Cholera epidemic<\/a><\/p>\nDedicated to containing smallpox \u2013 a highly contagious and often fatal illness spread by close contact with the afflicted \u2013 these specialized hospitals kept moving beyond the outskirts of the city as it grew, until the need for one disappeared.<\/p>\n
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Through it all, there was always a separate tuberculosis hospital, as that disease was historically endemic. The mortality rate of smallpox was as high as 45 percent, and it ran its course much more swiftly, necessitating isolation.<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s first \u201cepidemic hospital\u201d was \u201clocated west of the\u00a0Alazan Creek,\u201d says the San Antonio Express, March 20, 1885. Probably near Monterey and Brazos streets, \u201cabout a mile and a half from Main Plaza,\u201d it was \u201ca substantial building, consisting of two large and well-ventilated wards.\u201d Though a date isn\u2019t given, City Physician and Health Officer J. Braunnagel,\u00a0M.D., \u201cthis building has never been used since its construction.\u201d<\/p>\n
It probably hadn\u2019t been there long, as City Council received a petition in November 1885 \u201cthat the pest-house \u2026 be fenced and that a sign (reading) \u201cSmallpox\u201d be kept on the same.\u201d<\/p>\n
If this was done, it was none too soon. With the new year of 1886, San Antonio was buffeted with winter woes, including a heavy snowfall and the arrival in town of measles, mumps, pink eye, chicken pox, typhoid, cholera, spinal meningitis and \u2013 first and foremost \u2013 smallpox.<\/p>\n
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Maybe it was a coincidence, but the dreaded infection seemed to blow in with the reappearance of \u201cDr.\u201d (not really) James I.\u00a0Lighthall (1856-1886), a medicine-show performer who sold a line of nostrums supposedly from old Native American recipes, though some contained morphine.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On Jan. 1, 1885,\u00a0Lighthall paraded his caravan of painted wagons, heralded by their drum-heavy band, along Commerce Street. He threw coins to a growing crowd from a nail keg, showing off his red suit and the diamond-encrusted accessories that gave him the name \u201cDiamond King.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lighthall had been to San Antonio before on his tours of the Midwest and South. His noisy shows outside San Fernando Cathedral on Main Plaza drew people from all over the area to watch him pull teeth \u2013 he was not only not-a-doctor but also not-a-dentist \u2013 and make outrageous, cure-all claims for the bottled swill his mother cooked up in Peoria.<\/p>\n
This stay was cut short when the Diamond King himself and at least one of his employees came down with smallpox. Their tent camp was quarantined and marked with the yellow flag associated with the disease. Mobs of locals threw snowballs at some of his men when they tried to escape with their wagons.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Meanwhile, \u201cthe pesthouse became filled with the dying,\u201d says a historical article in the Light, Jan. 28, 1940. Real doctors \u201cworked day and night,\u201d while desperate \u201csufferers and relatives swamped the Diamond King\u2019s camp\u201d for help, despite the inability of the pretend-physician to heal himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As of Jan. 25, 1886, the King was dead, though his assistant recovered. \u201cSome of the reports said his case was a mild one but that he made it worse by drinking ice water after the pustules broke out,\u201d said author \u00a0Gene Fowler, who researched Lighthall for a video, \u201cDiamond King Medicine Show,\u201d available on YouTube.<\/p>\n
\u201cSmallpox became so prevalent that the local newspapers felt called upon to write fiery editorials denying reports and condemning \u2018invidious correspondents\u2019 who were broadcasting the news of the epidemic to the world.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Light,\u00a0Feb. 20, 1886, checked out the pest house and returned a detailed report: It was \u201cthroroughly well-plastered and contains three large airy and comfortable chambers,\u201d a male ward, female and children\u2019s ward and a kitchen and nurse\u2019s room. There was also \u201ca smaller room to which bad cases of delirium that might disturb other patients are removed.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The wards were \u201ckept beautifully clean and warmed by stoves to a comfortable temperature,\u201d says the Light. \u201cBedding and generally accommodations are all excellent, and the whole is placed under the general supervision of \u2026 experienced and trained nurses.\u201d<\/p>\n
The reporter interviewed patients and found them \u201cquite convalescent and evidently grateful\u201d for their treatment, except for\u00a0W.H. Hawthorne, \u201csteward of the deceased Diamond King\u2019s camp,\u201d who seemed to have a more virulent case.<\/p>\n
The last smallpox patients weren\u2019t discharged from the pest house until late March 1886. Judging from case reports with patients\u2019 addresses, some who caught the disease lived near the facility, which was just outside the city limits.<\/p>\n
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An attempt was made to burn it down the following year. The fire originated in a storeroom where bedding was kept but was extinguished \u201cwith a few buckets\u201d by the occupant of \u201ca room adjoining the city pest house,\u201d says the Express, April 8, 1887.<\/p>\n
Police Officer Martinez \u201cfound buggy tracks up to a broken window\u201d and concluded that the fire was \u201cthe work of an incendiary\u201d or arsonist. He \u201cfollowed the vehicle tracks a long distance toward town, but they were soon lost in the main-traveled road.\u201d<\/p>\n
The real culprit, concludes the report, was NIMBY or Not in My Back Yard, because \u201cthe objectionable institution \u2026 had the effect to decrease the value of property thereabouts.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thanks to Beth\u00a0Standifird of the San Antonio Conservation Society Foundation library and to the staff of the Texana\/Genealogy Department of the San Antonio Public Library for their assistance.<\/p>\n
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Next week: \u00a0A place for the poor and the poorly<\/p>\n
historycolumn@yahoo.com | X: @sahistorycolumn | Facebook: SanAntoniohistorycolumn<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Medicine show star J.I. Lighthall was known as the \u201cDiamond King\u201d for his bedazzled costume and sparkly accessories.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475453,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":["post-475452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}