Coal County, OklahomaA part of the OKGenWeb and USGenWeb project |
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Coordinator: Sean and Monica O'Neal
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Coal County, OklahomaA part of the OKGenWeb and USGenWeb project |
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Coordinator: Sean and Monica O'Neal
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Epidemic Timeline |
| The following was posted to
one of the GenForum mailing lists for one of my lines that I am researching.
I thought that it might be of some interest to others. David Wolfe June 27, 2000 |
| Very, very interesting. When a person does genealogy, you also become a historian and history was probably something you hated in school. I know--I teach history. But there are two other diseases/epidemics to consider-- the first was milk fever and/or cholera. Lincoln's mother died of the milk fever. You got it from drinking the milk of an infected cow. And you didn't know the cow was infected until several days after the cow ate the poisonous snakeroot plant that grew in wooded areas. The cow would often die after a few days. This often happened in droughts when cattle would forage in shaded areas looking for food. And cholera often affected people at certain times in certain areas. In southern Indiana during the 1830-40's, there was a cholera epidemic. And what 'doctors' there were often couldn't distinguish cholera from milk sickness. In Dubois County we have a small family cemetery (Dillon Cholera Graveyard) where the people died within a short span of cholera. Secondly, when young children reached their second summer, they often were affected with 'summer complaint'. It has various names. My mother told me about when she almost died of the complaint. This was when a baby was weaned from the mother (usually at one year) and began drinking cow's milk. The cow's milk was raw milk (not pasteurized) and stored wherever it could be kept cool--like in a well, or spring house. The coolness, of course, was not enough to kill the germs. Older children would have built up immunities to the milk. So when you see little markers with the date of the child being between 1 and 2, they probably died of summer complaint. And that was severe diarrhea and dehydration. Back then, living conditions and sanitation was similar to a third world country of today.
So much for the "good old days!" Helen Keusch From: Bonnie P Harris Found this on another list - very informative! In case you ever wondered why a large number of your ancestors disappeared during a certain period in history, this might help. Epidemics have always had a great influence on people - and thus influencing as well, the genealogists trying to trace them. Many cases of people disappearing from records can be traced to their dying during an epidemic or moving away from the affected area. Some of the major epidemics in the United States are listed below: 1657 Boston Measles 1687 Boston Measles 1690 New York Yellow Fever 1713 Boston Measles 1729 Boston Measles 1732-3 Worldwide Influenza 1738 South Carolina Smallpox 1739-40 Boston Measles 1747 CT,NY,PA,SC Measles 1759 N. Amer [areas inhabited by white people] Measles 1761 North America and West Indies Influenza 1772 North America Measles 1775 N. Amer [especially hard in NE] epidemic Unknown 1775-6 Worldwide [one of the worst epidemics] Influenza 1783 Dover, DE ["extremely fatal"] Bilious Disorder 1788 Philadelphia and New York Measles 1793 Vermont [a "putrid" fever] and Influenza 1793 VA [killed 500 in 5 counties in 4 weeks] Influenza 1793 Philadelphia [one of the worst epidemics] Yellow Fever 1793 Harrisburg, PA [many unexplained deaths] Unknown 1793 Middletown, PA [many mysterious deaths] Unknown 1794 Philadelphia, PA Yellow Fever 1796-7 Philadelphia, PA Yellow Fever 1798 Philadelphia, PA [one of the worst] Yellow Fever 1803 New York Yellow Fever 1820-3 Nationwide [starts Schuylkill River and spreads] "Fever" 1831-2 Nationwide [brought by English emigrants] Asiatic Cholera 1832 NY City and other major cities Cholera 1837 Philadelphia Typhus 1841 Nationwide [especially severe in the south] Yellow Fever 1847 New Orleans Yellow Fever 1847-8 Worldwide Influenza 1848-9 North America Cholera 1850 Nationwide Yellow Fever 1850-1 North America Influenza 1852 Nationwide [New Orleans-8,000 die in summer] Yellow Fever 1855 Nationwide [many parts] Yellow Fever 1857-9 Worldwide [one of the greated epidemics] Influenza 1860-1 Pennsylvania Smallpox 1865-73 Philadelphia, NY, Boston, New Orleans} {Smallpox Baltimore, Memphis, Washington DC} {Cholera [A series of recurring epidemics of:} Typhus Typhoid Scarlet Fever Yellow Fever 1873-5 North America and Europe Influenza 1878 New Orleans [last great epidemic] Yellow Fever 1885 Plymouth, PA Typhoid 1886 Jacksonville, FL Yellow Fever 1918 (high point year) Influenza Worldwide more people were hospitalized in WWI from this epidemic than wounds. US Army training camps became death camps, with 80% death rate in some camps. Finally, these specific instances of cholera were mentioned: 1833 Columbus, OH 1834 New York City 1849 New York 1851 Coles Co., IL, The Great Plains, and Missouri |
