The New Yorker, September 15, 2003 P. 50
ANNALS OF EPIDEMIOLOGY about the Jake Walk epidemic and its connection to the Blues. Some years back, Dr. John Morgan, a professor at the City University of New York Medical School, was listening to the Allen Brothers' 1930 song, "Jake Walk Blues." The lyrics reminded him of a 1961 medical school lecture he'd heard about a strange paralysis called "jake walk." Dr. Morgan likes to call himself a pharmaco-ethnomusicologist; he has collected a number of songs about jake leg or jake walk. Says the songs point to a new sort of paralysis appearing in 1930 which affected both blacks and whites, and which rendered men impotent. Claims Morgan has been researching jake leg for twenty-seven years, and has written six medical-journal articles on the subject. In the 1970s, he interviewed a number of the epidemic's surviving victims and collected his data in a huge manuscript that's been gathering dust for years. The outbreak was first detected in Oklahoma City, by Ephraim Goldfain, a Romanian emigrant and physician, who ran a clinic called the Reconstruction Hospital. Tells how, on February 27, 1930, a man staggered in off the street with his feet dangling like a marionette's; his legs were useless below the knee. By the end of the day, several more men had appeared all afflicted with the same distinctive paralysis. One of the victims, a podiatrist, handed Goldfain a list of sixty-five other people who'd been struck with "jake leg." Describes how Goldfain went about analyzing the epidemic. Most of the victims were bums and drunks; all lived in a seedy part of town known for bootlegging. The epidemic spread to various locales in the East, the South, and the Midwest; thousands of people were afflicted. Mentions the economics of Prohibition. Says that most low-income people preferred to imbibe jake––Jamaica ginger extract––a patent medicine which was 85% alcohol but legal. The first person to record a connection between jake and the paralysis was Ishmon Bracey, the black blues singer who recorded "Jake Liquor Blues," in March of 1930. Another singer, Tommy Johnson, recorded "Alcohol and Jake Blues." Morgan believes no other incident has inspired as much popular music as the jake-walk epidemic. Comments on the "miracle cures" rumored to cure jake leg. For some of the afflicted, the paralysis was permanent. Says not all victims were poor and alcoholic. Talks about the embarrassing symptom of impotence; every song by a blues singer mentions the "limber leg." Mentions 79-year-old victim Gwin Davis. Since only whites gathered statistics on the epidemic, it's impossible to determine how many blacks suffered from the ailment; the songs remain the best evidence that jake leg afflicted black communities severely. Describes how the government regulated drugs during the 1930s. Mentions the Food, Drug, and Insecticide Administration (F.D.I.A.). The only public-health watchdog was the National Institute of Health (N.I.H.). A doctor there, a Russian immigrant named Maurice Isadore Smith, began investigating jake. The Treasury Department's Bureau of Prohibition soon identified a surprising chemical in it: tri-ortho cresyl phosphate (TOCP), a plasticizer. Describes why bootleggers used TOCP in jake. The investigation led to Harry Gross and Max Reisman, of Hub Products, who shipped jake around the country in big barrels. Tells how they came up with the idea of using TOCP in jake to supplement the castor oil, and asked their chemical suppliers, Martin Swanson, for help. Swanson supplied them with Lindol, the Celluloid Corporation's trade name for TOCP. Celluloid assured them it was harmless. In December, 1930, Gross and Reisman were indicted by a federal grand jury. Nobody went after Celluloid Corporation. In May of 1931, some Oklahomans organized the United Victims of Jamaica Ginger Paralysis, which claimed to speak for 35,000 stricken people in the U.S. Morgan insists that the jake-leg story is "almost completely about class…[These men] were seen as poor, sloppy drunks."