Historic WPB Medical Lab Fought Disease Epidemics

By Bob Davidsson
        The last great disease pandemic to impact Palm Beach County - the "Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1918-19" - resulted in draconian actions by local government to control the outbreak, and the placement of one of just three State of Florida diagnostic laboratories in West Palm Beach.
        At its June 4, 2018 meeting, the West Palm Beach Commission designated the 1921 neoclassical building at 415 5th Street, formerly the Florida State Board of Health (SBH) Laboratory, as a landmark on the city's Register of Historic Places.
         An historic marker fronting the building, currently housing the First Bank of the Palm Beaches, reads; "With the construction of the Board of Health Laboratory in 1921, Palm Beach County secured its first state building. Still considered an area of the country that was just being settled, establishing an outpost for public health was an essential component of community upbuilding for West Palm Beach."
        Florida was still a rural state in 1920 with a population of just 968,470. Established in 1909, the total population of Palm Beach County, which included portions of Broward and Martin counties at that time, was just 18,654.
        The State Board of Health was established by an act of the Florida Legislature on Feb. 29, 1889. The understaffed SBH faced major budget cuts in 1920 by populist Governor Sidney J. Catts, an ordained minister elected to state office in 1916 as head of the "Prohibition Party" ticket.
        It took intense lobbying efforts by the Palm Beach Post and its editor, Joe Earman, and a series of devastating outbreaks of Spanish flu, bubonic plague and dengue fever in the state, to convince the parsimonious governor of the need for a new research laboratory.
         The two-story SBH lab in West Palm Beach was designed by Pensacola architect Walker D. Willis as a prototype model reproduced several times across the State of Florida. The architect envisioned its neoclassical design "as a symbol of civilization" in the largely rural Sunshine State.
        "Constructed by E.H. Barto in 100 days at a cost of $34,700," the historic marker reads, "this landmark structure retains much of its original Bedford Limestone fenestration, St. Louis brick façade and decorative classical interior. The well-preserved interior includes extensive promenade mosaic tile, Dade Pine floors, and a wrought iron and marble central staircase."
        The SBH laboratory in West Palm Beach was one of three early diagnostic and treatment centers for communicable diseases in Florida. Together with its sister labs in Pensacola and Jacksonville, the local medical research center controlled the spread of diseases such as influenza, diphtheria and tuberculosis.
        The medical labs were hard-pressed to meet the public health needs of the state in the early 20th century. Outbreaks of malaria were endemic in the Suwannee River valley. Dengue fever ravaged Dade County in 1921, eventually spreading to Tampa Bay.
        In the year 1920, an unidentified ship anchored in Pensacola's harbor carrying rats infested with the bubonic plague virus. The vermin with their disease carrying fleas disembarked from the ship, spreading the "pestis" virus to rodents throughout the city.
        Ten residents contracted the disease and seven died before the pestilence was brought under control. The outbreak highlighted the first systematic use of state public health services to control an epidemic.

Spanish Flu Epidemic in Palm Beach County, 1918-19
        The one catastrophe that galvanized public opinion in support of statewide SBH laboratories to fight communicable diseases in Florida was the deadly arrival of the so-called "Spanish flu" in 1918.
        While the exact geographic origin of the influenza strain is still debated, its impact was felt worldwide. The scourge killed 50 million people, including between 500,000 and 650,000 in the United States.
        Close communal living conditions necessary during World War I quickly spread the flu virus from the frontline trenches to staging areas, hospitals and military bases in Europe and America. It is believed the first cases in the U.S. were at Fort Riley, Kansas, from where the virus soon infected the general population.*
       An estimated 4,000 residents succumbed to the Spanish flu in the thinly populated State of Florida. The first report of the epidemic reaching Florida was Sept. 27, 1918 in Key West. The disease was reported in Pensacola less than one week later. Florida's new rail systems carried the pestilence throughout the state.
       By the second week of October 1918, there 158 flu-related deaths in Florida. The number of  confirmed Spanish flu cases in the state reached 12,944 by January 1919. Drastic steps were taken to control the epidemic in West Palm Beach and across the state.
        On Oct. 9, 1918, an ordinance was passed by the City of West Palm Beach to close all public meetings, schools, theaters, churches and public gatherings during the proclaimed emergency.
        The Palm Beach Post reported, "It was stipulated in the ordinance that there shall be no loitering in billiard halls, that barber shops shall be conducted in a strictly sanitary manner, and soda fountains shall serve drinks only in paper containers."
         The draconian city ordinance assessed first-time violators a $100 fine or 30 days in jail. It was not an unusual sight to see residents covering their faces with masks or handkerchiefs as they shopped downtown during the 1918-19 epidemic.
        The Spanish flu targeted younger victims who lacked partial immunity from earlier flu outbreaks in the 1890's. The flu arrived in two waves. The first outbreak in 1918 was more virulent and was commonly called "the three-day fever". Many flu patients died by contracting secondary pneumonia in an age when antibiotics were not available.
        A milder second wave of Spanish flu mutated and spread across the country in 1919. By the end of the year, the pandemic was becoming a horrible memory.

Public Health Becomes a Statewide Concern
        The SBH laboratory in West Palm Beach filled a much needed gap in medical diagnostic services in the early history of Palm Beach County. It wasn't until 1948 that Palm Beach County established a public health unit with the State of Florida providing matching funds..
        Today, the Florida Department of Health in Palm Beach County, with its staff of 750 employees, provides a wide range of community services including disease prevention and control.
        The original SBH labs created in the 1920's have evolved into the Florida Department of Health, Bureau of Public Health Laboratories. The Jacksonville-based agency provides diagnostic screening, monitoring, research and emergency public health laboratory services to county health departments.
(c.) Davidsson 2018.
*NOTE: The author's great aunt died in the Spanish flu epidemic. See additional articles archived below and in Older Posts.