Ruschenberger.] UO [May 15, 



fever in the city had been reported during the season of 1819. The cir- 

 cumstance had created a vague apprehension of its recurrence, and may 

 have induced people to appreciate practitioners of medicine more highly 

 than when there was no prospect of needing them ; and consequently, 

 new candidates for practice might be more promptly noticed. The appre- 

 hension was realized to some extent ; during the autumn of 1820, seventy- 

 three persons died of the disease in the city. 



Dr. Emerson was appointed an attending physician of the Philadelphia 

 Dispensary, September 19, 1820, and resigned the office, May 21, 1822. 



The City's Councils elected him a member of the Board of Health, 

 March 12, 1823 ; and the Board appointed him its Secretary the same day. 

 It is conjectured that he resigned three years later. 



Prevention of the introduction and spread of smallpox in the city at 

 that period attracted attention. Between January, 1818, and December, 

 1822, five years, only nine deaths from smallpox in the city had been re- 

 ported. Fear that the disease might again enter the city was no longer 

 manifest. For this reason it was supposed that vaccination had been gener- 

 ally neglected in the community. 



The Board of Health was without authority to enforce measures to pre- 

 vent the spread of the disease, then present, and for this reason its mem- 

 bers were not willing to act ; but at the instigation of Dr. Emerson the 

 Board announced in the daily newspapers, three times, that smallpox was 

 in the city and recommended all unprotected persons to be vaccinated 

 without delay. The same year, November 15, 1823, the Board again 

 warned the public of its danger, saying, "And as it is believed that there 

 does exist among some an unjust prejudice against the practice of vaccina- 

 tion, the Board conceives it a duty to declare that the evidence afforded 

 by our city in its long exemption from smallpox, together with the happy 

 results which have followed the introduction of vaccination in all parts 

 of the world, ought to be sufficient to convince the most incredulous of 

 the salutary influence of this inestimable preventive." 



Dr. Emerson submitted to the Board for approval and transmission to 

 the Legislature a draft of a law and memorial on the subject. The pro- 

 posed law in substance provided that vessels having smallpox on board 

 should be quarantined on arrival in the same manner as those affected 

 with other contagious diseases ; that inoculation of smallpox should not 

 be practised in any case without the sanction of the Board ; and that 

 authority already conferred on the Board of Health to deal with conta- 

 gious diseases specified should be extended to smallpox. 



Afier debating the subject at several meetings, the Board approved the 

 memorial and draft of the proposed law, January 28, 1824, and transmitted 

 them to the Legislature then in session. Although 160 deaths from small- 

 pox had occurred in the city during 1823, a member of the House of Rep- 

 resentatives retarded its action on the bill after it had passed the Senate 

 by securing a seemingly innocent amendment to it, but which in fact 

 provided that appointment to offices connected with the Board of Health 



