1798-1972 US federal quarantine and biological product law: Marine-Hospital Service; National Quarantine Act; Laboratory of HygienePart 2 of series, prequel to 1972-2024 series.
Orientation for new readers; American Domestic Bioterrorism Program; Tools for dismantling kill box anti-law Related:
1798-1972 US federal infectious disease control and biological product law: Marine-Hospital Service; National Quarantine Act; Laboratory of Hygiene By Lydia Hazel¹ and Katherine Watt Part 1 ended with a description of the founding of the Marine Hospital Service in 1798:
1802 - Congress began taxing the wages of Mississippi River vessel workers. In 1802, Congress amended the 1798 "act for the relief of sick and disabled seamen." Section 1 directed the 20 cents per month tax on seamen's wages into a "general fund," to be used at the discretion of the President to provide hospitals and services, setting aside $15,000 to build a hospital in Massachusetts. Section 2 authorized the President to spend up to $3,000 from the fund to set up a hospital service at the port of New Orleans. Section 3 required masters of vessels working on the Mississippi River to provide counts of their employees, classifying them as "seamen of the United States" and authorized a $50 fine for giving false counts, with collected fines to go into the general fund. Section 4 authorized the President to appoint a director of the marine hospital at New Orleans. Section 5 authorized the marine hospital directors to admit "sick foreign seamen" if the masters of their vessels requested it, at a charge of 75 cents per day. Tax collectors for each district were authorized to refuse clearance to foreign vessels until the hospital fees were paid. Hospital directors could be fined $50 for failure to properly charge foreign ships for the care of foreign seamen. Section 6 required the tax collectors to forward the collected money to the Treasury, which would receive commissions on collected money, and Section 7 authorized hospital directors to also take a commission of one percent of money collected. 1813 - First federal vaccination law. In 1813, Congress passed "An Act to encourage Vaccination." Section 1 authorized the President to appoint a federal agent (Baltimore physician James Smith, the first National Vaccine Agent) to "preserve the genuine vaccine matter" and to supply "vaccine matter" to applicants "through the medium of the post-office." The federal vaccine agent was required to swear and file a certificate affirming his intent to preserve the genuine vaccine matter; provide copies of the act to all US post-masters; and provide information about how people interested in getting vaccine matter could apply for it to be delivered, along with instructions about how to use the products on themselves. Section 2 authorized all packages of vaccine matter under a half-ounce to be carried postage-free by the US postal service, as long as the sending agent labeled the packages with the word "Vaccination" and his signature. Section 2 also authorized a $50 fine on the vaccine agent for sending packages with "any thing relative to any subject other than vaccination." A 1998 paper by Harvard law student Rohit Singla, Missed Opportunities: The Vaccine Act of 1813, argued the ostensible reason for the 1813 act was "the most significant obstacle to effective vaccination...the difficulty of obtaining pure, uncontaminated vaccine when an epidemic threatened. Vaccine was difficult to produce in mass quantities, could only be stored for a short time, and was easily contaminated." Congress repealed the Vaccine Act in 1822. According to a 1985 book, Vaccine Supply and Innovation (National Academies Press), Congress repealed the Vaccine Act of 1813 "after Congress decided that vaccine regulation should be left to local authorities." In the 1998 Harvard law paper, Singla identified several factors leading to the repeal, including federalist sentiment (state lawmakers angry about federal government interference) and anti-monopoly sentiment (competing physicians angry about Smith's postage subsidy and provision of vaccine directly to consumers); Smith's inability to get sustained federal or state public subsidies other than free US postage; and his inability to raise sufficient money from private subscriptions and donations. The immediate political momentum was provided by the Tarboro Tragedy, when "Dr. Smith accidentally caused an [smallpox] epidemic in Tarboro, North Carolina which eventually killed ten people." 1866 - Authorization for Treasury Secretary to sell marine hospital buildings In 1866, Congress authorized the Treasury Secretary to sell or lease marine hospital buildings and land and use the proceeds to support the marine hospital system, except for the Cleveland, Ohio and Portland, Maine hospitals, not to be sold, and except for hospitals in municipalities with no other suitable hospital accommodations. 