Medical officials and public school administrators worked together to enforce a mandate that students receive the smallpox vaccine in 1855.
A vaccination campaign for schoolchildren in Schuylkill County in the 1850s
“In Scarlet Fever’s Grip” – This 1910 epidemic crippled Lykens and closed schools and businesses
In 1910, an epidemic of scarlet fever spun out of control in the Coal Region community of Lykens and left a trail of bodies in its wake.
Civil War soldier-poet recorded the deaths of three comrades in four days from disease
Private Samuel Veatch used poetry to record the final words of comrades at Camp Curtin in Harrisburg in January 1862.
“Nothing to really compare with this” – A reflection on the 1918 influenza epidemic in Wilkes-Barre
"Three hundred miles of funeral processions, and the tears and groans that accompany these sad partings."
“Played Out” – Corporal Henry Keiser and Disease in the Seven Days’ Battles
Keiser was fighting a potentially deadly illness and evading capture by advancing Confederate soldiers.
