Chapter VIII: From A.d. 1795 to 1848 (2)

A.D. 1837, influenza appeared in London in the first week in January, the weather during the preceding four months having been singularly wet, cold, and stormy; large quantities of snow having fallen and collected on the ground, even in the streets of London, where it lay for weeks together. The evaporation of the cold water, the result of the succeeding thaw, rendered the air cold and damp for a long time. In the month of November, this year, a hurricane of great violence occurred from the south-west. On Christmas-day there was a storm of wind and snow simultaneously all over the west of Europe,--snow having fallen even in the streets of Lisbon and Palermo: it fell so heavily in England, that it impeded intercourse throughout the country. It was remarkable that snow fell at Canton in February, a thing unknown to the oldest inhabitants. The French army marching upon Constantina, in Algiers, suffered severely from three days of incessant snow. Tremendous hurricanes were experienced about this period over every part of the European and American seas. The weather in England was uncertain and fluctuating from Christmas to the middle of February, when influenza broke out: its duration in London was six or seven weeks; half the population were attacked, and the ordinary rates of mortality during this time were very nearly doubled. The aged and the very young were those who principally suffered. The inhabitants of Russia, Sweden, and Denmark suffered greatly. In Copenhagen, according to Dr. Otto, at least 30,000 were labouring under the disease at one time, in the month of January. Influenza was rife also in Scotland, where it was observed earlier than in England, and it broke out generally in the northern and eastern parts of England before it showed itself in the southern and western. Paris was visited by this epidemic a month later than London, the disease having previously prevailed in Calais and other intervening places. It broke out with great severity in the northern coast of Spain, being aggravated by the events of the civil war then raging in Biscay and Navarre. An epidemic having the character of the influenza of the northern hemisphere was also rife at Sydney and the Cape of Good Hope in the latter part of the year 1836.

Towards the latter end of March, 1838, yellow fever broke out among the garrison and the inhabitants in the island of Ascension, and committed great ravages. The disease was preceded by heavy rains for several days: large collections of water formed in consequence, which evaporated under the influence of a burning sun. One of the most extensive of these occurred in a foul and offensive site, surrounded by low dwelling-houses occupied by Portuguese prisoners, the majority of whom were attacked. The men employed in pumping out this water, complained much of its offensive effluvium; they also suffered from the fever, and that most severely. The epidemic extended to the crews of several ships of war which touched at the island, and many of the seamen and officers perished.

A.D. 1839. In the month of February, an epidemic pestilence broke out, and proceeded with the rapidity of lightning at Mount St. Bernard. It was characterized by typhoid symptoms, and attended by a lengthened delirium, with occasional short, lucid intervals; out of one family consisting of twenty-one individuals, three only survived: it was confined exclusively to those living on the mountain. Epidemic erysipelas raged with great intensity at Algiers during this period; epidemic disease also prevailed in the district of Coulommiers in France, termed ‘sudor miliaris.’ The premonitory symptoms varied very generally: some of those attacked, when they awoke, found themselves inundated with perspiration; in some, the disease was preceded for some days by prostration of strength, with pains in the joints, &c.: a prominent symptom was a pain and sensation of smothering in the epigastric region; this feeling was greater or less in proportion to the quantity of perspiration, which in some was so profuse that on lifting up the bed-clothes a dense vapour was seen to arise: an eruption appeared after the third or fourth day; ten days after, the epidermis became wrinkled and fell off in the shape of scaly furfuraceous matter. The most fatal cases were those in which agonizing pains were experienced at the epigastrium. The autopsiæ exhibited vesicular eruptions in the intestinal canal. Petechial fever was very prevalent at St. Petersburgh this year (1839); it affected persons in a peculiar manner; during their illness, there was no delirium or appearance of disorder of the intellectual faculties; they spoke and acted sensibly, but after the subsidence of the malady, towards the end of the third or fourth week, they awoke as it were to a consciousness of their condition. Measles also raged epidemically. Yellow fever, this year (1839), was very destructive at Galveston in the republic of Texas.

