Division of Hygiene and Public Health

Division of Hygiene and Public Health Division of Hygiene and Public Health Michigan Publishing Copyright © 2015 by the Regents of the University of Michigan The University of Michigan: An Encyclopedic Survey was first published beginning in 1942. For its 2017 Bicentennial, the University undertook the most significant updating of the Encyclopedia since the original, focusing on academic units. Entries from all versions are compiled in the Bicentennial digital and print-on-demand edition. This book was produced using Pressbooks.com, and PDF rendering was done by PrinceXML. Contents 1. Division of Hygiene and Public Health (1942) 1 John Sundwall [1] Division of Hygiene and Public Health (1942) John Sundwall SOCIAL, economic, religious, and governmental interests have contributed to the growth of public health in this country since the 1850’s. Until about 1870, however, little professional health education was needed, since community health efforts were confined, for the most part, to the appointment of a “sanitary inspector,” who had charge of the disposal of rubbish and environmental filth. With the work of Pasteur and the birth of modern preventive medicine, departments or institutes of bacteriology and hygiene were established, and bacteriologist laboratorians were trained. Before this, Snow had indicated water as a cholera route, and in 1873 Budd discovered that it was a carrier of typhoid. Trained sanitary engineers were employed, and procedures for blocking disease transmission were set up. As the prevention or control of endemics and of most of the major epidemics became possible, the necessity for wide-spread systematized attention to other important health factors was 2 Division of Hygiene and Public Health seen. Findings of World War I draft examinations emphasized the extent of this need. The present phase of the public health movement came with the recognition that sanitation should be improved and communicable disease controlled. The necessity for health education, periodic health examinations, the prevention, early detection, and amelioration or correction of physical and mental defects was recognized. Public health work calls for the physician, dentist, nurse, nutritionist, and psychologist — with prevention rather than cure as the goal — as well as for the bacteriologist laboratorian and the sanitary engineer. The educator, the sociologist, economist, and political scientist all play a part, since many ailments have to an increasing extent social and economic etiological factors. It is a common experience for a social need to meet with delay before a public act results unless an emergency compels action. Progress in public health work has not infrequently come as a result of epidemics. One may say that cheese — or, rather, outbreaks of illness from the eating of cheese — promoted the University’s early participation in public health work (Kleinschmidt, MS, pp. 310-17). In 1883 reports came to the State Board of Health from several communities in Michigan that “persons eating cheese had become suddenly and violently ill.” In 1884-85 some three hundred such cases were reported. Dr. Vaughan and his associates “finally isolated a poisonous principle,” which Dr. Vaughan named “tyrotoxicon.” This outbreak and a later one, in Milan, furthered the cause of the laboratory. The University of Michigan was one of the first universities to recognize its public health obligations. The Hygienic Laboratory was established in 1887 for investigations concerning the causation, nature, and prevention of disease and to serve as an educational center in hygiene subjects. Two dates mark important points in the University’s public health activities subsequent to the establishment of the laboratory; the inauguration of systematic professional public health education in 1911; and the organization of the Division of Hygiene and Public Health in 1921. The School of Public Health was established in July, 1941. The early establishment of a state board of health in Michigan Division of Hygiene and Public Health (1942) 3 contributed to the University’s pioneer work in public health. Only a few states preceded Michigan in this respect — Massachusetts, 1869, California, 1870, Virginia and Minnesota, 1872, and the state of Louisiana, which, in 1855, organized in conjunction with New Orleans a board of health which exercised authority in the city and quarantine stations. Impressed by a report of the Massachusetts State Board of Health, Dr. Henry B. Baker, of Winona, Michigan, framed a bill, which, enacted in 1873, established the Michigan State Board of Health. Dr. Victor Clarence Vaughan was appointed assistant in the Chemical Laboratory in 1875, and his achievements in research, medical education, and in hygiene and public health are widely known. He became a member of the State Board of Health in 1883 and served for many years. He stimulated interest in the laboratory work and at a meeting of the State Board of Health on January 8, 1884, spoke of “the need of a fully equipped