When Libraries Were Believed To Be Responsible For Outbreaks of Diseases
There was a brief time when it was feared that books were responsible for spreading illness
Humanity’s understanding of disease and prevention has greatly evolved over time. Even now, we don’t know anywhere close to the whole store about the human body and illness. As we have grappled with how to comprehend and adapt over the years, there have been notable hits and misses with our hypotheses. One of the more amusing was more than 100 years ago when the death of a Midwestern librarian sparked an outcry and short-lived fear that deadly contagious diseases were being spread by books being read and lent from libraries.
Oddly, while one might argue that any number of frequently touched objects could pose similar risks, library books were once uniquely focused on for their perceived ability to act as a page turning Typhoid Mary. Smithsonian Magazine’s Joseph Hayes wrote in 2019 about how this became a brief full-blown hysteria in 1895 when a Nebraska librarian named Jessie Allen died of tuberculosis, causing widespread headlines repeating the fears that library reading material was a possible germ factory that had the ability to expose visitors to any numbers of diseases.
In the aftermath of Allen’s death, an October, 1895 article in the Library Journal speculated on the impact of her demise:
“The death of Miss Jessie Allan is doubly sad because of the excellent reputation which her work won for her and the pleasant affection which all librarians who knew her had come to feel for her, and because her death has given rise to a fresh discussion as to the possibility of infection from contagious diseases through library books.”
At the time, physicians, rather than allaying these fears, contributed to the hysteria by either professing ignorance regarding the potential transmission of germs through books, or acknowledging that such a scenario was a possibility. Given how many diseases were present and fully capable of blossoming into full-blown outbreaks, it’s understandable that the unknown could grip people with so much terror. It wasn’t just a fear of touching contaminated books; it was also speculation that breathing in book dust was an easy way to permit illness into one’s body.
The paranoia surrounding the supposed danger of library books played right into the hands of conservative observers who had already been working to condemn certain books as morally corrupting. The push to blame libraries for infections only fueled their agenda, reinforcing their negative narrative.
Fears about disease transmission on items like books actually dated back a number of years before the librarian’s death. In the United Kingdom, the Public Health Act of 1875, originally designed to cut back on the sharing of contaminated items like bedding, was expanded in 1907 to include library books, barring individuals known to carry diseases from handling books available to the public.
Trying to combat the innuendo and broad assumptions, libraries tried out experimental methods to sterilize books, utilizing techniques such as steam or formaldehyde solutions to hopefully wipe the germs away. Unfortunately, it took several years before the panic died down, likely impacted by no significant disease outbreaks being traced back to libraries. Modern medicine has since been able to verify that while it is possible for books, like just about any object, to harbor disease, the risk of infection from handling them is miniscule.
Although you likely won’t get a disease from a book at your local library, that doesn’t mean they are free from grossness. A 2013 study showed that books tested (they specifically looked at copies of 50 Shades of Grey) at the Antwerp Library came back with traces of many bacteria and other substances, including herpes and cocaine.
As it turns out, book lovers can get a lot of things from the material they read, including at libraries. However, despite previous paranoia, that bounty is not likely to include contracting a deadly illness.