A.D. 1840, blight appeared in Germany among the crops, especially the potato; it prevailed to so great an extent, Dr. Martius reports, as to cause a very serious alarm, and even to threaten the total extinction of that esculent. At the same time, the island of Arran, with other parts of the Highlands of Scotland, suffered from a similar disease among the potato crops: it prevailed there from 1839 to 1842, destroying at least half the vegetation.

A.D. 1841, plague raged in Syria, and at Erzeroum with great violence. During this period, extending to the year following, 1842, an epidemic religious ecstasy, as it was called, prevailed in Sweden. This singular epidemic malady was distinguished by two prominent and remarkable symptoms,--one physical, consisting of spasm, or involuntary contractions or contortions, &c.; the other, mental, being an ecstasy, more or less involuntary, during which the patients fancied themselves divinely inspired, and felt impelled to speak of supernatural things which they fancied they saw; they were occasionally moved to preach. It was the female portion of the community that suffered most. Anything offensive to the mind re-acted convulsively on the body, causing a sort of chorea, which it was attempted to distinguish or divide into two distinct forms of the disease, called mental and physical chorea. Several thousand persons were attacked by the disease; it was rarely fatal. Persons who had been affected, when convalescing, felt languid and debilitated, both in body and mind. Yellow fever at this period was fatal at Key West, East Florida, in the United States. Early in 1841 remittent fever occurred among the crew of the ‘Wanderer’ a ship belonging to the Royal Navy, chiefly among the boats’ crews who had been employed in the rivers Nunez and Pongos. Seventy persons were taken ill, and nine died. In the course of this year, remittent fever prevailed in many other Queen’s ships employed on the African coast to put down the slave trade.

A.D. 1843. Blight seized on the potato crop this year throughout the United States, and also in British America. Epidemic erysipelas, known by the popular name of ‘the black tongue,’ broke out in November, 1843, in Ripley county, United States, and traversed most of the townships of the Delaware, Dearborn county, &c. This disease, Dr. Sutton says, “has either assumed several characters, or we have several epidemics traversing the country together: one was erysipelas connected with cynanche tonsillaris, or swelling of some of the lymphatic glands in the throat; and another was considered to be a typhoid pneumonia, sometimes accompanied by enlargement of the axillary glands. These two diseases,” continued the writer, “have been so intimately connected in my practice, that it has been a question to me whether the last was not a pulmonic erysipelas, the premonitory symptoms in each disease being alike, the character of the fever in each being the same, and it was often the case that one form of the disease changed into that of the other. The disease was not generally fatal.” Boston, in the autumn of this year, was visited by an epidemic fever; it prevailed also at a place called Erie in the county of New York, during the months of October and November. This little town, or rather settlement, Erie, is made up of some half-dozen houses, containing a population of forty-three persons, of which number twenty-eight were seized between the 19th November and 7th December, ten of them dying of the disease. Some disputes existed in this little community, and the generality of them were of opinion that the wells had been poisoned by some evil-disposed persons: there was not, however, the least foundation for any such supposition. The disease commenced with rigors, chills, pain in the loins and head; typhoid symptoms supervened, the tongue becoming brown and dry; low muttering delirium was noticed, also a cough, with expectoration of a muco-purulent character. Another small town which about this period was visited by a very fatal disease, yellow fever, is an inland settlement in Wilkinson county, Mississippi, containing a population of 750 inhabitants. It is situated about forty miles from Natchez, on high ground, 340 feet above the level or bank of the Mississippi with a gradual slope in all directions; there is no creek, pond, or low land near the town,--in short, on a review of the town and surrounding country, it would be pronounced to be one of the most eligible sites in the south for a healthy settlement. At the time there was no yellow fever prevalent at New Orleans,--in fact, there had not been any case of the disease in any place along the river; consequently it could not have been imported. Nearly every one in the town was seized; and the mortality was great, seven to ten dying daily in so small a population for the first week. The disease was very rapid in its progress; the patients were suddenly seized with violent pains in the head and loins, and with burning fever; in a short time vomiting of a blackish fluid, similar to coffee-grounds, ensued, and in a few hours death closed the scene.