1870 - Reorganization of Marine-Hospital Service By law passed June 29, 1870, Congress increased the wage tax and reorganized the Marine-Hospital Service. At Section 1, the per capita wage tax was raised to 40 cents per seaman per month for all US vessels arriving at US ports from foreign ports, and for all "registered vessels employed in the coastal trade." At Section 2, Congress directed tax collectors to withhold new enrollments or licenses from shipmasters who failed to provide the headcounts and pay the taxes, and authorized a $50 fine on masters who provided false information about the number of employed seamen or duration of their employment, with the collected fines to go into the general fund for the Marine-Hospital Service. At Section 3, Congress ordered tax collectors to deposit the collected money in the nearest US depositary, and submit returns and vouchers to the Treasury Secretary recording the deposits. At Section 4, Congress ordered the money to be paid to Treasury like other public moneys, "without abatement or reduction" and appropriated the money for the expenses of the Marine-Hospital Service, credited to the Marine-Hospital Fund and its separate accounts. At Section 5, Congress ordered that the money be used, under Treasury Secretary supervision, "for the care and relief of sick and disabled seamen employed in registered, enrolled and licensed vessels of the United States." At Section 6, Congress authorized the Treasury Secretary to appoint a surgeon to act as "supervising surgeon" [later known as the Supervising Surgeon-General and then Surgeon-General] of the Marine-Hospital Service, to work with the Treasury Secretary to spend the money, supervise hospital programs and provide medical care. Congress authorized an annual salary of $2,000 plus travel expenses; and required the Supervising Surgeon to make monthly reports to the Treasury Secretary. At Section 7, Congress defined "vessel" as "every description of water-craft, raft, vehicle, and contrivance used or capable of being used as a means or auxiliary of transportation on or by water" and repealed all previous acts "inconsistent with or in conflict" with the reorganization act. In 1871, President Ulysses S. Grant appointed John Maynard Woodworth as the first Supervising Surgeon of the Marine Hospital Service. 1877 - Congress amended the law setting per ton cargo taxes on US and foreign-owned vessels. By law passed February 27, 1877, Congress updated the tax schedule for cargo brought into US ports from foreign ports; the original tonnage duties act was enacted in 1790. This is relevant because in 1884, Congress replaced the wage tax with the cargo tonnage tax as the means of financing the Marine-Hospital Service. For vessels built in the US but owned by foreign subjects, the tax rate was set at 30 cents per ton. For other foreign vessels, the tax was set at 50 cents per ton. For vessels from countries that did not allow US trade vessels to enter, the duty was set at two dollars per ton, until the countries abolished their trade restrictions. See also, RS 4219-4127. 1878 - National Quarantine Act, authorizing Marine Hospital Service supervision of foreign quarantine programs. On April 19, 1878 Congress passed "An act to prevent the introduction of contagious or infectious diseases into the United States," known as the National Quarantine Act. State and local laws addressing disease control had already been adopted by many States and municipalities; details of the State and local laws are beyond the scope of this series of reports. The 1878 quarantine act was the first federal law governing disease surveillance, isolation and "disinfection" of passengers and goods on inbound ships, coming from foreign ports, on the pretext of communicable disease control. The alleged infectious diseases mentioned by name in the act were cholera and yellow fever. Section 1 prohibited vessels from any foreign port or country "where any contagious or infectious disease may exist" from entering US ports "contrary to the quarantine laws of any one of" the States, without following the federal "regulations to be prescribed" under the National Quarantine Act. Section 2 required the US consular officers to provide weekly reports of the "sanitary conditions" at the foreign ports at which they served. Consular officers at “infected” foreign ports were ordered to immediately provide information about any vessel leaving the foreign port, carrying passengers or goods and bound for a US port, to the Supervising Surgeon-General of the Marine-Hospital Service, including name of the vessel, date of departure and port of destination. Consular officers were required to provide the same information to the State or local health officer at the destination port. Congress charged the Supervising Surgeon-General with carrying out the federal quarantine provisions, under the direction of the Treasury Secretary, and directed him to "frame all needful rules and regulations" subject to the President's approval. Congress directed that federal regulations "shall not conflict with or impair" State or municipal sanitary or quarantine laws in force as of 1878 or enacted later. Section 3 assigned the medical officers of the Marine-Hospital Service and customs-officers to enforce national quarantine rules established under Section 2, and authorized payment for travel expenses but no additional compensation. Section 4 directed the Surgeon-General of the Marine-Hospital Service, upon receiving information about vessels departing allegedly infected ports, to immediately notify State, municipal and US officers at the "threatened port of destination," and to send "weekly abstracts of consular sanitary reports" to MHS medical officers, customs collectors, and State and municipal health authorities. Section 5 authorized officers of State and municipal quarantine systems — where such systems were already in place — to apply for authorization to act as