Blue
Rupert Blue, US Surgeon General. (Ir a Personas. Cosas. Cronología. Geografía. Fuentes.)
Cuarto Jefe del U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) de 1912 a 1920.
En 1918 tenía 180 empleados y 44 estaciones de cuarentena.
CHRISTINE M. KREISER en Historynet.com (27 de octubre de 2006):
Government agencies fared no better. Surgeon General Rupert Blue, head of the U.S. Public Health Service, was aware that an outbreak of flu was possible. But in July 1918, he denied a request for $10,000 to be dedicated to pneumonia research, and he made no other preparations. Blue’s first public warning came in mid-September and included such tips asAvoid tight clothes, tight shoes, tight gloves — seek to make nature your ally not your prisoner andHelp by choosing and chewing your food well. Congress appropriated $1 million in emergency funding for USPHS; Blue eventually returned $115,000 to the government.
Worse still, the government contributed to the national paranoia surrounding all things German. The USPHS officer for northeastern Mississippi planted stories in the local papers thatthe Hun resorts to unwanted murder of innocent noncombatants….He has [at]tempted to spread sickness and death thru germs, and has done so in authenticated cases. Lieutenant Colonel Philip Doane, head of the Health and Sanitation Section of the Emergency Fleet Corporation, which oversaw U.S. shipyards, theorized that U-boats had delivered German spies to Americato turn loose Spanish influenza germs in a theatre or some other place where large numbers of persons are assembled. So persistent was the belief that Germany had somehow launched a biological attack that USPHS laboratories devoted precious time to investigating claims that Bayer aspirin, which was manufactured in the States under a German-held patent, had been laced with deadly flu germs.
“Let the curse be called the German plague, declared The New York Times in October.Let every child learn to associate what is accursed with the word German not in the spirit of hate but in the spirit of contempt born of the hateful truth which Germany has proved herself to be.
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