A.D. 1842 and 1843, cholera in a sporadic form raged with considerable violence in many parts of Persia, continuing at intervals during the two subsequent years.

A.D. 1844, yellow pestilence committed great ravages at Goree, in Senegal.

During the year 1845, the blight among the potatoes spread rapidly through Germany, Holland, Belgium, the northern parts of France, and over the greater portion of England, Scotland, and Ireland. This pestilence re-appeared the year following, 1846. A phenomenon worthy of notice was observed during the prevalence of this disease,--to wit, the existence of a mist or fogs immediately previous to the blight in the crops. In Holland, a thick stinking mist, which extended very widely, was observed in 1845, antecedent to the potato blight. M. Petit states that it was generally remarked in France that the disease made its appearance after a fog. In England the same phenomenon was observed.

In the spring of 1845 remittent fever broke out on board the ‘Eclair,’ while on the coast of Africa; the first persons attacked being those who had been engaged in boat-service. The vessel at the time lay off the Sherbro’ river, and the boats had been employed for some time exploring its creeks, and those in the Seabar branch of that river. The disease continued to spread among the boats’ crews; and after a while those seamen who had not been out of the ship became subject to the fever, which committed such fearful ravages among them that at last the ‘Eclair’ was ordered home as a _dernier ressort_. The disease then presented all the characters of genuine yellow fever. On the voyage, the ‘Eclair,’ after having been refused pratique at Goree, put in at Boa Vista, one of the Cape de Verd Islands, where the crew were landed, and stayed some days; but the epidemic continued to seize its victims, and the crew consequently, both the sick and sound, were again received on board, and the vessel got under weigh for England. Before she reached Madeira, Captain Estcourt, Dr. M’Clure, and Mr. Hartmann, the assistant surgeon, died, Mr. Machonchy, the surgeon to the ship, expiring the day after. Mr. Sydney Bernard, assistant surgeon of the ‘Growler,’ having volunteered his services, was appointed in Mr. Machonchy’s place, and performed his duties to the last. On the arrival of this floating pest-house in England, pratique was refused, and the healthy, the sick, and the dying were all kept on board. The result was the loss of several more lives, the disease not ceasing until about a fortnight after her arrival at the Motherbank. Mr. Sydney Bernard and Lieutenant Isaacson, the officer in command, were among its latest victims. The deaths on board from the endemic, from first to last, amounted to seventy-four. Fever prevailed very extensively in Boa Vista, after the departure of the ‘Eclair,’ and was very fatal; great numbers of the inhabitants were attacked.

In 1846, during the march of the Mormon worshippers across the desert, on their road to the new state of Deseret or Utah, after their expulsion from Nauvoo, they were greatly afflicted by endemic disease, chiefly remittent and yellow fevers. In one camp alone, 31 per cent. suffered, and the road was marked throughout with the graves of those who perished. They also suffered much from a kind of strange scorbutic disease, which they named the ‘black canker,’ and which was frequently fatal.

At this time it was remarked, a few days before disease fastened on the potatoes, that a dense cloud, resembling a thick fog, overspread the entire country; it differed from a common fog in being quite dry and having a disagreeable odour.

