Is it right to control people’s actions during a pandemic?

Summary: In this lesson, you will look at primary source documents from the smallpox and tuberculosis pandemics to investigate whether and when people’s actions should be controlled during a pandemic.

Start by reading the introduction, then follow the lesson instructions below.

Introduction

Vocabulary:

• Pandemic: A disease that does not impact just one area but spreads across the whole world.
• Virus: A germ that can get inside your body and make you sick.
• Immunity: When your cells can fight off an infection or disease.
• Vaccine: A substance that helps a person develop immunity before they ever get sick.
• Sanatorium: A treatment facility for tuberculosis patients.

What is a pandemic?

It’s likely that your life recently changed due to something silent and invisible–a pandemic. A pandemic is a disease that does not impact just one area but spreads across the whole world. Did you have to stay home from school? Stand six feet away from your friends? Wear a mask in a store? You may even have experienced sickness first-hand or known people who have been sick. Chances are, the coronavirus pandemic has impacted you, your family, and your neighbors. This has happened even though you can’t see the virus itself.

The coronavirus is a virus, or a germ that can make you sick. A new virus can quickly infect a large number of people and lead to an outbreak. Scientists and leaders often have trouble understanding what causes a viral outbreak or how to stop it right away. As people recover from the virus, they may develop immunity which protects them from getting sick again. To fully stop a pandemic, a vaccine has to be made and distributed widely. Even now, viruses that have caused historic pandemics are still active in parts of the world with less access to vaccines and other medical care.

Pandemics come in different shapes and sizes depending on the type of virus. Sometimes, older people are most at risk. Sometimes it’s more dangerous for children. Different pandemics affect people in different ways, like coughing, fever, and difficulty walking. Pandemics are dangerous because they cause many deaths in a short period of time. They stop either naturally or when people find a cure.

The further you go back in history, the more common outbreaks are. Advancements in medicine and cleanliness have made people healthier. Yet, you know from the changes in your life that pandemics can appear out of nowhere. Then people have to rush to solve mysteries about the virus’s cause and cure.

Mainers have faced pandemics before, so let’s see how their actions have been controlled–and who has controlled them–in the past.

Smallpox

The global smallpox pandemic lasted from approximately the 1500s to the 1800s. Smallpox began with a fever and rash. The rash and its following scabs were extremely contagious. The disease had a strikingly high death rate of 30%. Those that survived were left with scars. Today, smallpox is completely eradicated, meaning it is gone from the world.

Smallpox spread through trade and travel between continents. This spread quickened as movement increased. The disease was brought to North America by European colonists and heavily impacted Indigenous peoples (Native Americans).

Smallpox had recurring outbreaks over the 1600s and 1700s in Maine. Smallpox, along with other European diseases, devastated Indigenous peoples between 1616 and 1619. This time period is known as the “Great Dying” because of the deaths caused by disease, warfare, famine, and slavery. One hundred years after European colonists first arrived in what is now Maine, nearly 80% of Wabanaki people had died.

The disproportionate impact of disease on Native populations was not accidental. There is evidence that some colonists, including high-ranking British generals, purposefully distributed infected blankets to Native communities. This is an early form of bioterrorism, or the deliberate spread of virus or other toxins to cause illness and death.

Colonialism created conditions that made disease a bigger threat to Wabanaki peoples. As Euro-American settlers took more and more land and resources, Wabanaki people had to deal with more poverty, hunger, and sickness. Native peoples’ devastating losses were often viewed by colonists as ‘clearing the way’ for American progress and expansion, or Manifest Destiny. The location and number of Native tribes in the United States today was shaped by these deaths. Even today, Native people still suffer health inequities at rates 2 to 3 times higher than the rest of the U.S. population.

Smallpox also impacted colonists through regular outbreaks during the 18th century. During the Revolutionary War there was a bad smallpox outbreak. George Washington became an outspoken proponent of “inoculation,” or purposefully infecting people with a small amount of smallpox to give them immunity. The idea of inoculation came from Onesimus, an enslaved man in Boston who had been inoculated in Africa. Inoculation was not meant to harm citizens but to protect them via a crude and early form of vaccination. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it led to serious illness or more spread. Inoculation remained a popular proactive treatment until an official smallpox vaccine (based on the technique of inoculation) was developed in 1798.

Tuberculosis

The global tuberculosis (TB) pandemic occurred during the 1800s and 1900s. When the bacteria that causes TB was discovered in 1882, one in seven Americans died from this virus. TB mainly attacks the lungs and can spread through shared air. Tuberculosis patients develop bloody, mucousy coughs, chest pains, weakness, weight loss, fever, and night sweats.

TB broke out in Maine in the first half of the 1900s. Patients were treated away from their homes in places called “sanatoriums.” Sanatoriums were built in areas with lots of open space and fresh air, away from cities. Sanatoriums were also far away from other people so that patients didn’t get their friends and families sick. Staying in a sanatorium cost money and meant you couldn’t work to support your family, which placed a financial burden on poor and middle-class families who made up the bulk of patients.

The Western Maine Sanatorium in Hebron opened in 1904 and treated thousands of tuberculosis patients over the course of weeks, months, and years. Patients received medical treatment such as fresh air, careful diets, and regulated exercise. The sanatorium was originally privately-run, but was transferred to ownership by the Maine government in 1915 due to financial challenges. When the state government ran the facility, patient bills were limited to $5 a week. Wealthier Mainers could afford to go to private sanatoriums that were more like resorts. The Western Maine Sanatorium closed in 1959 due to new drug treatments and a larger movement away from state-operated treatment institutions.

Is it right to control people’s actions during a pandemic?

In the rush to stop pandemics, people’s actions may be limited. It’s likely you have experienced this during the coronavirus pandemic. School closures, mask policies, and social distancing rules are all examples of limits on individual action. In the smallpox, cholera, and tuberculosis pandemics, people’s actions were limited in the name of public health.

The Lesson:

1. Students choose one or more of the primary sources and complete an Analysis Worksheet for each one, using only information from the source itself. If they are not ready for analysis and writing, this can be completed as a class or small group.
2. Discuss the sources as a class. What did you learn from them? What questions do you have? How do the sources connect to the theme?
3. Present source label information to the students. Were you surprised by what you learned?
4. Optional: use the recommended activity prompts and reflection questions for further discussion.

Optional Activity

Think about the different control measures that have been taken during the coronavirus pandemic and choose one (mask wearing, schools closing, stay at home orders, businesses closing, etc.). Search online to find two sources, one opposing and one supporting the measure. Write a short op-ed arguing which side (or which combination of sides) you support. This can also be used in a class discussion or debate.

Reflection questions:

• Who gets to control people’s actions?
• Whose actions are controlled?
• What are some examples of times that people’s freedom been limited?
• Did it work?
• Who benefits from these limits and who suffers?
• When are limits helpful and when do they go too far?

Pandemic Primary Source Sets developed in collaboration between the Maine Historical Society, Maine State Archives, Maine State Library, and Maine State Museum.