PANIC IN THE STREETS July 23, 1998

Pre-Movie Introduction:
Dr. Bruce Fuchs:
Good evening. I'd like to welcome you to the 1998 NIH Science in the Cinema film festival. This is actually our fifth summer of doing these film festivals. How many of you are here for the first time tonight? Good. Thank you for coming. Lots of first-timers.

How many of you were with us our first summer? A few. How many of you were here for our first film? Our first film, I will remind you, was The Story of Louis Pasteur. I don't think you were born yet sir. I don't think... Okay, a few of you. Great. That first summer we did The Story of Louis Pasteur. We did Benny and Joon. We did Lorenzo's Oil. We did Awakenings.

1995, once we had a sense that there was an audience for this program, we had Jurassic Park, Philadelphia, Madame Curie, My Left Foot, Rain Man, and Outbreak. Aren't you sorry you missed some of those? In 1996, we had a really... a marvelous film, The Madness of King George. We talked about the...hooray. We had Nell. Arrowsmith was our classic film. Don Juan DeMarco. Were any of you here for Don Juan DeMarco? Do you remember that two people came in costume? Were they fans, or what? We then had Regarding Henry and Apollo 13.

Last summer, we did The Elephant Man, Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet, Multiplicity, Shine--which is the only time we actually got a capacity crowd and had to use our overflow rooms. I'm a little bit worried ‘cause we're at capacity tonight and we've got folks up in our overflow room. Welcome. We're glad you're up there. We're thinking about you. I'm worried, once we get to As Good As It Gets, we're going to have a great big crowd. So if you want to sit down here, get here early. Then, we ended with The Pride of the Yankees and Leaving Las Vegas.

This summer, as you probably know, we're going to do...we're going to start tonight with Panic in the Streets. Next week is Drugstore Cowboy, Children of a Lesser God, As Good As It Gets, The Three Faces of Eve, and then Gattaca.

Now, we're doing something a little bit different for those of you who are back. We've actually got some video cameras set up here. One here on me. One here, which is going to be on you guys. And, the reason we're doing that, is that, this particular Science in the Cinema series has led to the introduction of at least two more that we know of. One was conducted last year at Harvard University and one is going on right now at The Ohio State University.

We also, I should tell you who I am. My name is Bruce Fuchs and I'm the director of the Office of Science Education. We work on programs and projects to improve the teaching of science in the schools, the K-12 schools primarily. We were at the National Science Teachers Association meeting in Las Vegas last spring. And we found that teachers were very, very interested in this particular program. So we tried to think of a way that we could share the world-class experts that we're fortunate enough to have access to here living on the NIH campus, and share them with teachers and members of the public throughout the United States who might be interested in this program.

So what we're doing is we're actually videotaping, the introduction and the question-and-answer period afterwards. And, we're going to, in about two weeks, have up on our Web site, a little streaming video version of the interaction between our guest speaker and you, our audience. So, that's why, afterwards, we're going to turn on a few lights so that we can, get a better shot at you guys. And, that's why we have this little form in here that says you acknowledge, you're aware that we're doing this. You don't mind that we might use your voice or your image if you ask a question. It actually will be kind of neat. You can tell your mom or your grandkids, whatever, "Look for me on the Web. Of course I'm up there."

But, you know, if for some reason, you would not want your image or your voice to appear on the Web, you have a couple options. I mean, one, you could go upstairs to our overflow room where we have the video link. And, we will not be doing any filming up there. And, you know, I don't know why you wouldn't want to be filmed, but... Perhaps you're a convicted felon. Perhaps you're with someone here that you're not married to tonight. And, your spouse is home surfing the Web and.... We have a second option for those of you [puts bag on head]. So, you can...you can get one of these from any of the ushers if you....

But I hope you'll get in the spirit of things and you'll help us share what we think has been a marvelous program over the past four, and now in our fifth summer, help us share it with students, and science teachers, and members of the public across the country. We're excited about this. This is an experiment for us. And, actually, if you help me out, ah, in a few weeks, I'll bring back a Web version on a laptop. So, for those of you who are not Web surfers, I'll show you what we're trying to do and you'll get a sense of what we're working on.