To continue: this year and the following, 1847, epidemic remittent fever was prevalent in Scotland. In Glasgow it was noticed that a remarkable change had taken place in the epidemic constitution. Exanthematous typhus--a sort of continued fever, characterized along with other symptoms by an eruption over the body resembling measles, running a course on an average of twenty-one days, carrying off about 10 per cent.,--was supplanted by a remittent fever, sometimes attended with petechiæ, but not with the measly eruption: it was also often accompanied by jaundice. Epistaxis was very frequent; when the disease occurred in women about the menstrual period, the discharge was universally copious, and very many women in a state of pregnancy, who were seized with the malady, aborted; a crisis generally was formed on the seventh day; relapses were frequent,--in fact, almost invariable under any and every precaution: the mortality amounted to about 3½ per cent.; about 15,000 persons fell victims to this disease, principally those residing in the ill-ventilated and filthy parts of the town,--the poor and distressed. The smallness of the mortality compared with the severity of the symptoms, and the debility it left behind, was a matter of surprise. This malady appears to have been very similar to that which prevailed in Dublin in 1826. Rutty, in his diseases of Dublin during forty years, mentions several epidemics which resembled the malady at Glasgow. They occurred in 1740, 1745, 1764, and 1765. There is also some resemblance between this fever and that which prevailed in Dublin in 1816, as reported by Dr. Stokes.

In the early part of 1845 cholera prevailed with great violence along the banks of the Indus, and about the same period proved very destructive in Afghanistan. Thence it extended into Persia, traversing that country from east to west, spread northwards into Tartary, and southwards into Kurdistan, and also into the pashalic of Baghdad. In September it prevailed at Herat and Samarcand, and in the November following at Bokhara. The extreme malignancy of the disease may be understood by the description given of many of the cases. “Those who were attacked dropped suddenly down in a state of lethargy, and at the end of two or three hours expired without any convulsions or vomiting, but from complete stagnation of the blood, which no remedies could restore to circulation.”

During this period there took place in Kurrachee, near the mouth of the Indus, the most terrific outburst of the pestilence that can be conceived, which in the course of a few days swept off 8000 victims. The description given by an eye-witness of the scene at Kurrachee, as Dr. Gavin Milroy says (in his very excellent pamphlet on cholera), is so full of fearful and instructive interest, as regards some of the most striking characters of pestilential visitations, that we cannot withhold a brief account of its leading particulars:--

The heat had been intense during the first fortnight in June, but the station remained tolerably healthy. On Sunday, the 14th, the atmosphere was more than usually stagnant and oppressive; one correspondent who was present says, “The very heavens seemed drawn down upon our shoulders; the feeling was suffocating.” A dark portentous-looking cloud crept up the sky as the troops were proceeding to church, and a sudden gust of wind threatened the building: it passed away almost as suddenly as it came; and when the worshippers retired, the air was as still as when they assembled. At the same hour did the pestilence appear; before midnight nine soldiers of the 86th regiment were dead, and men began to be brought to the hospital in such numbers, that it was difficult to make arrangements for their reception; it was a fearful night. With morning, came the tidings that the pestilence was overspreading the town, and that fifty persons had already fallen victims to its deadly poison. How awful must have been the rapidity of the attack, when we learn that sometimes, within little more than five minutes, hale and hearty men were seized, cramped, collapsed, and dead! Men attending the burial of their comrades were attacked, carried to the hospital, and were themselves buried the next morning. Pits were dug in the churchyard, morning and evening; sewn up in their bedding, and coffinless, the dead were laid side by side, one service being read over all! For the next five days it raged with appalling fury; it then abated in its intensity, but continued to hover about the place for another week. Within less than a fortnight, 900 Europeans, including 815 fighting men, were swept away. Besides these, 600 native soldiers and 7000 of the camp-followers and inhabitants of the town had been hurried into eternity. About this time, a virulent fever raged at Sukkur, about 180 miles from Kurrachee, which proved fatal in a few hours. Hyderabad, intermediate between the two places, was visited almost immediately afterwards by cholera. Mr. Alexander Thom, surgeon of the 86th regiment, at the time of the explosion at Kurrachee, thus expresses himself: “I have witnessed disease of a severe and fatal kind, and cholera itself in an apparently grave form, but I never could have anticipated, even in India, its appearance in so appalling a shape as that in which it was recently developed in the 86th regiment: it burst forth almost literally like a thunder-clap, followed by a lethiferous blast, proving almost instantaneously fatal.”