federal quarantine enforcement officers, and to be "clothed with all the power of US officers for quarantine purposes." Section 5 further authorized the medical officers of the MHS to enforce quarantine measures at the State and municipal level, whenever "in the opinion of the Secretary of the Treasury, it shall be deemed necessary to establish quarantine," so long as the federal MHS officer acts didn't interfere with State or local quarantine laws. Section 6 repealed all acts or parts of acts inconsistent with the National Quarantine Act. 1879 - Congress established a National Board of Health On March 3, 1879, Congress passed "An act to prevent the introduction of infectious or contagious diseases into the United States, and to establish a National Board of Health." Wikipedia reports that the National Board of Health was "to carry out [the National Quarantine Act of 1878] and was "created during a period of emergency [an alleged yellow fever outbreak in 1878;]...had substantial powers (such as the ability to mandate quarantine)" and "was to effectively strip the powers of quarantine from the Marine Hospital Service, a precursor to the [Public] Health Service which itself would become the CDC." The National Board of Health operated for four years, but Congress did not reauthorize it in 1883, and then repealed the original authorizing act in 1893, leaving the Marine-Hospital Service to supervise federal quarantine programs. Section 1 established the board, members to include seven appointed by the President, with advice and consent of Senate, and no more than one from any one State. The state members were to be paid 10 dollars per day for committee work. Members also included three medical officers — one each from Army, Navy and Marine Hospital Service, and one federal officer from the Department of Justice — to be appointed by the secretaries of the departments, to serve on the committee without additional compensation. Section 1 required the board to meet in Washington within 30 days of the act's passage; choose a board president to convene future meetings; "frame all rules and regulations" and make "special examinations and investigations" at US locations and at foreign ports. Section 2 authorized the National Board of Health to "obtain information upon all matters affecting the public health," and provide advice to federal government departments, State governors and Washington DC commissioners. Section 3 directed the Academy of Science (established by Congress and President Lincoln in 1863) to work with the National Board of Health and State health officers and report to Congress with a plan for a "national public health organization," giving special attention to "the subject of quarantine, both maritime and inland, and especially as to regulations which should be established between State or local systems of quarantine and a national quarantine system." At Section 4, Congress appropriated $50,000 to pay the salaries and expenses of the board members. On April 3, 1879, President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed John Brown Hamilton to succeed Woodworth (who had died a month earlier) as the second Supervising Surgeon of the Marine Hospital Service. 1884 - Congress replaced wage tax (hospital tax on seamen) with tonnage tax for funding Marine-Hospital Service On June 26, 1884, Congress repealed RS 4585 (40 cents per seaman per month wage tax), 4586 (hospital dues of vessels sold abroad) and 4587 (prohibiting vessel enrollment and licensing for failure to provide tax collector with information and collected wage taxes) and established that the cost of maintaining the Marine-Hospital Service would, from that point on, be paid from the receipts on cargo tonnage duties. The tonnage tax financing system was repealed in 1905, when Congress began making regular appropriations to the institution that was, by that time, called the Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service. 1887 - Supervising Surgeon of MHS set up Laboratory for Hygiene without Congressional authorization. In 1887, John Hamilton, the Supervising Surgeon of the Marine-Hospital Service, set up a one-room Laboratory for Hygiene at the Marine Hospital in Stapleton, Staten Island, NY, without Congressional authorization. Hamilton appointed Dr. Joseph Kinyoun to run the lab. Kinyoun, who had studied under Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur in Europe, called this facility a "Laboratory of Hygiene" in imitation of German facilities; it was later known as the Hygienic Laboratory. 1889 - Congress set up procedures for Presidents to appoint medical officers to MHS. On Jan. 4, 1889, Congress established a process for Presidents to appoint medical officers of the Marine-Hospital Service, with advice and consent of Senate. Section 1 required that candidates pass an examination in medicine, surgery and hygiene before a board of MHS medical officers, according to rules drafted by the Supervising Surgeon-General and approved by the Treasury Secretary. Section 2 set up a rank system, such that appointees would first serve as assistant surgeons, and could, after four years, be promoted to passed assistant surgeon. Upon further exams, passed assistant surgeons could be promoted to surgeons. The act provided for grandfathering: the President could nominate current MHS medical officers for confirmation. 