When the Spanish Influenza appeared in Cecil County in the autumn of 1918, the man on the frontline of the battle here was Dr. H. Arthur Cantwell. The young clinician, an alumnus of the Jacob Tome Institute, graduated from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in 1906. After interning at the University Hospital and the Kernan Hospital for Crippled Children in Baltimore, the doctor returned home to Charlestown to open a general practice of medicine and surgery in his mother’s home.
It wasn’t long before the office shifted to North East, a move that helped build the budding practice. There the twenty-three-year-old worked seven days a week, treating every type of case imaginable, from minor distress to heart attacks, cancer, and gunshot wounds. His colleagues in the medical fraternity in the town consisted of Dr. Phillip B. Housekeeper who received his medical diploma in 1868; Lewis F. Hamrick (1901), and T. A. Worrall (1870).1
Appointed County Health Officer
Months before the Spanish Flu struck, the county commissioners appointed the North East physician to a term as the Cecil County Public Health Officer.2 It was April 1918, months before the first bout of the Spanish Flu struck, a small outbreak occurring that summer. But the most serious wave lurked until autumn before it hit. And there was a third less severe eruption that resulted in additional deaths early in the winter of 1919.
Months before the Pandemic struck, he was appointed to a term as the Cecil County Health Officer.
As an up-to-date graduate of a university medical school, Dr. Cantwell understood the era’s theories on contagions. But like all medical professionals in 1918, he didn’t know that influenza was a virus as the science hadn’t developed that information. Thus, there was no vaccine, test, or therapy to treat this strain of influenza. However, his knowledge of germ theory and the way microbes spread through droplets in the air was solidly grounded in the science of the time.
Public Health Officer Monitors Pandemic
In the early days of the outbreak, news of the deadly pandemic swirling around military camps and large cities, the new health officer read newspaper accounts about the plague sweeping across the nation and studied whatever bulletins the Maryland Board of Health and U.S. Surgeon General Blue provided. The clinician recognized that medical therapeutics could not stop the microscopic killer; only the public health measures of containment, good hygiene, isolation, and quarantine would reduce the suffering, something we now call social distancing. This information he shared with Cecil’s old hands at medicine during County Medical Society meetings.
One State Health Department bulletin informed local authorities that an “extra-containment zones” had been established around government reservations in Maryland, including Aberdeen Proving Ground. The emergency regulation established a five-mile boundary for containment, authorized the appointed of five additional deputy state health officers, and the publication of circulars with instructions on sanitary requirements for anyone in the zone.
When the second wave struck here in September and October, the county’s physician, took charge as the contagion ripped across northeastern Maryland. Dr. Cantwell was the point person responsible for protecting and promoting public health; never before in the history of Cecil County had the health officer been thrust into the forefront of a major community-wide health emergency, a global pandemic.
In these turbulent times, with the virus killing over 100 people here and infecting many more, he provided strong leadership at the helm of the emergency as people from the Susquehanna River to the Sassafras fell victim to the Spanish Influenza. With the area in a near state of emergency, doctors being overwhelmed by the calls for help and nurses falling ill, he acted swiftly, promptly calling the shots that reduced the suffering in Cecil County.
Dr. Cantwell Acted Swiftly
As the number of cases swelled, Dr. Cantwell hoped to stamp out the spreading germs with a quarantine. On October 2, 1918, the local Board of Health issued the order — all places where people assembled were to shutter their doors for an indefinite period beginning that Wednesday. In addition to shutting down schools, houses of worship, moving picture theaters, and all places of public assembly, the authorities also banned public funerals. Struggling to keep a lid on things, he also arranged to have information printed that alerted the public to good hygiene practices that would slow the spread of the viral killer.
When the physician ordered the closure of public places, there were no complaints, even if most people didn’t understand the danger of influenza. The streets suddenly grew quiet and still, with few exceptions, as the newspaper columns filled with obituaries. What we call social distancing now is all they had to prevent the spread of the viral killer.
Six days later, the Maryland Board of Health followed along, issuing a statewide directive. Noting that public gathering places where large numbers were likely to congregate played an essential part in the dissemination of the disease. The Maryland Health Officer added that as the virus showed alarming signs of assuming severe proportions, the situation called for serious measures.
Finally, toward the end of October, the suffering and deaths declined. And on October 27, the Cecil County Board of Health lifted the ban on public assembly, announcing that church services, schools, and public assembly could resume for the first time in several weeks. To a significant degree, Cecil County activity stopped or slowed for 25 days, but the people adjusted.
For the annual report for the state, Dr. Cantwell reported that 2,073 communicable disease cases occurred in the county, in comparison to 264 incidents in 1917. Also, his report indicates that there were 85 deaths in 1918. Early the next year, there were about 25 additional deaths.4
After leading the county’s fight against this unprecedented pandemic, Dr. Cantwell resigned as the health officer in Dec. 1921, the commissioners appointing Dr. William G. Jack to the vacancy. 5
The clinician’s practice and reputation continued to grow in the decades ahead. Instrumental in the continuing modernization of Union Hospital, he was the chief of surgery from 1921 to 1954.
Providing Care for 50 Years
After decades as a caregiver, he had grown from the young doctor in town to the senior practicing physician in Cecil County. On the fiftieth anniversary of tending to the ills of residents, more than 1,000 people packed the North East Elementary School, turning out to honor the respected caregiver. On this special occasion Mrs. Mary Belle Heverin Reynolds, his first baby delivery on September 29, 1907, was present, as well as his first patients, Mrs. Curtis Reed and her daughter, Mrs. Frank Conway, Sr., of North East. Mrs. Reed remarked that several people told her that it was awful taking her to a young doctor barely out of school.
Dr. Cantwell recalled that his first operation was performed on John Benjamin’s father. “I was still in school and was on vacation when I was called. He was accidentally shot while gunning. He had blown away part of the calf of his leg. After stopping the bleeding, we took him to the old Union Hospital where Dr. Mitchell permitted me to operate. There is no comparison between medicines of today and that of yesteryear. It is wonderful how the different drugs of today have caused the medical profession to progress,” he remarked. ((“1000 Countian’s Honor Doctor Who Practiced for 50 Years.” News Journal. (Newark), June, 11, 1950.))
Dr. Cantwell, 89, died on December 20, 1972. Part of his lasting legacy was leading the county’s fight again the Spanish influenza as the public health officer.
For more on the Spanish Flu in Cecil County see
Women were the Caregivers During the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918
For the National Story see
“Spanish Flu, or Whatever It Is. . . .”: The Paradox of Public Health in a Time of Crisis
Endnotes- Polk’s Medical Register and Directory of North America. 10th ed. Baltimore, MD: R. L. Polk & Co. Publishers, 1908. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924108425525&view=1up&seq=17.[↩]
- Cecil County Commissioners, Minutes of Meetings, April 9, 1918, p 75[↩]
- Union Hospital, “Celebrating 100 Years: Union Hospital, 1908 – 2008), p.27[↩]
- State Board of Health of Maryland. Annual Report of the State Board of Health of Maryland for the Year Ending December 31, 1918. 10th annual report, Baltimore: State Printer, 1918 https://www.google.com/books/edition/Annual_Report_of_the_State_Board_of_Heal/WWVfPgKK8esC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=maryland+board+of+health+1918&pg=PA214&printsec=frontcover (accessed April 6, 2020)[↩]
- “Town and County.” Midland Journal (Rising Sun), January 21 1922.[↩]