Research


Scope and Content Note

The files are primarily those of Donald O. Lyman, Bureau Director from 1975 to 1979, and Richard Rothenberg, Director from 1979 to 1981. The files consist of correspondence, memoranda, periodical clippings, maps, case files, statistical reports, survey questionnaires, and legislative proposals and bills.

Contents which may particularly interest researchers include black fly research; investigation of the relationship between influenza immunization and Guillain-Barre Syndrome (Polyradiculoneuritis); studies of leukemia incidence in relation to dairy herd leucosis and feline leukemia; rabies transmission during laboratory research; protocols for research with live syphillis bacteria in 1953; negotiations for access to vaccines and vaccine distribution policies; and legislation and public education efforts to increase immunization for communicable diseases.

Other subjects of special interest are development of an epidemic intelligence service, staffed by Glenn Haughie, later Director of the Department's Office of Public Health; regulation of summer camps' health standards; the Health Department's mobilization for services to the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics; and a 1979-1981 contract study of disease surveillance methods. There is also documentation of cooperation among Health Department bureaus, especially the Bureau for Disease Control, the Laboratories for Veterinary Science under Melvin Abelseth, DVM, and the Infectious Disease Center under Hassan A. Gaafar, MD. The latter two units are both sections of the Division of Laboratories and Research.

Diseases with which these files are concerned are: arbovirus (anthropod-borne) disease; babesiosis; brucellosis (undulant fever); cancer; chicken pox; enterovirus; equine encephalmyelitis; gastrointestinal illness; giardia lamblia; gonorrhea; Guillain-Barre Syndrome (polyradiculoneuritis); hepatitis; influenza; Legionnaire's Disease; leukemia; malaria; measles; meningitis; mumps; pertussis (whooping-cough); poliomyelitis; psittacosis; rabies; Reye's Syndrome; Rocky Mountain spotted fever; rubella; salmonella (salmonellosis); scabies; shigella (dysentery, shigellosis); smallpox; staphylococcal disease; streptococcal disease; syphillis; toxic shock syndrome; tuberculosis; typhoid fever; and venereal diseases.

The first part, subject files, is comprised primarily of reports of and the bureau's responses to these various diseases. Included frequently are the results of laboratory tests (sometimes from the Center for Disease Control) confirming or disproving the presence of the particular disease. In addition, files on Love Canal, the bureau's legislative efforts, and disease surveillance are also found here. In the case of disease surveillance, the bureau was particularly interested in hepatitis, food poisoning (salmonella), measles, and rubella.

The second part of the series consists of annual and semi-annual reports and tally sheets recording the occurrences of certain diseases, including chicken pox, brucellosis, conjunctivitis, gonorrhea, smallpox, trichinosis, and tuberculosis. The bi-annual tuberculosis reports are broken down by major metropolitan area (Albany, Buffalo, New York City, Rochester, Syracuse) and by county, and comprise the bulk of this section. A small number of Department of Health annual reports from the late 1950s and early 1960s are also found here.

Seventy-nine rolls of microfilm found within the series contain information about annual disease outbreaks and are arranged similar to the first part of this series: chronological by year (though not alphabetical within each year).

13855-20: This accretion contains volumes of reports maintained by the Bureau of Communicable Disease Control, 1884 to 1909. The records document diseases from which local residents died statewide in each given year. Diseases documented include typhoid, malaria, scarlet fever, measles, erysipelas, whooping cough, diphtheria, consumption (tuberculosis), pneumonia, cerebral spinal meningitis, and puerperal. These volumes do not document individual deaths; they contain aggregate data on deaths from specific diseases within particular geographic areas.