1890 - Congress put Marine-Hospital Service in charge of federal interstate quarantine On March 27, 1890, Congress passed "An act to prevent the introduction of contagious diseases from one State to another and for the punishment of certain offenses." This was the first federal interstate quarantine law, controlling movement of people and goods across State borders within the United States. At Section 1, Congress established that "whenever it shall be made to appear to the satisfaction of the President that cholera, yellow-fever, small-pox or plague exists in any State or Territory, or in the District of Columbia," the President was authorized to direct the Treasury Secretary to promulgate regulations to prevent the spread of the disease across State borders, and to employ inspectors to enforce such regulations. Congress directed the regulations to be prepared by the Supervising Surgeon-General of the Marine-Hospital Service and the Treasury Secretary, and authorized fines up to $500 and imprisonment up to 2 years, or both, for civilian violation (criminal misdemeanor) of federal disease control regulations. At Section 2, Congress authorized fines up to $300 and imprisonment up to one year, or both, for federal officers, or State and municipal public health officers acting as federal officers, found violating quarantine laws and regulations, or violating lawful orders given by superior officers. At Section 3, Congress authorized criminal misdemeanor fines up to $500 and imprisonment up to two years, or both, for common carriers (public transportation of passengers and goods, such as railroads) and common carrier employees, found to be violating quarantine laws and regulations. 1891 - Laboratory for Hygiene moved to Washington DC; President Benjamin Harrison appointed Walter Wyman as third Supervising Surgeon-General of Marine-Hospital Service. In 1891, still not Congressionally authorized and still directed and run by Kinyoun, the Marine-Hospital Service Laboratory for Hygiene moved to Washington DC. Effective June 1, 1891, after Hamilton resigned, President Benjamin Harrison appointed Walter Wyman, who had been running the Quarantine Division of the Marine-Hospital Service since 1888, as third Supervising Surgeon General. 1893 - Congress authorized Marine-Hospital Service to exercise additional quarantine powers. On February 15, 1893, in response to disease outbreaks in the preceding two years that had been attributed, by public health authorities, to infectious transmission of cholera and yellow fever pathogens, Congress passed "An act granting additional quarantine powers and imposing additional duties upon the Marine-Hospital Service." At Section 1, Congress prohibited any vessel from any foreign port entering any US port, except in compliance with federal, State and municipal quarantine regulations, and established a fine (lien) of up to $5,000 on any vessel, through federal district court proceedings "conducted in accordance with the rules and laws governing cases of seizure of vessels for violation of the revenue laws of the United States." At Section 2, Congress required vessels seeking access to US ports to obtain a "bill of health" from the consular officer or medical officer at the port, in the form prescribed by the Treasury Secretary. Each bill of health was required to include the "sanitary history and condition" of the vessel, and affirmation that the vessel had complied with regulations prescribed for "securing the best sanitary condition of the vessel, its cargo, passengers, and crew." Congress required the consular or medical officer to be satisfied that the statements in the bill of health were true, and authorized those officers to be paid fees for their services. At Section 2, Congress further authorized the President, in his discretion, to detail federal medical officers to serve in the consular offices at foreign ports to inspect vessels and provide bills of health to masters of vessels. Congress established a fine (lien) of up to $5,000, on any vessel sailing from any foreign port and entering any US port, without a bill of health, through federal district court proceedings under the revenue laws of the United States. At Section 3, Congress directed the Supervising Surgeon-General of the Marine-Hospital Service to examine the existing quarantine regulations of every State and municipal health board; to "cooperate with and aid" all State and municipal health boards to enforce their State and local regulations and also enforce federal quarantine regulations, "to prevent the introduction contagious and infectious diseases" into the US from foreign countries, and across State borders within the US. Congress required the Treasury Secretary to apply federal quarantine regulations uniformly at each port, and to make additional rules and regulations to be enforced in any State or municipality with no quarantine regulations of their own, or where he deemed the State and municipal quarantine regulations to be "not sufficient to prevent the introduction of such disease." Congress required the Treasury Secretary, when establishing additional regulations, to promulgate them to State and municipal health officials and to ensure that the State and municipal health officials enforced them. Congress authorized the Treasury Secretary, if State and municipal health officials "fail or refuse" to enforce the regulations, to detail federal medical officers to enforce them. Congress directed the Treasury Secretary to make "such rules and regulations as are necessary to be observed by vessels at the port of departure and on the voyage," and required him to publish and communicate them to the consular officers at each port. At Section 4, Congress required the Supervising Surgeon-General of the Marine Hospital Service, under the direction of the Treasury Secretary, to "perform all the duties" related to quarantine and quarantine regulation enforcement, and to gather information about sanitary conditions at foreign ports collected by consular officers at each port, entered onto forms prepared by the Treasury Secretary, and submitted weekly to the Treasury Secretary. Congress further directed Treasury Secretary to collect information from State and municipal health officers in the US about sanitary conditions at US ports; to write and distribute weekly sanitary reports to all customs officers and State and municipal health officers; to obtain "voluntary co-operation" from State and municipal authorities, public associations and private persons to gather information about "climatic and other conditions affecting the public health; and to make annual reports to Congress with recommendations. At Section 5, Congress required the Treasury Secretary to "from time to time" send updated regulations to consular officers and medical officers in foreign ports, to be "used and complied with" by vessels, and "observed in the inspection...disinfection and isolation" of the vessel on its arrival at destination ports, and "treatment of cargo and persons on board" to prevent the introduction of cholera, yellow fever or other infectious diseases. Congress prohibited vessels from entering US ports and discharging cargo or passengers without a "certificate of the health officer" serving at the destination port quarantine station. Congress required the masters of the vessels to present, to the customs officer, a valid "bill of health" provided at the port of departure, and "certificate of health" from the health officer at the port of entry, and that the signed, sealed documents shall be accepted as evidence in any US court. At Section 6, Congress authorized the Treasury Secretary to send "infected" vessels that arrived at a port without proper quarantine facilities, on to the nearest "national or other quarantine station" for "disinfection and treatment of the vessel, passengers, and cargo," and, after getting a certificate from the officer that they were "free from infectious disease, or danger of conveying the same," the vessel would be allowed to enter any port named in the certificate. Section 6 also authorized the Treasury Secretary to send infected vessels to State and local quarantine stations for disinfection and certification. At Section 7, Congress authorized the President to prohibit entry into the US to passengers and cargo from allegedly infected foreign countries, "notwithstanding the quarantine defense."
At Section 8, Congress authorized the Treasury Secretary to compensate State and municipal authorities for federal use of buildings and disinfecting apparatus. At Section 9, Congress repealed the March 3, 1879 act establishing the National Board of Health, and transferred all property held by the National Board of Health, to the Treasury Secretary. 1895 - Marine-Hospital Service Hygienic Laboratory and New York City Board of Health collaboratively producing diphtheria antitoxin. By 1895, the New York City Board of Health and the Laboratory of Hygiene (later known as the Hygienic Laboratory) of the Marine-Hospital Service, which was not yet Congressionally authorized, were producing and using products they called diphtheria antitoxin. 1901 - Congress provided money and land to MHS Hygienic Laboratory for new building and for purchase of books and journals. On March 3, 1901, through a funding act and a margin note — "Marine hospitals. Laboratory authorized." — Congress appropriated money and land for the Laboratory for Hygiene that had been in operation since 1887, originally in Staten Island, and had been relocated to Washington DC in 1891. Congress gave the Marine-Hospital Service $35,000 and authorized transfer of five acres in Washington DC [Old Naval Observatory parcel] from the Navy to the Secretary of the Treasury, "for the erection of the necessary buildings and quarters for a laboratory for the investigation of infectious and contagious diseases, and matters pertaining to the public health, under the direction of the Supervising Surgeon-General." Congress gave the Marine-Hospital Bureau $500 for "books and journals" to be purchased during fiscal 1902. Next installment (Part 3) will cover US federal quarantine and biological product law developments between 1901 and 1943. Some references:
1 Lydia Hazel holds degrees in Latin (BA) and linguistics (MA), with minors and concentrations in mathematics, phonetics/phonology, and philology. Her professional background is teaching English as a Second Language. She raised four children, unvaccinated since 1993, after Hazel investigated vaccines when Hepatitis B vaccines were added to the CDC-recommended childhood immunization schedule. She lives in Illinois and is the author of the Medical Countermeasures Awareness Act posted at Bailiwick in February 2024. Email: lydiahazel@aol.com. All content is free to all readers. All support — reading, sharing and financial — is deeply appreciated.
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