![]() Venice was the first municipality to implement a policy of forbidding ships to dock if the ships were suspected of harboring plague. Quarantine, or the separation of infected individuals, was recorded in the Old Testament, but the first organized effort came in response to the Black Death in 1348. This method has historical roots reaching back to the Middle Ages and even before. Not until 1963 did John Enders and his colleagues develop the first strain of measles vaccine and license it.īefore vaccines controlled the spread of epidemics, our parents and grandparents relied on isolation and avoidance as a means to prevent disease. On average, 48,000 people were hospitalized annually, and in any given year 4,000 people developed encephalitis, a debilitating and often forgotten consequence of the disease. Nearly all children were infected with the virus by the time they were 15. During the ’50s, an estimated 3-4 million people were infected with measles each year, resulting in an annual mortality of 400-500 people. In 1959, a child was vaccinated for DPT, polio, and smallpox. ![]() What separates this photo from a contemporary image is that my father is wearing a surgical mask. ![]() Fashions have changed black and white film has been replaced by digital technology. The picture is not so different from any other photo of a proud father holding his newborn. It was taken in our home, in our living room. There is a picture in my family album of my father holding me as an infant. ![]()
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