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Germ Theory 1880-1912

In the 1880s, Salt Lake City locals were calling on the government to take sanitation and waste disposal seriously, still thinking that foul air and poverty contributed to disease. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world a Frenchman named Louis Pasteur was discovering the core tenants of germ theory. Because of Pasteur’s discoveries, public health officials started to accept that disease was not spread by bad air but by microbial life in the form of germs and bacteria.

This revelation completely altered how government leaders, doctors, scientists, and the public thought about health, and it resulted in greater regulation of all sorts of things in Salt Lake County. With new bacteriological testing methods, the water that flows into Salt Lake from surrounding canyons started to be tested for disease, meat and dairy factories could be inspected for contamination, and disease outbreaks could be managed with immunizations and quarantine procedures. 

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A man sitting at a desk.

Lab Testing & Monitoring

Up until the 2000s, the county health department in-house laboratory helped monitor the prevalence of bacteria in Salt Lake County watersheds, pools, factories and restaurants.

Dairy Inspections

The health department strictly regulated animal by-products after scientists like Pasteur discovered germ theory. Before Pasteur’s work and the creation of his sanitization method (“pasteurization”), milk and other animal products were mostly unchecked and dangerous vectors of disease. In 1909, Salt Lake City locals were in an “uproar” after two children fell sick to poisoned milk and one child died. At that point, health department inspector Walter J. Frazier led a “pure milk” campaign to protect people from dangerous milk-born diseases, particularly tuberculosis which was especially unpredictable and deadly.

At this time, in the early 1900s, Salt Lake County started transitioning from an agrarian society to an urban one and the sanitation expectations of health officials helped speed that process along. Health department inspections ensured that Utah dairies were updated with state-of-art facilities and machinery that ensured animal health and adequate storage. Therefore, smaller milk sellers, like widow Anna Berg’s North Star dairy, faced shut down by the health department for cleanliness concerns despite being long-time milk providers to the community. 

By 1938, the health department started to advocate for a ban on non-pasteurized milk in the county completely, making it so most dairies were large-scale businesses instead of single farmers. 

A couple of people working in a factory.

Maple Leaf Dairy, c. 1920

Did you know? By 1955 there were more than 1000 dairies in Utah!

The County General Hospital

As the health department embraced new scientific knowledge about germ theory, it also changed its social welfare program drastically. In 1908, the county’s pauper clerk Anton Lundberg announced that anyone receiving social welfare payments would be required to go to the infirmary if they had no family to house them. This consolidated all poor, unhoused, and elderly people without caretakers to one crowded location. The county tried to expand the poor farm in 1903 by buying property at 1300 S and 2200 E, but sold it because “few of the county infirmary inmates are able to do any manual labor.” 

County General Hospital

A large building with a parking lot.

The Salt Lake County General Hospital was dedicated January 4, 1913. (Image courtesy of the Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library, University of Utah.)

Instead, the county used its infirmary land on 2001 South State Street to build a hospital. It was established solely for the care of "indigent residents of the city," extending the long-established connection between public health and social welfare started during the county's first days of government. The building was completed with state-of-the-art hospital amenities at the time, including an ambulance entrance, an elevator, and even a direct heating system. The total cost of it was $165,000, and it originally housed 125 patients at a time.

A room with a bed and tables.

County General Hospital Interior

The county hospital was the main training center for Utah nurses and doctors until it was closed as a hospital in 1965. (Image courtesy of the Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library, University of Utah.)

Sources

  • All photos courtesy of the Salt Lake County Archives unless otherwise noted.
  • "Aged and Helpless Go to Poorhouse," Salt Lake Telegram, July 24, 1908.
  • "County Poor Farm Sold at Auction," Salt Lake Tribune, February 11, 1909.
  • "More Room is Needed at County Infirmary," Salt Lake Tribune, February 11, 1909.
  • "City and County Talking Hospital," Salt Lake Tribune, April 3, 1909.
  • "Joint Hospital Being Advocated," Inter-Mountain Republican, April 4, 1909.
  • "Grocery Stores Now Are Being Inspected," Salt Lake Telegram, April 25, 1910.
  • "New Infirmary Model Building," Salt Lake Tribune, April 16, 1911.
  • "To Make Exhaustive Test of City Water," Salt Lake Tribune, May 3, 1913.
  • Board of Health Annual Reports, 1955. Salt Lake County Archives.
  • Institute of Medicine. 1988. The Future of Public Health. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.