leaves; that, shuts himself within brick‘walls, and
under roof of metal or slate.

The one breathes the air in all its pristine purity;
the other shuts.it out as if it were poisonous, and really
makes it so within.

From the presence of one, the excretions of the lungs
and person are left free to escape and never return to him;
by the other, they are retained, reabsorbed, and reinhaled.

One covers his body with garments which leave every
function free and unrestrained; the other is so encased,
that his motions and functions are greatly restricted.

One treads the virgin green-award of hill and
valley; the other; pavements of stone and brick, while
the forest glade and purling brook are strangers to him.

The food of the latter is brought to him by steamboat
and rail car, and his cook from France or Ireland, the
food of the former is brought by his own bow or rifle, and
is served up 'au naturel' by himself.

One is 'monarch of all he surveys;' the other rents
a floor 12 feet by 15, or at most a house 25 by 50,
with a patch of grass 7 by 10.

The most dense native population is perhaps one
to the square*mile of the earth's surface; in some places
in New York, its inhabitants are about one to the square
yard.

With such hygienic differences, is it a marvel that
the one lives to old age and then dies a natural death,
while the other is a continual prey to a multitude of
diseases, and the victim of a premature grave?13

Griscom and his associates, John.Bell, Isaac Wood, Elisha Harris,
and Joseph Smith were all promptly forgotten when Lister's theories of
causation were accepted. It was then realized that the micro-organ-
iamm--and not piles of filth--caused the diseases. Because this discovery
came so quickly after their work, Griscom and his friends all became
"dark‘bodies," behind which there appeared "a blaze of light." Even
though he was quickly forgotten, the work he did was essential. If
the germ theory allowed for the erection of an efficient system of
public health, it was built upon the solid foundation laid down by

John H. Gr iscom.

CHAPTER VIII NOTES

l~"Ohituary," LIST, xxx (June 5, 1874), 536. NYAM, Minutes, May
7, 21, 1874.

2John H. Griscom, Uses and Abuses of Air (New York, 1839, 1970),
116'18e

3"Minutes," AMA, Transactions, VI (1853), 45. "Abstract of
Proceedings," MSNY, Transactions (1861), 358- 59. E. R. Squibb, Chrm.,
"Report of Special Comittee on United States Drug Law," MSNY,
_Tr_ansactions (1862), 423- 30.

4"J. Gotham, Jr.," "Editorial Correspondence," NJMSR, X (April
1857), 201-02, (Sept., 1857), 470-71.

5Samuel Ferry, Review of The Annual Report of the Interments in
the City and Coung of New Yorkp for the Year 1842; with Remarks
thereon, and a _Brief SanitaryCondition of the City, by John H. Griscom,
NYJMCS, I (July, 1843), 88-100. Review of The Sanitary Condition
of the Laborigg Population of the City of New York, With Suggestions
for its Improvement, by John H. Griscom, NYJMCS, IV (March, 1845),
222-31. G[ouveneur]. E[merson], Review of The Annual Re aort. . . , by
John H. Griscom, AJMS, VI n.s. (Oct., 1843), 435-38. G[ouveneur]
E[merson], Review of The Sanitary Condition. . . , by John H. Griscom,
AJMS, IX n.s'.‘ (April, 1845), 296-401.

 

6George Rosen, A Histor of Public Health (New York, 1958),
238-39.

7Jacob A. Riis, The Children of the Tenements (New York, 1903),
100-03. Jacob A. Riis, A Ten Years War (New York, 1900), 38-39.

8Jacob A. Riis, The Battle with the Slum (New York, 1902),22-23,
29-30. _

91bid., 2.
10Riis, A Tenjears War, 33-34, 182.

1l-Jacob A. Riis, How the Other Half Lives, ed. Sam Bass Warner,
(Cambridge, Mass., 1970), 112-13.

12Harry Mantel Shulman, Slums of New York (New York, 1938),
43, 242'45e

13John H. Griscom, Anniversagy Discourse Before the New York
Academy of Medicine, (New York, 1855), 46-48.

286

1833:
1834:

1837:

1842:

1843:

1844:

1845:

1846:

1847:

1848:

1849:

1850:

APPENDIX I

A GRISCQ! CHRONOIDGY

Assistant Physician, New York Dispensary

Physician, New York Dispensary

Co-Founder, Medical Association of the New York Dispensary
(later the New York Medical and Surgical Society). Member until
1846

Popular Lecturer, Natural Philosophy and Chemistry (Until 1835)

Professor of Chemistry, New York College of Pharmacy (Until 1840)

City Inspector (Until 1843)
Attending Physician, Eastern Dispensary (Until 1856)
Medical Society of the Eastern Dispensary (Until 1865)

Fourth Attending Physician, New York Hospital (Until 1847)
Fellow, College of Physicians and Surgeons

Chairman, Seventh District Board of Managers, NYAICP
Member of the Executive Comittee, NYAICP (Until 1847)
Co-Iittee on Prison Discipline, NYPA (Until 1860)

Founder, NYAM (Member until 1874)

Constitutional Conittee, NYAM

Delegate to National Medical Convention (AMA) from New York
Hospital

Chairman, Cousittee on Nomenclature, National Medical Convention
Chairman, Comittee on Registration of Births, Marriages and
Deaths, National Medical Convention

Nominated Correaponding Secretary, NYAM

Delegate to National Medical Convention from NYAM and New York
Hospital

Meter, New York Pathological Society (Until 1874)

Third Attending Physician, New York Hospital (Until 1853)
Delegate to AMA from NYAM

Permanent member, AMA (Until 1874)

Chairman, AMA Standing Comittee on Registration of Births,
Marriages and Deaths

Teller of Elections, AMA

General Agent, Connissioners of Emigration (Until 1851)
"Collaborator," New York Journal of Medicine

Nominated Foreign Corresponding Secretary, NYAM
New York Member, AMA Couittee of Public Hygiene

Trustee, NYAM

287

1851:

1852:

1853:

1854:

1855:

1856 :

1857:

1858:

1859:

288

Chairman, NYAM Comittee of Chemistry and Pharmacy
Meuber, NYAM Comittee of Public Health and Legal Medicine
Nominated NYAM Vice-Pres ident

Chairman, NYAM Comittee of Public Health and Legal Medicine
Physician's Candidate for City Inspector
Honorary Member, State Medical Society

Chairman, Seventh District Board of Managers of NYAICP (Until
1855)

