1924 - A disinfected letter from a doctor at the Pittsburgh Municipal Hospital who contracted diphtheria while treating patients with infectious diseases

Descripción:

This four-page letter is from Dr. D. R. Jacobs at the Pittsburgh Municipal Hospital to Nancy Throckmorton at Waynesburg, Pennsylvania. It is datelined "Municipal Hospital / Sept - 16 - 1924". It is enclosed in its original mailing envelope which was franked with a red 2-cent Washington stamp (Scott #634) and canceled with a Pittsburg machine postmark. There is a bold "DISINFECTED" handstamp (Sandrick Pittsburgh Type 2) of which there is only one other known extant example. Dr. Jacobs letter reads, in part, as follows: "Have been here for nine days with diphtheria, a nice thing for a doctor to get. I expect to be here a few days yet. . . I only worked here for one week before getting sick, during which time I saw several cases of smallpox, chicken pox, scarlet fever, Dephtheria and mumps." . When fumigating mail, from one to all four corners were clipped from a mailing envelope. Then the envelope was enclosed in an airtight container which in turn was pumped full of the disinfecting agent, usually either sulfur dioxide or formalin. Mail was normally kept in the container before it was removed, identified as having been disinfected, and placed in the postal system. Although fumigation did not likely have any real effect, the idea of sanitizing mail exposed to contagions was not a ridiculous idea. There are known cases where postal employs contracted smallpox from handling mail. During the anthrax terrorism scare of 2001, 22 people became infected by handling the mail and five died. (For more information, see Sandrick's "Disinfection Markings from Pennsylvania" in the May 1992 issue of La Posta, Milgram's "American Fumigation" at the American Philatelic Society website, and Ellis's "Disinfecting the Mail: Disease, Panic, and the Post Office Department in Nineteenth-Century America" in Information & Culture Vol 52 No 4.) A scarce surviving example of an early 20th century attempt to prevent disease transmission by fumigating mail known to have been handled by people infected with a contagious disease. Fumigated envelopes occasionally appear at philatelic auctions, but seldom with their enclosed letters. This example from a doctor who became infected while treating contagious patients may likely be unique. Only four 'disinfected' envelopes from Pittsburgh are known to exist, this example and three others. Of those other three, one handstamp is identical to this, and the other two are smaller. . N° de ref. del artículo 010213

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Título: 1924 - A disinfected letter from a doctor at...
Editorial: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Año de publicación: 1924
Encuadernación: Envelope or Cover
Condición: Very good