A.D. 1846, fearful mortality from famine and epidemic pestilence occurred in Gallicia: during the first half-year, 1234 deaths occurred, and for the like period in the subsequent year the mortality was 5188! During this time the weather was distressingly hot in Canada, North America, the thermometer frequently standing 96° and 98°; numbers were carried off daily by fever. Epidemic cholera, after raging with very great violence for two years in Persia, towards the end of the summer of 1846, broke out at Tauris and Teheran, and during the autumn advanced to places nearer to the Russian frontiers. On the 16th of November, 1846, cases occurred at the village of Ialiany, and also in the same month at Leukoran; and it is worthy of remark, that these were the places first attacked in 1830. The disease also appeared at Bakrou, and advanced in December to Schêmakha and Derbent; and in the month of February, 1847, to the town of Konba. Its appearance at Ialiany and in the district of Talysch was marked with that malignity which for the most part characterizes the commencement of cholera. We observe at Ialiany a remarkable instance of the influence of the trade and locality tending to foster it, selecting for its victims those who had but recently recovered from the fever of the country: the cholera almost invariably carried off every one attacked, nine-tenths falling victims to the disease. In the localities of the trans-Caucasian provinces, the attacks became less violent, and without the towns the disease no longer presented a malignant type. Towards the end of February, it was supposed that the disease had ceased, but in the following month, March, it recommenced with redoubled violence, and in April spread destruction with fearful rapidity. Traversing the shores of the Caspian sea, it reached Tiflis in May. It also appeared in this month on the other side of the Caucasus, at Kizliar, whence, re-ascending the Terek, it penetrated to Mozdok, at the end of June to Piatigorsk and to Georgierk, and entered Staowpol in the first week of July.

From October, 1846, to June, 1847, there occurred in the Caucasus and trans-Caucasian provinces no less than 17,055 cases of cholera, of which 6318 died. Astrachan suffered greatly from cholera, great numbers of the inhabitants having been carried off, as was also the case in Moscow. From official accounts received from St. Petersburgh, it appeared the inhabitants of the western town Alexandrof were attacked with cholera, and also the district of Olgapol, in Podolia. The latter is about thirty miles distant from the Austrian frontiers.

A.D. 1846 and 1847, an epizootic or murrain destroyed much cattle in Europe, principally oxen; dogs, horses, and sheep suffering comparatively less. Great numbers of horned cattle were destroyed in Wallachia. A kind of pleuro-pneumonia afflicted both men and beasts in various parts of Scotland, principally in East Lothian, as well as in Aberdeenshire, extending throughout the North; it also prevailed in Ayrshire to some extent.

In the month of January of the latter year, 1847, influenza prevailed on the coast of Portugal and in the south-east of Spain: it also appeared in Newfoundland and in New Zealand; and in the month of March, in Valparaiso; in April, on the coast of Syria: in July, August, and September, it broke out on the west coast of Africa, south of the equator; during which time (in August) it raged at Hong-Kong. In the month of December, Paris was assailed by this malady, which was also rife at Madrid; it was termed ‘la grippe,’ and seized more than half the population: five thousand persons were said to have been laid up by this wide-spreading disease at one time in Paris. About this period, the island of Java was visited by epidemic diseases. Virulent small-pox committed great havoc, and then typhus prevailed in Ireland; the mortality among the medical profession was great, it being calculated that one-fifteenth of the entire medical community died there during the year. There was great mortality from typhus at Prague, between the 16th of December, 1846, and the 16th of December, 1847; the deaths during that time amounting to 5192. During the latter year, 1847, cholera was rife in Moscow, Stockholm, St. Petersburgh, and Cronstadt; various parts of Europe were visited by influenza, the greater part of the inhabitants of Copenhagen having suffered therefrom: the disease also prevailed at Marseilles, attacking half the population of 80,000 persons; its character, however, was mild.