Chairman, NYAICP Committee on the Sanitary Condition of Laboring
Classes of the City of New York

Delegate to AMA from New York Hosp ital

Second Attending Physician, New York Hospital (Until 1865)
Delegate to AMA from NYAM

Nominated President of NYAM

Elected Vice-Pres ident of NYAM

Chairman, NYAM Connittee of Public Health and Legal Medicine
Orator, NYAM

Fourth Vice-President, NYPA (Until 1859)

Witness Before U.S. Senate Comittee on Emigrant Shipping

Delegate to State Medical Society from NYAM
Chairman, Executive Comittee of NYPA (Until 1864)
Municipal Reform Candidate for City Inspector

Trustee, NYAM (Until 1858)

Nominated Vice-President, NYAM

Delegate to State Medical Society from NYAM

New York Editor, New Jersey Medical and Surgical Reporter
(Until 1858)

Nominated President, NYAM

Trustee, NYAM (Until 1858)

Chairman, Committee of Public Health and Legal Medicine (Until
1866)

Delegate to State Medical Society from NYAM

Chairman, Comittee to Improve New York City's Health, State Med-
ical Society

First District Committee of Correspondence, State Medical Society
President, Eastern Dispensary Medical Society

Candidate for City Inspector.

Nominated Vice-President, NYAM (Declined)

Delegate to State Medical Society ,from NYAM

Delegate to AMA from NYAM

Nominated permanent member, State Medical Society (Elected 1860)
Chairman, State Medical Society Committee on Registration
Member of State Medical Society Nominating Comittee

Co-Founder, New York Sanitary Association. (Member until mid-1860's)
President, Third National Quarantine and Sanitary Convention
Witness before State Senate Couittee Investigating Public Health

1860:

1861:

1862:
1863:
1864:
1865:

1866:

1867:

1868:

1869:

289
Delegate, with Elisha Harris, to Quarantine and Sanitary Conven-
tion, from State Medical Society (Until 1870)
Vice-Pres ident, New York Sanitary Association
Member of the New York Sanitary Association Council (Until 1864)
Associate Member, U.S. Sanitary Comission (Until 1864)

Nominated President, NYAM
Ex-Officio Member NYPA Cmittee on Prison Discipline

Delegate to AMA from New York Hospital (Until 1864)
Statistical Secretary, NYAM

Committee on Education, NYAM
Ex-Officio Member all NYPA Comittees

President and Founder, New York Association for Advancement of

‘ Science and Art (Connected to the C00per Institute)

Member NYAM Comittee on Public Health and Legal Medicine
Chairman, NYAM Sub-Committee on Ventilation
Third Vice-President, NYPA (Until 1872)

Nominated Correspond ing Secretary, NYAM
Chairman, NYPA Comittee on Discharged Convicts (Until 1868)

Delegate to AMA from NYAM

Elected Member of Medical Society of the County of New York
(Until 1874)

Founder, Physicians Mutual AidSociety (Member until 1874)

Member NYAM Section on Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and
Children '

Chairman, AMA Comittee for Relief of Widows of Medical Men
Member, NYPA Committee on Discharged Convicts

Examiner, Prudential Life Insurance and Trust Company, (Until 1871)

1833:

1839:

1840:

1842:

1843:

1844:

1845:

1846:

1847:

APPENDIX II

A GRISCQJ BIBLIOGRAPHY, CHROMLOGICALLY ARRANGED

"Notice of a Malignant Disease Generated on Shipboard by Filth,
Imperfect Ventilation, Etc.," AJMS, XII (May, 1833), 272-73.
"Observations on the Apocynum Cannabinum," AJMS, XII (May,
1833), 55-71.

Agimal Mechanism and Physiology, Beigg a Plain and Familiar
Eltposition of the Structure and Functions of the Human System.
New York, 1839.

"A Case of Abstraction of the Uterus After Delivery," ,NYJMS ~
I (July, 1839), 74- 79.

"Spinal Irritation: Its History, Pathology, and Treatment." NYJMS,
II (April, 1840), 300-48.

"Remarks on the Treatment of Curvature of the Spine, with Two
Cases," AJMS, III n.s. (Jan., 1842), 116-24.

Annual Report of the Interments in the City and County of New
York (New York, 1843).

Conunication From the City Inspector Recon-sending a Reorgan-
gation of the Health Police, Board of Aldermen no. 111, 1843.
"A Curiousity in Obstetric Physiology," NYJMCS, I (July, 1843),
58'59e

"Uterine Hydatids," NYJMCS, II (May, 1844), 326-27.
"A Case of Rupture of the Uterus," NYJMCS, II (May, 1844), 333-34.

The Sanitary Condition of the Laborigg Population of the City
of New York, With Suggestiog for its Improvement (New York,
1845).

"Hydrophobia in a Child," NYJMCS, IV (Jan., 1845), 46-47.

"Death From Compression of_ the Umbilical Cord," NYJMCS, 11
(Jan., 1845), 47.

"Violent Chores St. Vitus:--Cured by Strichnine," NYMSR, I (Oct.
18, 1845), 10-11.

"Observations on the Organization of the Hospitals at Bellevue
and Blackwell's Island," New York Evening Post (Oct. 30, Nov. 1,
5, 6, 1845).

First Lessons in Human Physiology, to Which are Added lrief Rules
of Health (New York, 1846).

 

 

"Report of the Committee to Prepare a Nomenclature of Diseases
Adapted to the United States, Having Reference to the General
Registration of Deaths," mo, Proceedings (1847), 133-75.
"Report of the Connittee to Consider the Expediency, and (if
Exped ient) the Mode of Recon-ending and Urging Upon the Several

290

1848:
1849:

1850:

1852:

1853:

1854 :

1855:

1856:

1857:

1858:

291

State Governments the Adoption of Measures for a Registration
of the Births, Marriages and Deaths of Their Several Popu-
lations," M, Proceedings (1847), 125-31.

"Sumary of, and Observations Upon, the Medical Practice of the
New York Hospital in the Months of July, August and September,
1847," NYJMCS, IX (Nov., 1847), 347-54.

"Report of the Standing Committee on Births, Marriages and
Deaths," AMA, Transactions, I (1848), 339-40.

"Hygiene of New York City," AMA, Transactions, 11 (1849),
455-58.

Uses and Abuses of Air (New York, 1850).

"Report of Standing Comittee on Public Health and Legal Medicine
of the NYAM," New York Times, July 13, 1852.

