
The Epidemic tells the true story one of the last and worst typhoid epidemics in America, occurring in the early winter of 1903 in Ithaca, NY, home of Cornell University. At least 85 people died in the epidemic, including 29 Cornell students. More than 10 percent of Ithaca’s 13,000 citizens contracted typhoid, mostly from drinking the town’s water. As a prosperous university town, Ithaca had more doctors than anywhere in New York state outside of Manhattan, but that was of little help. There was no real cure. You suffered for three weeks and either died horribly or got better, but even survivors could be left physically ruined and financially destitute. Typhoid was nearing the end of a long run as a worldwide killer of rich and poor alike, but that end – brought about in the 20th century by water chlorination and antibiotics – would not come soon enough for Ithaca.
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