Tonight's film is Panic in the Streets. We're using it to help celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Public Health Service. Our speaker tonight is Dr. John Parascandola. He is the historian for the Public Health Service. And, I'll be back right after the film to give him a brief introduction. He will then be available to make a few brief comments and answer your questions. So, please enjoy tonight's film.

Post-Movie Discussion:
Dr. Bruce Fuchs:
Good evening once again. My name is Bruce Fuchs. I'm the director of the Office of Science Education here at the National Institutes of Health. And the Office of Science Education was the sponsor for tonight's film. We've just watched Panic in the Streets, a 1950 film starring Richard Widmark, Jack Palance, and Zero Mostel. Richard Widmark played a Public Health Service doctor who was trying to track down an outbreak of the plague in New Orleans.

Now we're quite lucky to have with us tonight as our guest expert, Dr. John Parascandola, who is the historian for the Public Health Service. Dr. Parascandola got his bachelor's degree at Brooklyn College where he studied chemistry, a master's degree from the University of Wisconsin, where he studied biochemistry. He stayed at the University of Wisconsin to get his Ph.D. in history. Let's see... at that point he did a post-doc in the history of science at Harvard, returned to the University of Wisconsin where he took a faculty position. In 1983 he joined the federal government where he became the Chief of the History of Medicine Division at the National Library of Medicine and then later in 1992 he became the Public Health Service's Historian. Since that time he's won the NIH Award of Merit, the Surgeon General's Exemplary Service Award, the George Urdang Medal, and many other awards that I won't bother to, read them all off. So please help me welcome tonight's guest Dr. John Parascandola [applause].

Dr. John Parascandola:
Thank you very much, Bruce. It's really appropriate that we begin the NIH film series in 1998 with Panic in the Streets. This film, which as you've seen features a PHS commissioned corps doctor as the hero and is the only such film that I know of. Because this year, as you've heard again at the beginning, is the bicentennial of the Public Health Service. Just 200 years ago this month on July 16, 1798, President John Adams signed into law an act for the relief of sick and disabled seamen. This act led to the creation of a series of marine hospitals that eventually evolved into the Public Health Service. And I won't give you the history of that here, but in one of the fact sheets you have it does give you some background on the origins and early history of the Public Health Service.

Rather, I'd like to take a few minutes to talk a little bit about the film. And I think one of the issues we always ask when we see films that depict science or medicine is "How accurate is this depiction?" I'm not a bacteriologist or a physician; I'm a historian. But, I think it's not difficult if one knows just a little bit about plague to make some assessments of that and again in the fact sheet we provided, one of them gives you some background on plague. But let me take a few moments even though I know there are some of you in the audience who certainly know more about the subject than I do to just review some of this and ask ourselves as I say how accurate some of this depiction is.

Actually, on the whole, I think this, in this film, the science is not bad. With some exceptions. Let me just quickly remind you, of course, that plague is caused by a bacillus, Yersinia pestis, which was discovered by Alexander Yersin in 1894. In the typical bubonic form of the plague, the disease is transmitted by the bite of a flea, which had previously bitten an infected rat. Or occasionally another type of animal such as a ground squirrel. But usually the rat.

Now although bubonic plague is certainly a very serious disease, with a mortality of 50 to 60 percent if left untreated and of course we're all familiar with the famous Black Death of the Middle Ages, the pneumonic form of the disease is much more frightening, as depicted in the film. The pneumonic form of the disease seems to get started when a victim of bubonic plague develops pneumonia in the late stages of the disease and coughs up the plague bacillus in his or her sputum. The fits of coughing of the victim can release hordes of bacteria in droplets of saliva, which may be inhaled by another individual who then becomes a victim of primary pneumonic plague.

Pneumonic plague is so frightening because, first of all, it has a mortality rate of close to 100 percent and also because it can be spread directly from human to human in an airborne fashion, just again as I say by coughing or sneezing. The incubation period is short and the disease progresses very rapidly. So it's certainly realistic in the film that we would expect there to be a great deal of concern about an outbreak of pneumonic plague in a large city such as New Orleans and as I say the discussion of the pneumonic plague, brief as it is, is reasonably accurate.

Giving antibiotics for treatment or perhaps even as a preventive measure for someone exposed to the disease would indeed be the treatment of choice and in 1950 when the film was made, streptomycin, which is mentioned, would certainly have been the drug to use. In fact it's still useful against plague today although other antibiotics such as tetracycline are also used.