AICP First Report of a Omittee on the Sanitary Conditions of
the Laboring_q1asses oeric the City of New York, with
Rgmedial Suggestions (New York, 1853).

"Public Parks vs Public Health," New York DailLTimes (June
30, 1853).

 

"Albuminuria: Congestion and Hypertrophy of Kidneys: Bright's
Disease: Fatty Degeneration," NJMSR VII (Aug. , 1854), 350-57.

Anniversary Discourse Before the New York AcademLof Medicine
(New York, 1855).

"Hydrophobia," fl, IV (Aug., 1855), 147-49.

"Is Revaccination Necessary, and When?" NJMSR, VIII (Oct. ,
1855), 486-88.

"J. Gotham, Jr.," NJMSR, IX.
"Report on Hydrophobia," AMA, Transactions, IX (1856), 313-17.

"J. Gotham, Jr.," NJMSR, x.

Review of "Introductory Addresses," NJMSR, X (April, 1857), 195- 98.
Review of Medical Notes___ and Reflections, by Sir Henry Holland,
N_JM_§_R, X (April, 1857),J195.

Review of The Greatest of Our Social EvilsLProstitution, NJMSR,

X (Oct., 1857), 505- O7.

"Improvements of the Public Health, and the Establishment of a
Sanitary Police in the City of New York," MSNY, Transaptions,

,(1857),lO7-23.

"Hospital Hygiene, Illustrated," NYAM, _'1_‘r_ansactions, I (1857),
167-78.

"Report on Solidified Milk," NYAM, Transactions, I (1857), 179-88.
"Report on Alga Chocolate and Biscuits," NYAM, Eansactions, I
(1857), 367-74.

"J. (Gotham, Jr.," NJMSR, H.

A Histog'y. Chronologi_ca1 and Circumstantial, of the Visitations
of Yellow Fever _§t New York (New York, 1858).

"Melanetic Tumors of Various Thoracic and Abdominal Viscera,
Without External Evidence of Melanesia," Philadelphia College
of Physicians, Transactions (Jan. 6, 1858).

Letter on. Swill Milk, FLIW, V (May 22, 1858).

1859:

1861:

1862:

1863:

1864:

1865:

1866:

1867:

292

Memoir of John Griscom, L.L. D. (New York, 1859).

wort on Sewerage, Water Supply and 01151., John Bell, Repgrt
on the Importance and Economy of Sanitary Measures to Cities
(New York, 1859).

Review of Reid, Pickford, and Greenhow, AJMS, XXIX n.s. (Jan. ,
1859), 143-56.

"Clinical Reports on Yellow Fever," NYJM, VII 3rd series (Nov. ,
1859), 368-73.

Sanitary Leégislation, Past and Future (New York, 1861).
Review of Bell and Lewes, AJMS, XLII n.s. , (Oct., 1861),
528-32e

"Report on Cretinism," NYAM, Bulletin, I (Dec., 1861), 313-20.

An Improved Method of House Ventilation (New York, 1862).
"Cancerous Disease of the Intestines," m, IV (June 7, 1862), 320.
Review of HealthL Five Lay Sermons to the WorkingPeo 1e, by

John Brown, M.D. Mg, VII march 8, 1862), 546-47.

"The Causes and Prevention of Some of the Most Important Diseases
of the Army," A_M_M_, XVIII (Dec., 1862), 401-18.

Review of General Report of the Comissioners Appointed for
Mov—ing the Sanitary Condition of Barracks and Hospitals,

AJMS, XLV n.s. (Jan., 1863), 112-21.

"Report on the Ridgewood Disinfecting Powder," NYAM, Bulletin,

II (July, 1863), 143-51.

"Case of Diarrhoea Adipose," AMA, gansactions, XIV (1863), 171-82.

Reply to Citizen's Association's Comittee of_Tnguiry on the
Sanitary Condition of New York (New York, 1864).

"The Physiological and Dietetic Relations of Phophorus," AMA,
Transactions, XV. (1864), 183-202.

"Sanitary Condition of New York City," AJMS, L n.s. (Oct. ,
1865), 4l9-28.

"Letter to the Editor," MST, XIV (Feb. 10, 1866), 116-17.
"Letter to the Editor Concerning a New Theory of the Gulf
Stream," MST, XIV (Feb. 7, 1866), 135-36.

"The Rinderpest," Mg, XIV (Feb. , 24, 1866), 156-58.
"Treatment of Cholera," MST, XIV (March 10, 1866), 196-97.
"Hospitals of London and Paris ," MS_R_, XIV (March 17, 1866),
216-17. '

"The Where, The When, The Why, and The How of the First Appearance
and Greatest Prevalence of Cholera in Cities," NYAM, Bulletin,
III (March, 1866), 6-26.

"Malignant Influences of the Uterus," NYAM, Bulletin, III
(May, 1866), 52-54.

"Report of the Sub-Comittee on Ventilation," NYAM, Bulletin,
III may, 1866), 91-100.

"Letter to the Editor Concerning a New Therapeutic Preparation,"
fl, XVI (Feb. 9, 1867), 118-19.

Review of The Principles of Biolo , by Herbert Spencer, AJMS,
LIII n.s. (April, 1867), 518-20.

1868:

1869:

1870:

293

The Family Record (New York, 1868).

The Use of Tobacco, and the Evilsy PtysicglLMengT, Moral, and
80¢th ResultinLTherefrom (New York, 1868).

Prison Hygiene (New York, 1868).

"An Essay on the Therapeutic Value of Certain Articles of the
Materia Medica, of Recent Introduction," MSNY, Transactions
(1868), 114-30.

"Physiological and Pathological Relations of Albumen," MST,
XE, (July 26, 1868), 67-68.

"Essay on the Chemico-Physiological Causes of Numerous Diseases,
and Their Corresponding Means of Treatment," 1331, III, (Aug. ,
1868), 473-81.

Trtize Essay on the Physical and Physiological Tndicationug
Longevity (New York, 1869).

Report of Special Comittee on the Merits of a Proposed Method
of Supplyipg Pure Air. . . (New York, 1869).

"Report of A Comittee on Plan for Relief of Widows and Orphans
of Medical Men," AMA, Tgnsactions, (1869), 101-07.

"The NaturalChemistry of Physiology," M_S_R_, XXI (July 3, 1869),
4-6._ , ‘
"Sulphite of Soda in Diarrhoea," EMjIV (Aug. , 1869) , 470-73.

"The Turkish. Bath," MST, XXII (Feb. 5, 1870), 119-20.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAY

Griscom.Biographies: In his brief sketch of Dr. Griscom, Samuel
W. Francis inclucded a bibliography which, though incomplete, provided
a beginning point. This article, "Biographical Sketches of Distin-
guished Living New York Physicians," Medical and Surgical Reporter, XV
(August 4, 1866, 118-22) also yielded the best available material on
Dr. Griscom's personal life. The more recent sketches, such as Frederick
A. F. Barnard, Johnson's Universal Cyclppedia (New York, 1888), James
Grant Wilson,‘Memorial History of Newaork (New York, 1893,)and Howard
A. Kelly, Dictionary of American Medical Biography (New York, 1928),
are all based on Francis. An understanding of the early family life
comes from John H. Griscom's biographical account of his father,

Memoir of John Griscom, L.L.D. (New York, 1859).

The obituaries of Dr. Griscom are, like the biographies, all
based on a single pattern. They also supplied some biographical infor-
mation as well as a little bibliographical data. The New'YorkyTTges
(April 30, May 1, 1874) and. the New York Dagyjlibune- (April 30, 1874)
gave brief notices. The medical journals which reported his death
briefly outlined his background, education, and career, and than cited
what they considered to be his most important works. These entries can
be found in the Medical News, XXXII (July, 1874, 107-08), New York
Medical Journal, XIX (June, 1874, 664), Medical Record, IX (May 15,
1874, 271-72, and June 1, 1874, 304), and the Medical and SuEchal

Re orter, XXX (June 6, 1874, 536).

294

295

Griscom JournalJAtppicles and Papphlets: Most of Dr. Griscom's
written work appears in journal articles and pamphlets. The first,
"Observations on the Apocynum Cannabinum," (a plant used in treating
dropsy), American Journal of the Medical Sciences, XII (May, 1833,
55-71), was his M.D. thesis. He wrote a great many strictly medical
pieces (see Appendix II) that are of little significance today, but
those related to public health are invaluable. The best pamphlet, and
perhaps the most famous, is the Sanitary Condition of the Laboripg
Population of the Cipy of New York, with Sgggestions for its Improvement
(New York, 1845), in which he spelled out the problem and suggested
solutions. An outgrowth of his earlier City Inspector's Mort (New
York, 1842), these two reports were well received.

An early article on immigration is "Notice of a Malignant Disease
Generated on Shipboard by Filth, Imperfect Ventilation, 8c," American
Journal of the Medical Sciences, XII (May, 1833, 272-73). Griscom con-
cluded that it was typhus and not cholera as previously thought.

His magnum Opus on yellow fever, from the New York Academy of
Medicine report, can be found in the American Medical Monthl , IX
(Feb. , 1858, 81-117). "Clinical Reports on Yellow Fever ," prepared by
Dr. Griscom is in the New York Journal of Medicine, VII, 3rd series
(Nov., 1859, 368-73).

Griscom's article, "Sumary of and Observations Upon the Medical
Practice of the New York Hospital in the Mouths of July, August and
Septenber, 1847," New York Journal of Medicine and the Collateral
Sciences, IX (Nov., 1847), 347-54, treats various clinical cases, but
'mostly typhus cases.

griscom Monogpaphs: Though a prolific writer of articles, Griscom
produced only four books. The earliest, Animal Mechanism and Phys iolgy

(New York, 1839), and its revised and expanded version, First Lessons

296

in Human Physiology to Which are Added Brief Rules of nglph (New York,
1847), are both textbooks which outlined, in Victorian terms, the
parts and functions of the body.

The Memoir of John Griscom, L.L.D. (New York, 1859), was written
after the death of the elder Griscom.

Tees and Abuses of Ag; (New York, 1849, 1970) shows Griscom's
interest in proper ventilation. It has been reprinted by Arno Press
in their Environmental Series.

Griscom Reviews: Griscom was an active reviewer of books and
articles, a few of which are of value to the history of public health.
In.Oct., 1865, he reviewed the report of the Council ofgyggene of the
Citizens Association, which he thought was excellent, and the QTEy
Tpspector's Report, which was treated with less respect. American
Journal of the'Medical Sciences, L n.s. (419-28). In a book review of
John.Brown's Health,_Five Lay Sermons, Medical and Spggigal Rgporter,
VII (March 8, 1862, 546-47), he said that any book which adequately
dealt with the subject for laymen was helpful. He also liked James
H. Pickford's H iene, Edward Greenhow's Papgrs Relatipgygo the Sanitpgy
State of the People of E land, and David B. Reid's Ventilation of
American Dwellin s,.American Journal of the‘Medical Sciences, XXVII n.s.
(Jan., 1859, 143-56). A.N. Bell's A.Rnowledgg of Living Things, and
two books by George H. Lewes, The Physiolggyof Common Life and Studies
in Animal Life were reviewed in American Journal of the Medical Sciences,
XLII n.s. (Oct., 1861, 528-31).

One of his last reviews was a favorable one of Herbert Spencer's
The Princi lea of Biolo , American Journal of theiMedical Sciences,
LIII n.s. (April, 1867, 518-20), in.which he praised the work of Darwin

and Spencer in unfolding the mysteries of the origins of life.

297

Griscom Letters: There are only a few letters either written
to or by Dr. Griscom, and they are collected in the New York Public
Library and the New‘York Historical Library. They are, however, of
little interest. One to General Daniel Ullman, from Griscom, (Historical
Society Collection, dated New York, Sept. 4, 1863) indicates that
Griscom supported the war effort, even though he was a Quaker.

Printed letters in a few of the medical journals are of some

interest. Griscom sent a series of letters to the Medical and

 

Spggical Reporter during his 1866 trip, XIV (January-April, 1866).
They were on a variety of subjects. Later, in XXII (Feb. 5, 1870,
119-20), Griscom had a letter on.the values of the Turkish Bath, in
which he mentioned its use in stimulating the skin and relaxing the
nerves.

Griscom's letters (editorials) indicate that he spent two
productive years with the New Jers_ey Medical and Smal Reporter.

His first letter appeared in February, 1856, and they continued with
only two interruptions until March, 1858. S. W. Butler, the journal's
editor, said that Dr. Griscomhwas "of the first standing in the
profession." Butler thought that the letters were "kept up in a spirit
and style that will not fail to prove exceedingly beneficial to all

our readers." New Jerseijedical and Surgical Reporter, IX (May,

1856, 240).

Society_Transactions and Reports: To anyone interested in
medical history, especially in relation.to New York, the New York
Academy of‘Medicine Library is invaluable. During the Griscom years its
publications were the Transactions, which first appeared in 1857, and
the Bulletin, which debuted in 1861. The first volume of the Transactions

(1857) contains three Griscom articles: "Hospital Hygiene, Illustrated"

298
(167-78), which dealt primarily with typhus cases, the Public Health

Comittee's "Report on Solidified Milk" (179-88), in which Griscom
outlined the value of Blatchford's Solidified Milk in curbing disease
among tenement infants, and a Public Health Comittee report on "Alga
Chocolate and Biscuits" (367-74). Griscom discussed his experiments
with food made from sea weed, concluding that when combined with
chocolate it made a substitute for cod liver oil.

The Bulletin, I (Dec., 1861, 313-20), printed Griscom's connittee
report on Cretinism, in which he discussed the work of Dr. Guggenbuhl.
A cretin closely resembled an idiot, but the defect was supposedly due
to dampness and not brain damage.

Griscom, as Chairman of the Public Health Comittee reported on
"The Ridgewood Disinfecting Powder," II (July, 1863, 143-51), which
he found to be most useful in controlling decay without changing the
substance of the umterial preserved. The report was favorably reviewed
in the American Medical Times, VII (Oct. 10, 1863, 170-71).

Volume III of the Bulletin contains the 1866 discussion on
cholera (Feb. - May, 1-72), which has important consents on the disease
by New York's leading physicians. Among the comments is Griscom's
"The Where, The When, The Why, and The How of the First Appearance
and Greatest Prevalence of Cholera in Cities" (March, 6-26). N. W. J.
Heath's "Asiatic Cholera, As it Appeared on the Steamship 'England,' in
April, 1866" appears in the same volume (Sept. , 131-39).

Griscom chaired a sub-committee which prepared a report on
"Ventilation" (May, 1866, 91-100), in which different types of ventilators
were discussed. A few years earlier he had written a pamphlet, A_n_
Tmppoved Method of House Ventilation (New York, 1862), in which he
described his own hot air method of ventilation, which used a separate

set of flues. The plan was patented, Report of the Comiss ioner of

299

Patepts for the year 1859, Arts and Manufactures (Washington, 1860).
In his work on Yentilation, (New York, 1864), David B. Reid cited

Griscom's plan.

Each year the Academy elected an Orator to deliver an address
marking the anniversary of the Academy's founding. Dr. Griscom delivered
the Anniversary Discourse (New York, 1855) in the fall of 1854. He
spoke on the relationship between medical science and the public, and
he called for more trust on the part of the public and more understand-
ing on the part of the profession.

Dr. Griscom and the Consittee on Public Health presented a report
on the state of the dispensary system in July, 1852, which was subse-
quently printed in the New York Times (July 13, 1852).

The Academy Library's Molloch Rare Book Room contains the manu-
script Minutes of their meetings. The first two volumes contain material
from the Griscom years, and give an indication as to exactly how active
a medaer he was. The Minutes of the Medical Society of the County of
New York (Oct. 5, 1863-Nov. 25, 1878), are also there, and they record
Griscmn's work and the papers he delivered at that association.

The Minutes of the Medical Association of the New York Dispensary
(March 7, 1834-Jan. 17, 1835) are deposited there as are those of its
successor, The New York Medical and Surgical Society. Volumes II and
III (through 1848) are applicable to Griscom's career.

A few other things of value in the Academy's Library are S. S.
Purple's "List of Founders, with Biographical Notes" (undated manu-
script), a "Chronological History of the Section on Public Health and
Legal Medicine," prepared by the Archivist (typescript, 1965). Two of
Griscom's pamphlets can also be found there: a Synppsis of E_igh_t_:
Teyctures on the Mechanism and PhysioloLof the Human Body (n. p. , 1840),

in which he outlined the course of lectures he delivered for several

300

years, and his Rpply to the Citizen's Association Comittee of InMry
on the Sanitary Condition of New York (N.Y. , 1864), in which he again
called for reform of the Health Department is also in the Molloch Room.

' The printed Tiansactions of the AMA and the State Medical Society
(the latter are printed separately and as part of the Legislative
Documents) provide material on both Griscom's organizational activity,
thich is listed in the Minutes of the various meetings, and his reports
and papers. The AMA Trapnsactions actually begin in 1846 and 1847 with
the Proceedipgs of the National Medical Conventions, whereas the State
Medical Society was in existence long before Griscom began his medical
career.

In the National Medical Convention Proceedipgs can be found
Griscom's twin reports: "To Prepare a Nomenclature of Diseases Adapted
to the United States, Having Reference to a General Registration of
Deaths," (133-75) and "Report of the Coulittee to Consider the Exped-
iency, and (If Expedient) the Mode of Recon-ending and Urging Upon
the Several State Goverments the Adoption of Measures for a Registra-
tion of Births, Marriages and Deaths of Their Several Populations"
(125-31). These mark his first national attempts at registration and
classification. In the first volume of the AMA Transactions (1848),
Griscom presented the "Report of the Standing Comittee on Births,
Marriages and Deaths" (339-40), in which he noted the progress made.

Ten years later Edward Jarvis presented the "Report on Law of
Registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths, XI (1858, 525-35).

Jarvis reported on progress made and consented on the 1850 census. The
following year W. L. Sutton presented a "Uniform Plan for Registration
of Births, Marriages and Deaths," XII (1859, 135-82). The 33.9.5 and

Eighth Annual Reports of the Registrar General of Births, Deaths and

Marriages in Egland (London, 1839, 1849), provided a useful comparison

 

301

with Griscom's nosology, which was based on the English system. .Also,
theiMortaligy Statistics of the Seventh Censup indicates the influence
of the Griscom nomenclature, on which it was in part based.

There are two reports on vaccination. James F. Hibberd, Griscom
and Wilson Jewell's "Report on Compulsory Vaccination," XV (1864,
l6l-66), concluded that it was unwise at the time, and A. N. Bell,
et. a1. "Report of the Committee on the Value and Necessity of vaccin-
ation and Revaccination for the Eradication of Small Pox,'XVI (1865,
265-77), found that there was a vast difference of opinion, but concluded
that revaccination was necessary periodically. Earlier, in an article
in the Ngg_;grseyiMedical and Sugchal Reporter, "Is Revaccination
Necessary, and When?" VIII (Oct., 1855, 487-88), Griscom concluded that
it was needed every decade or so.

A Committee of Public Hygiene, appointed at the first meeting of
the.AMA, presented a joint report, prepared by James Wynne, Chairman,
entitled "First Report of the Committee of Public Hygiene of the AMA,"
II (1849, 431-44), outlining the ingredients of a healthy city. Each
member then presented a report on his respective city. Griscom's (455-
58) pointed out the unhealthy features of New York and suggested means
of improvement.

The report of the Committee on Literature, chaired by Oliver
Wendell" Holmes, "On the New_Tprk Journal of Medicine and the Collateral
Sciences," I (1848, 263-64), listed Griscom as a collaborator.

In the post-Civil War period of his career, Griscom was concerned
with the care and relief of widows and orphans of medical men, and
therefore drew up a plan put into use in New York. He also chaired a
committee and presented to the AMA his "Plan for Relief of Widows and

Orphans of Medical Men," XX (1869, 101-07).

302

The Transactions of the State Medical Society also contain valu-
able material on a variety of subjects. Griscom's report on "Improve-
ments of the Public Health and the Establishent of a Sanitary Police
in the City of New York" (1857, 107-23), was written and sent to the
Legislature containing Griscom's plan to revamp the city Health Diapart-
ment. A

Thomas Brinsmade chaired a couittee which was to "Draft a
Sanitary Code for the State of New York. " Griscom and Theodore L.

Mason prepared it,‘ using Griscom's plan for sanitary “police (1863, 337-40).

Cyril Ramsay reported on "The Mortality of theCity of New York"
(1864, 287-314). This article was helpful in analyzing the rising
mortality of the city.

A number of medical reports that Griscom presented were printed
in the Tignpgctions, but they are of little value today. The same is
also true of many Griscom reports printed in theAMA _Tpansactions.

The Annual Repprts of the New York Prison Association (1844-72)
provide an insight into Griscom's concern for the prisoner. The
Association also printed Prison Hygiene (New York, 1868), which was
prepared by Griscom at the behest of the NYPA Executive Co-ittee.
Basically, it is concerned with the sanitary condition of prisons,
and is carefully documented by Griscom, from both his own experiences
and those of others. J. F. Hibberd reviewed the pamphlet in the Western
Journal of Medicine, III (July, 1868, 126-27), praising it highly (Hibberd
also reviewed the moral propaganda tract, The Use of Tobacco, and the
gyilp, Physical; Mental and Moraly ResultgLTherefrom (New York, 1868).
He was as kind as possible, considering the fact that the pamphlet was
poorly done. A

John T. Hoffman, et. al., The Work of the Prison Association of

New York, Its Character and Results (New York, 1870), and E. C. Wines,

303
A_§rief Statement of the Objects and Results of the PrisonAAssociation
of New York Duriggythe Seventeen Years of Tts Existence (New'York,
1862), both provide good background material on the Association.

The §ppppd,'T§Tpg_and Fourth Reports of the National Qparantine
and Sanitary Convention (Baltimore, 1858, New York, 1859, Boston, 1860),
contain.a‘wealth of information concerning the climate of opinion on
the contagion controversy. The opinions of Griscom and many of his
associates can be found there. These reports, especially the Third,
when Griscom was president, which is by far the fullest and most valu-
able, also included articles and papers prepared by the delegates.
Griscom's "Report upon Sewerage, Water Supply and Offal" and John
Bell's"Sanitary Measures to Cities"were printed in the Third Report.
They were also printed separately (New York, 1859). Both exhibit the
Convention's dedication tointernal sanitary problems.

The Annual Reports of the Board of Trustees of the New‘York
Dispensary (New York, 1834, 35), mention Griscom's connection with that
organization. The Report of the State of New'York Hoppital and the
Bloomingdale Asylum for the years 1843-68 (New York, 1868), reported on
Griscom's connection with that hospital.

The.Annual Reports of the Commissioners of Emigration are printed
in the Legislative Documents of New York State, and they have also been
printed separately as the Annual Reports of the Commissioners of Emi-
grppTon of the State of New'York (New‘York, 1861). The joint report of
Griscom, Gulian Verplanck and Leopold Bierwirth on the erection of an
entry facility for migrants is printed in an Appendix (380-82). The
Commissioners alsoprinted the Rules for the Government of the Epigrpnt
Refuge and Hospital at Ward's Island (New York, 1850). This was probably

written by Dr. Griscom, considering the style and tone of the report.

304
The Documents of the United States Sanitapy Commissioners, Vols.
I and II (New York, 1866), reveal that Griscom was an Associate Member,
but apparently had no'other connection.
The gi_rs_t and Second Annual Report of the New York Sanitary
Association (New York, 1859, 1860), provide information on Griscom's
organisational ability, and on New York's sanitary condition. His

report to the New York Sanitary Association entitled Sanitpg Legis-

 

lation, Past and Future (New York, 1861), traced the efforts for health
reform and indicated plans for the future. Griscom also prepared a
report on "The Causes and Prevention of Some of the Most Important
Diseases of the Army ," printed in the American Medical Monthly, XVIII
(Dec., 1862, 401-18). Griscom covered the hygiene of the army camps,
the health services and the types of tents in use.

The M, Fourth, andTenth Annual Report of the New York
Association for Igprovipg the Condition of the Poor (New York, 1845,
1847, 1853) provide information on Griscom, and the condition of the
lower classes in New York City. The First Report of a Co-ittee on
the Sanitary. Condition of the Laboring Classes of the City oe [sicl
New Yorlh with Remedial Suggestions (New York, 1853), was prepared by
Griscom, and devoted almost entirely to the question of tenement houses.
The style and tone of the report suggest that Griscom was the author,
although it is unsigned.

A [amt of the Special Co-ittee on the Merits of a Proposed
Mpthod of SmTyipg Pure Air, prepared by Dr. Griscom (New York, 1869) ,
and the By Laws of the New Tork Association for the Advancement of
gene. aan (New York, 1865), are the only records or documents in
existence relating to this organisation, which was founded by Griscom

as a part of the Cooper Institute.

305

Government Documents: City, State, and Federal documents all '
provide information on the people's health and Griscom's work.

