120 years ago, many people complained of severe vomiting and diarrhea after visiting Mount St. Regis. Mountain air was long blamed for the so-called Reggi disease, until a sensational libel trial revealed a serious environmental scandal.
Adi Kalin/Swiss National Museum
Around 1900, there was a stir Reggi's disease Almost no one was still up. She is just part of it. Hoteliers, their families and staff often experience severe bouts of vomiting and diarrhea several times a season. Sometimes as many as 50% of guests are affected. Hoteliers see why in the mountain air. In addition, there is overeating, especially in children, especially eating fruits or drinking cold water when the body is overheated.
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But in 1909… Reggi's disease “Arrogance,” as a later investigative report put it. All the classes on the St. Regis school trip were very sick, some seriously. A Zurich doctor listed 287 cases he was aware of in a report: All children in one class suffered from severe vomiting and diarrhea, and 21 of 26 students and all adults in another class developed the condition.
Schulreisen banned!
The cities of Zurich and Winterthur moved to ban teachers from continuing school trips to Mount Rigi. Zurich's health department wrote to the Schwyz cantonal government council asking for measures to avoid similar incidents in the future. “There is no tolerance for hundreds of people risking serious illness or even death when visiting St. Regis.”
Mount Rigi was a fashionable mountain in Europe in the 19th century. As early as 1840, about 40,000 people came every summer; after the completion of Europe's first mountain railway in 1871, 70,000 to 80,000 people came every year. Then you can go to Kulm, Staffel, Klösterli, Rigi-First, Scheidegg or Karlbad Overnight in one of the many hotel palaces in Kaltbad. In total, there are about 2,000 hotel beds on the mountain.
Mount Rigi has attracted tens of thousands of tourists since the mid-19th century.Image: Swiss National Museum
Hoteliers' commitments have always included a positive impact on health. Fresh air and whey therapy is designed to help healthy people as well as the sick and recovering. Of course, this makes things even more unfortunate Reggi's diseaseespecially since 1909, now it can no longer be hidden or covered up. Immediately after the Zurich authorities reported the matter, the Schwyz Cantonal Council commissioned an examination by regional doctor Carl Real.
Published in late 1909, this report made clear that it was not the air that was causing the problem, but the sometimes objectionable conditions in the drinking water supply. Reggi's disease stuck. Ultimately, it was E. coli that was later repeatedly detected in the water.
The situation is worst in the large hotels in Kulm and Staffel. Their drinking water comes from multiple sources, and rainwater is collected on the roof. Everything flows into a large reservoir—including wastewater from the higher-lying hotels, which is simply spread out over the pastures and then collected again, virtually unfiltered, into the lower-lying springs. All of this is pumped back from the reservoir to the hotels above for drinking water.
Kulm and Staffel 1909 Source sketch. The author may be Professor Oskar Wyss from the Institute of Hygiene in Zurich.Image: Zurich Central Library, Albert Heim Estate
One spring, the water in the swamp was pumped out of the ground. Human and cattle waste contaminated the watering hole, which the report mentions only as a source in quotation marks. Another spring initially flows into an open cattle trough; the overflow is then directed into a drinking water reservoir.
While Carl Real was investigating, Professor Oscar Wise, director of the Zurich Institute of Hygiene, also began work. The hotel owner in Kulm asked his professor friend for an assessment. Weiss also brought in Albert Heim, a well-known professor of geology at the time, who immediately made a clear judgment and described the water supply as “extremely dangerous and injurious to health.”
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Closterly Typhus
In fact, various measures should have been implemented long ago. Because the one next to me Reggi's disease Typhus outbreaks also occurred frequently at the St. Regis Hotel. 1893 I fell ill sun hotel A total of 17 people died in Rigi-Klösterli, 4 of them including porters. At the time, the cause was determined to be that the spring water was contaminated by feces and wastewater from the First Hotel. However, the measures Schwyz requested were not implemented seriously.
By 1909, however, the environmental scandal could no longer be concealed. Dissatisfaction with drinking water supplies has become the focus of major newspapers. In 1910, the Zurich City Council (then still called the Metropolitan Council) demanded that school trips would only be allowed after the city of Zurich or the school doctor had checked the status of the drinking water supply. However, progress at Mount Rigi has been slow. Some particularly poor springs are no longer used for drinking water, and wastewater from the Kulm Hotel is now discharged onto the eastern rock face. However, in 1912, much of the spring's entrance still consisted of old oil barrels buried underground.
Print, Rigi Klösterli Townscape, 19th century.Image: Swiss National Museum
In 1914, the matter escalated and became a case discussed throughout Switzerland. It started with a meeting of the Zurich city council. City Councilor Friedrich Erismann complained that the canton of Schwyz prohibited the city's health department from conducting an investigation. Therefore, the ban on visits to school children must be maintained.
Now, Jean Bürgi, a chemist from the canton of Schwyz, has published a longer report in the journal Science. NZZ. He wrote that authorities in his state were doing everything they could. But they also don’t want other agencies to interfere in their own affairs. Now that the situation has been resolved, district doctors and state pharmacists are tasked with checking the source at least once a year.
“Don't drink a drop!”
This article in turn drew Professor Albert Heim out of the bush. in a longer NZZIn his article, he describes as “dangerously naive” the idea that one or two exams a year is enough. A small spring can remain in good condition for a long time in dry weather, but as soon as it rains it becomes contaminated again. The steps taken were the right ones, but not enough. He appealed to Zurich residents on behalf of thousands of seriously ill patients: “If you go to St. Regis, don't drink a drop of the water there!”
Heim's article caused quite a stir and was quoted in several Swiss newspapers. In the “Einges” column of Schwyzer Zeitung. (Submitted) Controversy with Heim, the “Sailor of Zurich,” who denigrates the beautiful Mount Rigi with his “elegy.” At the time, Joseph Fassbind was a hotelier in Rigi-Klösterli and a member of the Schwyz Cantonal Council of Government. He may have asked the state chemist about his New York Times article. NZZ asked, and surprisingly, there was no mention of his own hotel at all.
Albert Heim drew attention to this fact in his article and was immediately sued by Joseph Fassbind for damages to his credit. The lawsuit says Heim's article acted like a bomb and caused the most damage. The number of guests dropped significantly. Heim denies that his article caused any harm. The decline in guests in 1914 was due to the outbreak of the First World War.
The water quality of the Rigi is now inspected annually, and the scope of inspections was expanded in 1914, “driven by a famous newspaper controversy.” Two hoteliers purchased filtration systems, but the Kulm Hotel's filtration system was no longer functioning at the time of the investigation in August, and the hotel was closed due to the war. It was raining during the inspection and E. coli was found from various sources. Things didn't get much better over the next few years.
On October 3, 1917, the Zurich District Court dismissed Fassbinder's lawsuit. It turns out that the water he uses also comes from highly sensitive areas. Fassbinder appealed to a higher court, but later agreed to a deal with Albert Heim. The lawsuit was withdrawn and Heim issued a statement saying Klösterli's water system had been repaired “to the best of its ability”.
World War I left all St. Regis hotels in ruins. Suddenly, wealthy foreign tourists stopped coming. Most businesses never recovered from this blow. The buildings were later demolished and several burned. The last case of typhus occurred in 1932 in Kalbad on the Lucerne side of the Rigi. This has also further improved the drinking water conditions here.
Other posts adapted from the National Museum Blog:
