How America fought global epidemics before modern medicine

America's public health agency started with an 18th-century sailor tax

This archival clip reveals how the US Public Health Service started as the Marine Hospital Service, signed into law by second President John Adams to treat merchant seamen.

The Forgotten 1798 Origin of the US Public Health Service

US Surgeon General addressing the nation in 1936

Surgeon General Dr. Parran outlines how federal agencies, states, and the Social Security Act collaborate to protect ports and raise healthcare standards across the nation.

A 1930s Surgeon General on Preventing National Epidemics

Epidemics travel at the speed of modern transportation

Historical footage demonstrates how deadly scourges like cholera and yellow fever spread along trade routes and how faster travel methods transformed the speed of outbreaks.

How Modern Transportation Accelerated Contagion

How maritime quarantine inspections worked in the 1930s

A public health quarantine officer and nurse board an incoming transatlantic liner by tugboat, inspect travel medical manifests, and diagnose a sailor with typhus fever in sick bay.

Quarantine Officers Intercepting Ships at Sea

How planes were vacuumed for killer mosquitoes in the 1930s

Health officials inspect seaplane passengers for fever before using vacuum cleaners and chemical sprays inside the cabin to capture invasive disease-carrying mosquitoes.

How Airlines Quarantined Yellow Fever in the 1930s

Hunting plague-infected rats in American cities

City health squads systematically hunt, trap, tag, and comb urban rats to extract plague-carrying fleas for laboratory microscopic examination.

The Brutal Hunt for Bubonic Plague Rats

The hidden infection that blinded thousands before antibiotics

Medical inspectors flip back a patient's eyelid to display the grain-like inflammation caused by trachoma, an infection that routinely caused permanent blindness.

The Gruesome Eye Disease That Blinded Appalachia

[00:53] The Forgotten 1798 Origin of the US Public Health Service
[03:09] A 1930s Surgeon General on Preventing National Epidemics
[05:07] How Modern Transportation Accelerated Contagion
[06:41] Quarantine Officers Intercepting Ships at Sea
[14:19] How Airlines Quarantined Yellow Fever in the 1930s
[17:27] The Brutal Hunt for Bubonic Plague Rats
[19:50] The Gruesome Eye Disease That Blinded Appalachia

How America fought global epidemics before modern medicine

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