A The Copgressional Globe (33rd Cong. , 1st Sess. , 1853-54) gives
the background on Hamilton Fish's Report of the Select Comittee on
grant Sthpipg (33rd Cong., lst Sess. , Senate Report 386, 1853-54,
Serial 707). This report covers the evils of emigrant shipping as
reported by several witnesses, including Griscom, and recouends changes
in the law. The Memorial of the New York State Legislature which helped
bring about the investigation is printed in House of Representatives,
(33rd Cong., 1st Sess., Misc. Doc. 14, Jan., 1854). The Statutes at
Lar e, IX and X, contain the Laws. The Senate Report of the Emigration
Co-ission (61st Cong., 3rd Sess., Doc. 758, vol. 38, 1911) contains
useful information on i-igration legislation.

{In the State Documents are several valuable reports, perhaps the
most significant of which is the Report of the Select Cousittee
Appointed'to Investigate th_e:_Hpalth Department of the,Cig of New York
(Senate Doc. no. 49, Feb. 3, 1859). This report race-ended changes in
the health law after testimony had been heard on the deplorable
conditions.

There are two reports on the tenement situation: the Report of
the Select Couittee Appointed to Examine into the Condition of Tenant
Houses in New York and Brooklyn (Assembly no. 205 , March 9, 1857)", which
quotes extensively from many of Griscom's writings, and the Report of
the Cos-ittee on Public Health . . . Relative. to the Condition of
Tenement Houses in the Cities of New York and Brooklyn (Assembly no.
156, March 8, 1867). Both reports cite the problems related to tenant

houses which Griscom had mentioned years earlier.

306
The Second Report of the New York State Inebriate Asylum (Senate

no. 45, 1864), mentions Griscom's connection with that hospital. The
Journals of the Assembly and Senate from 1857 (80th Seas.) until 1866
(89th Seas.) chart the failures and ultimate success of the Metropolitan
Health Bill. The Teport of the Minority of the:§plect Committee of Nine
Upon the Metrppolitan Healthfigill for the City and Port of New York and
Counties of Rpipgg and Richmond (Assembly no. 203, April 7, 1862) was a
bitter attack directed against Griscom's attempts to pass the health
reform measure. Griscom answered Coddington in a letter to the editor
in the New York Times, April 21, 1862.

From the City Documents, scattered issues of the City Inppector's
Reports, especially 1839, 1846, and 1847 are helpful in comparison
with Griscom's of 1842. Griscom presented a number of reports to the
city officials when he was City Inspector; the most significant (after
the waspector's Report) was his Reorganization of the Health Police
(Board of Aldermen no. 111, 1843). Volumes XXIII and XXIV of the
Proceedipgp of thepgoard of Aldermen (1842-43), and XXI of the Journal
snippet-eats of thepoard of Assistants (1842-43), trace the fate of
Griscom's reco-aendations.

The Report of the Sanatory [sicl Co—ittee of the Board of
gpaplthw in Relation to the Cholera as it Prevailed in New York in
T832 (New York, 1849), is an excellent report on the workings of the
Board of Health.

_R_e_g_ipters and City Directories: E. M. Purdy, Medical Register
of New York, New Jerspypgd Connecticut for 1874 (New York, 1874),
Longworth's American Almanac, New York Rpgister and City Directog,
Doggett's New York Cit Directo' 2, and D. T. Valentine's Mpnual of the

Corporation of the City of New York for scattered years of the

307
Griscom period all provide information on his activities and organi-

sational connections.

N_e_w__YLork and American Medical Gazette: One of the best, and
most unlikely, sources of information on Dr. Griscom are the usually
unfriendly accounts in the A_perican Medicplp Gazette (first five volumes
are the Nflork Medical Gazette, 1850-54). The editor, D. Meredith
Reese, was a conservative with an intense dislike for Dr. Griscom. Part
of the problem resulted from a rebuke Reese received for an 1858
breech of ethics from the New York Academy, but the enmity goes back
even before this because Reese viciously attacked Griscom as early as
1856 when the latter becau New York Editor of the New Jersey Medical
93d Sprgical Reporter. Although a negative source, especially on
Griscom's state-related activities, they document much of his work.
Volume V (1854) through volume XII (April 1861) contain many editorials
which are at least in part devoted to Dr. Griscom.

work Newspapers: Several of the newspapers were of help.
the New_Tgrk Times, with the index, was the most valuable. the 3.1.22.
early supported the plan for health reform and gave full and complete
coverage of the activity in Albany. It also reported on the New York
Academy of Medicine, the New York Sanitary Association and the New York
Association for the Advancement of Science and Art. Griscom's article
on public parks was printed in the June 30, 1853, issue. the New York
Tribune is also valuable, especially during Griscom's tenure as City
Inspector in 1842. the New York Evening Post printed Griscom's "Obser-
vations on the Organization of the Hospitals at Bellows and Blackwell's
Isla " (Oct. 30, Nov. 1, 5, 6, 1845) and L. 's rebuttal (Dec. 5, 6, 1845).
Trank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, in May, 1858, attacked the swill

milk producers, and printed a letter from Dr. Griscom. (May 22, 1858).

308

Epglish Health Reform: The Works of Jeremy Bentham (Edinburgh,
1843), Maurice Marston, Sir Edwin Chadwick (London, 1925), and Edwin
Chadwick's Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population
of Great Britain, ed. by M. W. Flynn (Edinburgh, 1965), and Chadwick's
A Smlementag Report on the Results of a Spiecal [sic] Tnguig into
the Practice of_Tnterment in Towns (London, 1843) show that Griscom
was definitely influenced by English work.

ContgporarLAccounts: The travel accounts of Charles Mac Ray,
Tife and Liberty in America (New York, 1859), and especially Charles
Dickens, American Notes (Gloucester, Mass. , 1968), provide a great deal
of information and excellent insights on life in New York during Griscom's
active years. Another source is the Diapy of George Templeton Strogg,
edited by Allan Nevins, 4 vols. (New York, 1952). Strong was especially
valuable for his accounts of the cholera epidemics.

Jacob A. Riis: In drawing a comparison between Griscom and Riis,
the latter's Ten Years War (New York, 1900) , Tattle With the Slum
(New York, 1902), The Children of the Tenements (New York, 1903), and
fig the Other Half Lives, edited by Sam Bass Warner, Jr. (Cambridge,
Mass., 1970), are very appropriate. Harry Manuel Shulman, Slms of
New York (New York, 1938), indicates that more work remained to be done
after Griscom and Riis completed their careers.