During the last fortnight of November, 1847, an epidemic of rather a remarkable character broke out, and prevailed in the North of Scotland, commencing in Dundee, travelling over the entire coast as far as Kinnaird’s Head, and extending westerly, involving Huntly, Keith, Elgin, and Inverness; it first affected the system by pain in the throat, followed by headache, sickness at stomach, and expectoration of a dark, bilious-looking substance. To such an extent did this malady prevail, that the University and King’s College, then in session, were closed; half the students at Marischal College and the university were laid up; those at the grammar schools were afflicted in the same proportion. At Edinburgh and Montrose the malady prevailed to an alarming extent, the schools generally having been visited; 810 scholars belonging to the schools in the latter place suffered at one time. The weather, which had been damp and rainy, was considered to be the principal cause. Yellow fever prevailed at New Orleans, from the 5th of July to the 22nd of October; it carried off 2544 persons. Cholera this year prevailed at Trebizond, situated on the oriental shores of the Black Sea. An author of eminence states that the inhabitants of this city suffered cruelly: Constantinople was afflicted about the same time by dire pestilence, which was fatal to numbers. We have also an account of famine and pestilence in Silesia. The famine and distress at Rybensk and Plesg were appalling; in many parts of the latter place 4500 died more than in the preceding year, which was also very fatal; from 15 to 20 per cent. of the inhabitants were cut off by disease. In Rybensk great numbers died daily from famine, and the Committee of Relief stated that hundreds of orphan children were seen standing beside the corpses of their parents crying for bread.

During the last two years, epidemic pestilence was rife and fatal in various parts of the world. In the latter year, 1847, influenza raged all over England; and with the following observations, taken as the substance of the Registrar-General’s Report, dated January 30, 1848, this History of Epidemic Pestilences will conclude:

The meteorological phenomena were particularly remarkable prior to the breaking out of the influenza. The population were inadequately supplied with potatoes, from scarcity caused by the disease which had existed the previous years,--a sort of blight. Scurvy became prevalent at the beginning of the year. In April, typhus became epidemic, and the mortality was increased. Diarrhea, dysentery, and cholera also prevailed. The wind blew, from the first week in October, S. S. W. and S. W. The weather was universally warm; a brilliant aurora was observed, and shook the magnets, October 24th. It appeared eight times during the quarter. On Tuesday, November 16th, there was a remarkable darkness; the wind changed to N. W., and amidst various changes still blew from the north over Greenwich at the rate of 160 and 250 miles a day. The mean temperature of the air suddenly fell from 11° above to 10° below the average. On Sunday, it was 54°; Friday, 32°; on Friday night, 27°. The earth was frozen; the wind was calm three days, and on Saturday evening a dense fog lay over the Thames and London for the space of five hours. No electricity stirred in the air during the week,--all was still, as if Nature held her breath at the sight of the destroyer come forth to sacrifice her children. On Monday, the sky became overcast, the air damp; the wind changed in the night to S. by E., and passed for four days over Greenwich at the rate of 200 and 300 miles a day. The temperature suddenly rose, and remained from 2° to 9° above the average throughout the week ending on the 27th of November. Influenza broke out: in the first week in December, 2454 persons died; the week following, 2416 persons, and in six weeks, 11,339. The epidemic in that time carried off 5000 over and above the mortality of the season. The country districts do not appear to have been affected to any extent,--a fact which shows how much purity of the air has to do with the outbreak of epidemic diseases.

Influenza, it has been observed, is often associated with other epidemics: it preceded and accompanied the plague or ‘black death’ in the fourteenth century; it preceded the great plague in London, A.D. 1665; it followed epidemic typhus A.D. 1803; preceded typhus A.D. 1837, and occurred in the midst of the typhoid epidemic in the year 1847. Influenza also preceded and followed epidemic cholera, 1831 to 1833. In short, it may be said that influenza has from time immemorial pretty generally preceded and accompanied epidemic pestilence in every quarter of the globe, as is noted by the Registrar-General to have been the case in England, A.D. 1728, 1733, 1743, 1758, 1762; five years after, A.D. 1767, 1775, 1782; again, A.D. 1788, A.D. 1803, 1831, 1832, and following year, 1833, as also A.D. 1846 and 1847.