Legislating Fear and the Public Health in Gilded Age Massachusetts

Between 1876 and 1881 Massachusetts experienced an outbreak of human rabies (hydrophobia). The entire state—the Governor, the legislature, the State Board of Health, newspapers, and the citizenry and elected officials of every town and city—reacted to the disease. Central to the response was the Commonwealth's legislature—called the General Court. Through public hearings, their own debates, and the passage of legislation, it resolved widespread fear and anger, mediated conflicting concepts of disease, and promoted social solidarity in the face of an epidemic. This article first narrates the General Court's legislative actions; it then examines the conflicting understandings of disease causality; finally, it explores the social and political rituals the legislature drew upon to deal with this public health crisis. Arguing that public health legislation is simultaneously instrumental and symbolic, this article demonstrates that attention to both enriches the study of epidemics, historical and yet to come.