General Works: Iago Galdston's "Humanism and Public Health,"
Tulletin of the Etory of Medicine, VII (July-Aug., 1940, 1034-42),
is an excellent source in that it traced the importance of the humani-
tarian reform movement in relation to public health and provided a
starting place for this work.

The only secondary work that deals with Griscom specifically is
Charles and Carroll Rosenberg, "Pietism and the Origins of the Public

Health Movement: A Note of John H. Griscom and Robert M. Hartley,"

309
J_ou_r_na1 of thegllistory of Medicine, XXIII (Jan. , 1968, 16-35). This
article, however, deals more with the relation between pietism and
public health than with Griscom himself.

There are many sources on public health and medical history, but
few of them shed any light on Griscom and his period. One of the best
is John Duffy's encyclopedic HTstog of Public Health in New York
City,_1625-l866 (New York, 1968). This is the first of a two volume
history of public health that will be indispensible to anyone interested
in either public health or urban history. George Rosen's general History
of Public Health (New York, .1958), and his "Public Health Problems in
New York City," work State Journal of Medicine, L (Jan. , 1950,
73-78) help in understanding the general nature of public health.
Maseyk Ravenel's edited work, flalf -Centu11 of Public Health (New
York, 1921), traces the decades of discovery after the germ .theory.

Books related specifically to New York's health and organization
are Philip Van Ingen's"The First One Hundred Years of the New York
Medical Society“ (1944 typeseript in the NYAM Molloch Room) and The
New_TO_rk Acadey of Medicine, Tts First Hundred Years (New York, 1949);
both are good, with material on Dr. Griscom. Charles Rosenberg, The
Cholera Years (Chicago, 1962) outlines the major epidemics of cholera
in New York City. J. J. Walsh's Histog of the Medical SociegLof the
State of NM (New York, 1907) and five volume History_of Medicine
of New York (New York, 1919), are both dated but still of use. Charles
F. Bolduan,Over a Century of Health Administration in New York Cipy
(Dep't of Health Monograph no. 13, 1916) is brief but useful, as is
Susan Wade Peabody, Hfiistorical Study of Legislation ItpgprdinLPublic
Health in the States of New York and Massachusetts, Journal of Infectious
Diseases (Supplement 4, Feb. , 1909), which traces the significance of

the Metropolitan Health Bill. Stephen Smith, The City That Was, (New

310
York, 1911), is concerned with the same subject, but was written many
years after the bill's passage and mmst be used carefully. Gert Brieger,
"Sanitary Reform in New York City: Stephen Smith and the Passage of the
Metropolitan Health Bill;'§plletin of the History of Medicine, XL
(Sept.-Oct., 1966, 407-29) is a good analysis of the final drive to
pass the bill. Jacob Judd, "Brooklyn's Health and Sanitation, 1834-
55," Tournal of Lopg Island History, VII (Winter-Spring, 1967,
40-52), is good as a comparison to what was happening in a neighboring
city. Although it is not a medical history, no study of New York could
do without I. N. Phelps Stokes's, Tgonggraphy of Manhatten Island (New
York, 1926). It must be carefully used, however, because no distinction
is made between the two Griscoms.

General medical studies include Richard Shryock's Medicine and
Society in America (New York, 1960), which is an excellent study for the
pre-Civil War period. J. 8. Chambers, Conguest of Cholera (New'York, I
1938), and John C. Peters, AgTreatise on the OpTngs, Nature, Prevention,
,apd Treatment of Asiatic Cholera (New York, 1866), are both valuable
in understanding the importance of the disease. Henry Burnell Shafer,
Atmarican Medical Profession, 1783-1850 (New York, 1936), Frederick
Norwood, gistory of Medical Education in the United States Before the
Civil War (Philadelphia, 1944) are both good for pre-germ theory medi-
cine. M. E. M. Walker, Pioneers of Public Health (New York, 1930), is
‘mostly concerned with European pioneers, but it does cover many of the
more important breakthroughs.

N. S. Davis, History of the American Medical Association from
Its Orggnisation Up to Januar , 1855 (Philadelphia,l855) is a good
treatment of the early years. Two articles in the Bulletin of the
Histgry of Medicine are Howard D. Kramer, "Early Municipal and State

Boards of Health," XXIV (May-June, 1950, 503-29), which treats the

311

significance of the Metropolitan Board of Health, and Harold M. Cavins,
"The National Quarantine and Sanitary Conventions of 1857-1860 and the
Beginnings of the American Public Health Association," XIII (April, 1943,
404-26), in which Cavins maintains that the conventions were the
beginnings of a national health organization.

Frederick Xapp, Mation and the Comissioners of Epigration
(New York, 1870), indicates the importance of Griscom to the Comission-
ers. Edith Abbott, _Ig_igration, Select Documents and Case Records
(Chicago, 1924), is indispensible. General works on insigration include
Marcus Hansen, The Atlantic Mination, 1607-1860 (New York, 1940, 1961),
Edwin Guillet, The Greg; Migration (Toronto, 1963), Oscar Handlin,
The Uprooted (New York, 1951), and Robert Ernst, Impggnt Life in
New York City (Port Washington, New York, 1965, 1949).

Kate Holladay Claghorn, "Foreign Imigration and the Tenement
House in New York City," in vol. II of Robert W. deForest and Lawrence
Veiller, eds. , The Tenement House Problem (New York, 1903) , connects
innigration and tenements and analyses the contribution of Dr. Griscom.
Both volumes of this work are helpful. Twa other works by Veiller
include Tpnement jHouse Reform (New York, 1900), and A Model Housgg
Lag (New York, 1920), both of which put Griscom in the forefront of the
tenement house reformers. James Ford, Slums and Housgg (Cambridge,
Mass. , 1936) and Roy Lubove, The Pmressives and The Slums (Pittsburgh,
1962) also connect Griscom with the tenement‘and give a good analysis
of the tenement problem in the nineteenth century.

General works on welfare and prisons include Blake Mch 1vey,
American Prisons (Chicago, 1936), W. David Lewis, From Neggate to Danne-
pnpp; (Ithaca, 1965) , David M. Schneider, gistopy of Public Welfare in

New York State, 1609-1866 (Chicago, 1938). Ramsey Clark, Crime in America

312

(New‘York, 1970), has many parallels with Griscom's work, and indicates

that much remains to be done.

        

    

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