Now as for the plague vaccine in the film, however, which actually gets the majority of the attention, it's questionable as to how useful this would have been in the circumstances. There is a vaccine. The vaccine against plague can be effective. It was used, for example, on American troops in the Vietnam War. But the vaccine takes weeks to really take effect. So it probably would not have helped any to vaccinate those people who had already been exposed to the disease and one gets the impression I think in the film that, okay, we go around and vaccinate these people and now they're, they're fine. Those people who'd already been exposed to the disease, and it's doubtful that that in itself would have done the trick although they do mention the streptomycin as well.

Now most of you undoubtedly remember the fears engendered by the pneumonic plague outbreak in India as recently as 1994 and there is something about it in the handout and that may help us again to understand the kind of anxiety depicted in the film. The most serious outbreak of pneumonic plague in the United States occurred in Los Angeles in 1924 and the film does make reference to that incident. And in fact it's possible that that may have been the epidemic that the creators of the film had in mind or that gave them the idea for the film. In that epidemic 31 of the 33 cases of pneumonic plague proved to be fatal. Again, giving us some idea of the mortality rate of the disease.

Now also the kind of squabbling that went on between various officials in the film probably also not unrealistic. In the 1924 Los Angeles epidemic there were tensions between federal, state, and city authorities as to who was controlling various aspects of the campaign to limit the disease.

Let me just point out a couple of other things in the film in closing and I also want to just show you a few slides. Ah, I'm sure you all remember the scene at the end of the picture when Jack Palance is climbing the rope trying to reach the ship. [scene from film inserted here] Well that device on the rope that impeded his progress was a rat protector or rat guard which was designed to prevent rats from climbing up from the wharf onto the ship and, a real motivation for developing these kind of devices was a concern about the spread of plague by transporting rats which carried the disease. So that's an interesting kind of aspect of this.

Now speaking of Palance, if you're not aware of it, this was his screen debut. In fact you may have noticed at the beginning if you were watching the credits carefully that he was billed as Walter Jack Palance, he still was using his full name. And this performance, of course, kinda set the tone for many of his later roles as the menacing villain. I should also note, by the way, that this film won the Oscar for 1950 for best story. A sort of best original story. And as you saw, it had an excellent cast, including Paul Douglas, and Richard Widmark, Barbara Bel Geddes and Zero Mostel. And also an excellent director in Elia Kazan.

I also can't help remarking, and I'm sure you all noticed this, on how Richard Widmark, [scene from film inserted here] as this uniformed Public Health Service doctor, lights up one cigarette after another in the film, but then, of course, this was 1950 and this was common. On the other hand, cigarettes seem to be making a big comeback in films, so maybe if we remade the film today, the situation wouldn't have changed.

I also can't help but comment on the scene that I noticed you all laughed about, about how difficult it was to get money back out of the federal government. You can just imagine submitting a $50 voucher for NIH ah saying that you had used the money as a bribe. And Widmark, of course, hadn't even bothered to get a receipt for the money.

Let me close at this point except to just as I say to show a few slides particularly some ads for the movie. We reproduced one of these on the flyer. This was one of the posters that was used in the film. Another one, these were different varieties of kinds of posters that got issued the same kinds of things we see issued for films today. It's interesting that neither of these posters nor the third one, I think I'm...I thought there was a third one in there somewhere anyway, neither of the posters--I think the third one is later--actually mentions what this killer is, they just mention that they were searching the city for a killer. The scene, of course, in the film where Melvin [sic, Paul] Douglas, as you remember as the police officer, is kind of resistant to taking his plague vaccine.

I love this shot cause you don't too often see commissioned officers carrying guns. But but here he is, Widmark, with his weapon in hand. And there's the third poster with Palance up at the top. And again the posters really don't mention plague. They kinda leave it for people to wonder what is this mysterious thing that's going on. And finally, I think that's the last slide, just a nice shot of Widmark and Barbara Bel Geddes.

Okay, thank you for your attention. I'd be happy to answer questions but I want to remind you that since we're recording this, um, if you'd raise your hand if you have a question we have a couple of people walking around with microphones.

Question: After you are innoculated, how long does the vaccine last?

