ABSTRACT
Smith and Harris helped New York City prepare for the cholera epidemic of 1866. European experience guided the Metropolitan Health Board’s disinfection, public education, and case-tracking campaigns. Less-prepared American cities, such as Chicago, used a scattershot approach and fared worse. Once the epidemic passed, politicians and physicians lost interest in sanitary crises. Smith joined the Board in 1868 as a part-time health commissioner. Chemist Charles Chandler also came to the Board, the first effort in the country to use laboratory science in public health. Smith helped Elizabeth Blackwell launch her final and most ambitious project in 1869, a women’s medical college with higher standards than men’s medical colleges. The election of 1870 returned power to New York’s Democrats, who quickly eliminated the Metropolitan Board of Health and returned New York City’s health affairs to a Tammany Hall-dominated city government.
