Importing Trachoma: The Introduction into Britain of American Ideas of an ‘Immigrant Disease’, 1892–1906
2005; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 23; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/0261928042000334853
ISSN1744-0521
Autores Tópico(s)Medical History and Research
ResumoAbstract This article examines how the American perception of trachoma as a disease prevalent among East European Jewish migrants was adopted in Britain in the years immediately preceding the passing of the 1905 Aliens Act. Increasingly rigorous immigration law in the United States meant that a proportion of migrants who arrived were refused entry and were subsequently forced to return to Europe. Steamship companies' interests, however, meant that a number of those migrants debarred from America were returned not to European frontiers but to the United Kingdom. One of the most potent ramifications of this was that trachoma, the reason why 87 per cent of migrants were rejected from America on health grounds, was considered in Britain to embody Britain's role as the destination for those migrants not fit for settlement in America. The disease was picked up by the growing anti-immigration lobby, who used it as symbol of the ‘undesirability’ of the immigrant in Britain. Notes Krista Maglen is based at the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine. Correspondence to: Krista Maglen, Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, University of Oxford, 45–47 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6PE; krista.maglen@history-of-medicine.oxford.ac.uk [1] CitationMarks and Worboys, Migrants, Minorities and Health, 8; Kraut, Silent Travelers, 4. [2] CitationKraut, Silent Travelers, 81–83. [3] Ibid., 3. [4] Ibid.; CitationKraut, ‘Plagues and Prejudice’, 65–90; CitationAnne-Emanuelle Birn, ‘Six Seconds Per Eyelid’, 281–316; CitationMarkel, Quarantine!; CitationMarkel and Stern, ‘All Quiet on the Third Coast’, 178–82; CitationMarkel, ‘“The Eyes Have It”’, 525–60; CitationParascandola, ‘Doctors at the Gate’, 83–86; CitationSolis-Cohen, ‘The Exclusion of Aliens’, 33–50. [5] CitationCollins, Be Well!, 97–112. [6] Aliens Registration Act 1836 [6 Will. IV]. [7] CitationReport from the Select Committee on Emigration and Immigration. [8] Ibid., xi. [9] ‘Cholera Regulations’, Local Government Board, Whitehall, 29 August 1892, PRO MH 19/244. [10] British Medical Journal, 10 September 1892, 604. [11] CitationHarris, ‘Anti-Alienism, Health and Social Reform’, 3. [12] CitationEvens, ‘European Migration via the United Kingdom’. [13] CitationCollins, Be Well!, 98. [14] CitationHutchinson, Legislative History of American Immigration Policy, 100. [15] CitationFairchild, Science at the Borders, 58. [16] Report of the Royal Commission on Alien Immigration. [17] Evidence of Dr F.A.C. Tyrrell, Medical Officer to the London School Board, and Surgical Officer to the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital, CitationReport of the Royal Commission on Alien Immigration, Vol. II, 3670. [18] The case referred to was Wallace v. J. & A. Allan, in Collins, Be Well!, 101. [19] LMA, Board of Deputies of British Jews, ACC/3121/B02/01/003. [20] CitationFairchild, Science at the Borders, 59. [21] Citation‘Report by Mr Schloss’, 10. [22] Opened in late 1892. [23] See Birn, ‘Six Seconds Per Eyelid’; Markel, ‘“The Eyes Have It”’. [24] CitationMarkel, ‘“The Eyes Have It”’, 533. [25] Ibid. [26] Ibid., 535. [27] Ibid., 531. [28] American Medicine (Philadelphia), 6 (1903): 771. [29] Markel, ‘“The Eyes Have It”’, 528. [30] Citation‘Report by Mr Schloss’, iii. [31] Ibid., 87–89. [32] Although Schloss's figures are of particular interest, they must be placed within the context of 1892 conditions. It must be remembered that these figures might be wholly unrepresentative of other – non-epidemic – years. Regulations put in place in 1892 in response to the cholera epidemic drastically reduced the number of immigrants crossing the Atlantic. The overall figures for the number of steerage class immigrants arriving into the Port of New York during the 1892 calendar year were down 13 per cent on the previous year, and during the last quarter of 1892 figures were down between 55 and 87 per cent on 1891 figures. [33] British Medical Journal, 12 September 1896, 700. [34] Letter dated August 4, 1896, PRO MT 9/559/13197. [35] Only the case of yellow fever on the steamship Neva in Southampton during 1889 was reported, and plague appeared in the reports from 1899, but without specific reference to immigration. [36] CitationMarkel, ‘“The Eyes Have It”’, 528, 560. [37] Daily Mirror, 6 December 1904, Home Office cutting, PRO HO 45/10303/117267. [38] CitationFeldman, Englishmen and Jews, 288. [39] CitationReport of the Royal Commission on Alien Immigration, Vol. I, v; see also The Times, 22 March 1902, 11f. [40] Evidence of Dr F.A.C. Tyrrell, CitationReport of the Royal Commission on Alien Immigration, Vol. II, 3671. [41] Ibid., 3679. [42] Evidence of William Lang, Report of the Royal Commission on Alien Immigration, Vol. II, 20590. [43] Ibid. [44] See also Collins, Be Well!, 105–06. [45] CitationReport of the Royal Commission on Alien Immigration, Vol. I, 11, item 71. [46] Ibid. [47] Evidence of Herbert Williams, CitationReport of the Royal Commission on Alien Immigration, Vol. II, 6239. [48] CitationMarkel, ‘“The Eyes Have It”’, 549. [49] CitationReport of the Royal Commission on Alien Immigration, Vol. I, 10, items 67–68. [50] Ibid., 41, Recommendation 4(g). [51] Ibid., 49, ‘Memorandum’. [52] Ibid. [53] ‘Report of the Alien Immigration Committee of the London Committee of the Deputies of the British Jews on the Report of the Royal Commission on Alien Immigration’, LMA ACC 3121/B02/01/001. [54] See, for example, CitationHarris, ‘Anti-Alienism, Health and Social Reform’, 4–10. [55] Monthly Reports of the Port Medical Officer of Health for the Port of London, 1906, CLRO PSCP (all file boxes 1906). [56] Letter to HM Inspector of Aliens from Medical Inspector and MOH Dover, 8 May 1906, PRO HO 45/10327/132181/28. [57] Collins, Be Well!, 111. [58] The Times, 30 January 1902, 5e. [59] CitationMarkel, ‘“The Eyes Have It”’, 549. Additional informationNotes on contributorsKrista Maglen Krista Maglen is based at the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine. Correspondence to: Krista Maglen, Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, University of Oxford, 45–47 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6PE; krista.maglen@history-of-medicine.oxford.ac.uk
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