Answer: It's my understanding, again there may be others that know more, but my understanding is that it does not last that long, and so that you have to be reinnoculated periodically. I don't know that it lasts more than 6 months or a year or so. And so is not a long term vaccine. It's my understanding. Again, if someone knows more about the vaccine, than I do, I'd be happy to have them add.

Question: Ah, yeah, I'd like know if there is, like, a less chance of that happening now or than there was in 1950?

Answer: I don't know. That's hard to speculate whether it might be less chance of...after all we're dealing with here a kind of isolated case of the disease that shows up in the city. For example, when we had the situation in India there was concern that someone could have left the country early in the epidemic before it was really widely recognized and carried the disease anywhere in the world. And I don't know how quickly it would be recognized. It's not a common disease and it, you know, most physicians don't go around seeing pneumonic plague frequently and it does have a very short incubation period. We're certainly in a better position probably in terms of the drugs available to treat it and in India when the epidemic broke out, first thing they did was to kind of stock up on the antibiotics, because again as I say the ser... vaccine is just a little too slow to be of much help. So I mean it, it's a kind of scenario that could conceivably happen. Hopefully we would spot the disease quickly, isolate people who had it, preventively give antibiotics to anybody who'd been exposed to it, and with it's a very treatable disease now if you catch it in time.

Question: Yeah, I had a question about the...giving the vaccines without permission. I don't think you could get away with that now, but I was wondering if in the 50's you could vaccinate people and not tell them what you were vaccinating them for?

Answer: Technically speaking you know in the 50's the polio trials were done, of course, and they did get permissions from people. And, there were certainly certain liberties taken in the film.

Also the authority that Widmark has, you know. He goes around saying "Public Health Service" and people seem to listen. It is true, of course, that the Public Health Service has certain quarantine authority, but there's a lot of things sort of mushed together in this film. For example, it's not clear who Widmark really is. I mean I kind of presume he's probably supposed to be a doctor at the Public Health Service hospital in New Orleans, though he could conceivably have supposed to have been affiliated with quarantine station, but normally quarantine involved the concern about people coming into or out of the country or crossing state lines.

There is a point later in the film where you see the mayor finally saying to Widmark, "Well you know you're a guest here and you're an advisor" and, you know, by and large, the Public Health Service tried to take that role in dealing with local epidemics or problems, that is, they wanted to be invited in and invited to cooperate. They didn't want to try to come in and take over the epidemic. So, the idea of him just ordering these people--really they couldn't have done much about it probably if they would have walked out and whether or not it's likely that immediately everybody in the city would have--the police etc.--would have gone along with this even though they didn't all believe him maybe is a little bit unrealistic.

Question: I understand in Los Angeles in 1924-25 there was an actual outbreak of plague. And so I'm wondering if this movie may have loosely been based on that incident? Or was the concept of an outbreak of plague...just kind of became a storyline for a movie?

Answer: I think it's very possible, maybe even probable, that that 1924 epidemic, which was the best known, I mean the largest epidemic we've had of pneumonic plague in this country, may well have been something that the makers of the film had in mind--and they do mention in passing the Los Angeles epidemic. But I don't really know for sure. I think one would have to probably do some real research in studio files and all and hope that you might, you know, find some evidence of what they discussed or some letter or something, so I don't really know. But certainly studios did a fair amount of research for these films. Some of the other films we've seen here like Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet last year....I've done some research on that film and I know that the studio did a tremendous amount of work to try to get some of the details right, what the laboratory would have looked like, etc. Unfortunately, as we've seen in this film, that doesn't always extend to everything. In the Ehrlich film, for example, they didn't mind changing a lot of the details about his life, as long as the laboratory setting looked accurate for the period.


Question: I've got a couple of questions. One is one thing that he didn't do was he didn't contact the sort of host country for this immigrant who came in to find out what the original source was. So he was interested in protecting New Orleans but there really wasn't anything like an international response. The other thing that I was really curious about was that he really wanted to suppress all public reporting you know to the point where they sort of like threw this reporter in jail. And I was wondering what, you know, the current policy of the Public Health Service is in a situation like that. Would you actually want to avoid panic and therefore impose secrecy, or what? So, you could comment on either of these points.

Answer: I think whatever one wanted to do today, it's unlikely that you would readily be able to do that and I think we have seen that when other incidents have happened again, that the plague incident in India, the word gets out pretty quickly and I doubt there would really be any effort or any hopes of success of suppressing the information today.