sanitary laboratory at the University” (Rept. Mich. State Bd. of Health, 1884, p. xxxvii). The State Board of Health, in October, 1886, adopted a resolution requesting the Regents to consider the advisability of establishing a laboratory of hygiene which would regularly report important results of laboratory work to the State Board of Health. The Regents referred this request to the medical faculty and the State Board of Health “to consider fully, and report at some future meeting …” (R.P., 1886-91, p. 73). As recorded in the minutes of the State Board, Dr. Vaughan called the Regents’ attention to typhoid in the state, estimating about fifteen thousand cases a year. He emphasized the importance of instruction in methods of preserving health and preventing disease as well as of doctors to cure diseases, and stated: Some place was needed where every health officer could have samples of drinking water or articles of food tested. He said that such a laboratory should be made an educational center in hygiene subjects and should carry on original investigations concerning the causation, nature and prevention of disease. Instruction offered by such a 4 Division of Hygiene and Public Health laboratory would fit students to be advisers in sanitary matters. On July 8, 1887, a special committee appointed to prepare a “scheme” for the organization of such a department recommended that a Department of Hygiene be established and that “inasmuch as hygiene is closely related to physiological chemistry, … these two subjects be united under one chair,” and also “that the title of the chair be that of Professor of Hygiene and Physiological Chemistry and Director of the Hygienic Laboratory” (R.P., 1886-91, pp. 143-44). Meanwhile, the State Board of Health presented a petition to the legislature to the effect that since knowledge “which tends directly to the preservation of life, and to the perfection of physical and mental health and strength” was not well provided for at the University, the legislature “take such action as shall lead to the maintenance of a well-equipped laboratory of hygiene at the University of Michigan and of such instruction in sanitary science at that institution, as shall place that subject on a plane not inferior to that of any other subject taught at the University” (Rept. Mich. State Bd. of Health, 1887, p. xlv). In 1887 the legislature appropriated $35,000 for the construction of a building and for its equipment (P.A., 1887, No. 243), and in 1889 authorized two grants of three thousand dollars each, one to be made in 1889 and one in 1890, for “furniture and apparatus” (P.A., 1889, No. 145). The Hygienic Laboratory was first situated in the left wing of the West Physics Building, but moved into the West Medical Laboratory in 1903. It was moved again in 1926, with the Department of Bacteriology, into the East Medical Building. Dr. Vaughan and Dr. Frederick George Novy, successively directors of the Hygienic Laboratory, began the work in October, 1887, “using rooms and apparatus belonging to the chemical laboratory.” One of Dr. Novy’s early achievements in connection with the laboratory was the exposure of the stenocarpine fraud, showing that the so-called “new local anaesthetic” contained cocaine. Others identified with the early days of the laboratory were Dr. Henry Sewall and Albert B. Prescott, Dean of the School of Pharmacy (1876-1905). Pharmacy played an Division of Hygiene and Public Health (1942) 5 important part in public health work, particularly with reference to food adulterations. A state legislative act in 1897 provided for the analysis of water in use by the public (P.A., No. 43). According to this measure, a sample of water “which might be the cause of disease or “epidemic” could be sent to the University for analysis, free of charge except for the actual cost of materials. In 1903 the legislature enacted a law providing for the immediate treatment of indigent persons supposed to have been infected with rabies (P.A., No. 116). The State Board of Health began to develop public health laboratory work at Lansing. An act passed in 1907 provided for the appointment of a bacteriologist by the State Board, and for equipment for bacteriological examinations, including water analysis (P.A., No. 109); another, in 1915 (No. 164), provided for a branch bacteriological laboratory in the Upper Peninsula; one in 1919 (No. 146) provided for the appointment of a state commissioner of health and an advisory council. Through its Bureau of Laboratories the State Department of Health has taken over some of the original functions of the Hygienic Laboratory. The Medical School Announcement for 1939-40 states, relative to the Hygienic Laboratory: “The Pasteur Institute and the Department of Bacteriology are divisions of this laboratory. Parasitology and Medical Jurisprudence are also included.” From 1881 to 1911, first in the School of Political Science and later in the Hygienic Laboratory, public health practices were taught under the direction of Dr.

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