A human muzzle free#

3 “Muzzle ’Em” captures the exasperation many felt in the vicinity of increased regulation: In 1914, Life published a satirical poem submitted by Bideawee titled “Muzzle ’Em,” dedicated to Health Commissioner Dr.

The ASPCA maintained that the benefits did not outweigh the distress foisted upon the muzzled.Īnti-muzzling sentiment was fierce.

2 The Department of Health held that enforcement of muzzling was required to stamp out transmission to humans. In her phenomenal book Mad Dogs and Other New Yorkers, Jessica Wang shows how government responses to rabies outbreaks in New York evolved from the antebellum deployment of a bounty system, which legalized the confiscation and killing of unmuzzled dogs by private individuals, through decades of seismic change as the New York Department of Health faced off with the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals over protocol. Rabies pitted Americans against each other. 1 As a result, many Americans (including celebrated editor of The Atlantic William Dean Howells, in his youth) succumbed to a protracted fear of an impending rabid demise for significant portions of their life. The lag time between being bitten and the appearance of hydrophobia usually takes one to three months before vaccination helped people better grasp the parameters around incubation, anticipation of hydrophobia could last indefinitely. Moreover, prior to widespread muzzling and leash law, bad encounters with dogs were quotidian. The fear of water was considered such a dire and telltale condition that rabies went by the name hydrophobia for centuries. Combining encephalitis with spasmodic convulsions and the dehydrating effects of a fear of swallowing water, rabies is a lousy way to die. Reasons for this discrepancy are numerous. Unlike our current predicament, the pandemonium far exceeded the fatality counts. The history of rabies in the nineteenth century is bewildering. In fact, the history of rabies revolves around a little-known breakthrough: prior to widespread vaccination of dogs, it was regulated muzzling that provided the first successful solution to rabies transmission. Journalists have turned to the influenza pandemic of 1918 as a source of face-covering controversy, but there is a deeper precedent. The present pandemic is not the first time Americans have disagreed about the enforcement of face coverings to curb infectious disease. Why have people made mask mandates their primary foe while facing a deadly disease? Is the mask really just another word for a muzzle? Being an expert in nineteenth-century rabies history ( seriously), I feel obliged to venture some answers. However disingenuous the analogy between face masks and muzzles may seem to many, it has exercised demonstrable sway over people’s perceptions and behavior. But the time and lives lost to partisan neglect of health officials’ guidance raise pressing concerns. In response, Tulsa Mayor GT Bynum (who, despite Dart’s data-driven advice, declined to halt the rally) established a face mask ordinance on July 15. Bruce Dart, who warned beforehand that a rally would likely exacerbate regional spread, now reports that his grim forecast is being confirmed. In Tulsa, Oklahoma, the city I call home, where the president held his kickoff 2020 campaign rally on June 20, cases of COVID-19 have spiked dramatically. After months of shrugging off their importance, the president has at last admitted face masks are “good.” Even so, he remains opposed to the idea of a nationwide mandate, the logic being that such a move would be an affront to freedom.

A human muzzle free#

Nevertheless, as disputes over mandates carry on, this complaint that face masks are muzzles, guilty of violating free speech, has become a fixture of American political debate over coronavirus response. Bared teeth notwithstanding, commissioners voted to approve the ordinance on July 1. Lucie County Commission in Florida, held to discuss a proposal for a face mask mandate. On June 26, a video began circulating of a man growling “I will not be muzzled like a mad dog” at a special meeting of the St.