1791 Smallpox
Smallpox did not exist among the native peoples of the Americas until the Europeans came. When exposed to smallpox, nearly everyone caught the disease, and nearly half of those who caught it died. Native Americans died in heaps, the settlers wrote, leaving villages nothing but piles of bones. In 1738 half of the Cherokee nation succumbed to smallpox.
Smallpox was the first epidemic in Cincinnati
in 1791, just a few years after the first settlers of 1788. “Dr. William Burnet Jr. came to Cincinnati in
1790 with a few books and medicines and moved into a cabin on Front
Street. He barely had begun practice
when in 1791 the smallpox broke out and he fled to New Jersey. He never came back.” In later years there were several other
outbreaks. Those who did not die were
often left with severe disfiguring scars.
In other parts of the world the practice of
inoculating with pus from infected individuals had existed but 1 in 50 died
from this procedure. In 1796, Edward
Jenner, an English country doctor, noted milkmaids who caught cow-pox from
cow’s udders became immune to smallpox.
Inoculation with this cowpox became known as vaccination after the Latin
word ‘vaccinus’, meaning “of a cow”.
Dr. John Hole, the first doctor to settle in
Cincinnati, was later credited with introducing cow-pox vaccination to the area
when this knowledge became available.
Smallpox survived only in the human body, once every available human was
protected by vaccination, smallpox perished.
1814 INFLUENZA
"John Corbley Jr. was the victim of the 'Cold Plague' of
1814 which carried off more people at the same time, in proportion to the
population, than any other sickness that had prevailed in the West." ( The
Life and Times of Reverend John Corbley, Murphy, Leola 2nd ed. )
1817-21 BLACK TONGUE
“Joseph Mathews served in the War of 1812, but
died around 1820 when a plague known as "black tongue" swept over the
Ohio Valley and took away every family member of every generation except two of
the parents and nine children.” In some
epidemics, black tongue was a common term for diphtheria.
1832 – CHOLERA Also 1834, 1849, 1850,
1852, 1866, 1873.
“The blue cholera, as it was called, overcame
people so quickly that they could leave the house for work in the morning
pink-cheeked and healthy and be dead by evening. Victims were suddenly struck with horrible
cramps, violent vomiting, and diarrhea: their face, hands, and feet shriveled
and turned blue-black.”
Although unknown outside India before
1817, cholera has made its way via ships and steamships, to just about every
part of the globe. In 1832 it arrived in
America by an emigrant ship at Quebec and quickly spread to New York and the
Midwest. It arrived in Cincinnati about
the 20th of September, and for thirteen months spread its terror
everywhere. Within the first month 423
persons had died of this bacterial infection spread by poor sanitation, close
contact and contaminated water .
“The
city, during the prevalence of this dreadful epidemic, presented a mournful
aspect. Thousands of citizens were
absent in the country; very many were closely confined by personal affliction
or the demands of sick friends; hundreds
were numbered among the dead; the
transient population had entirely disappeared.
All business interests were at a standstill; the city seemed lifeless and property found
no sale at even low prices.” In 1849 the
cholera again returned - worse than
ever. That year 8,500 perished, one in
every fourteen citizens.
TUBERCULOSIS
Tuberculosis existed among Native Americans but did
not flourish among fairly healthy people living in scattered small groups. But after Native Americans were moved to
crowded reservations, it ran rampant.
The same pattern appeared as Cincinnati grew into a flourishing
city. The disease was primarily spread
by respiratory infection, especially in crowded living conditions. Farmers were not without concerns, however,
because milk cattle often became infected and could pass the disease through
their milk to humans.
For the most part, people who were
sick with tuberculosis of the lungs felt a little sick for years, without being
completely bedridden. For this reason,
the disease was known as “consumption” or by the name the Greeks gave it,
“phthisis”.
Dying went on for years. The thin, flushed, and feverish look usually
with a hacking cough and blood-tinged handkerchief. Tuberculosis is stealthy: after it enters a
body, the germ will wait as long as it takes, ten days or fifty years, for the
moment the host is weak enough to attack.
As late as the beginning of the nineteenth century, one quarter of all
Europeans died young of tuberculosis.
MALARIA & YELLOW FEVER
Early Cincinnati physician, Dr. Daniel
Drake, in his Systematic Treatise on the Principal Diseases of the Interior
Valley of North America describes both of these mosquito borne diseases as
being found in the Ohio and Mississippi valley basins. Before the settlers, there were many areas of
swamps that were later drained for fields.
Early physicians did not know the causes of these illnesses but
recognized them by their fever patterns and complications. Fevers were classified as intermittent,
relapsing, recurrent, autumnal, inflammatory and malignant.
COMMON ILLNESSES
Many senior citizens still remember
the common illnesses of their childhood that frequently caused serious illness
or death. Diphtheria, whooping cough,
measles, polio, tonsillitis, pneumonia and many other illnesses were common
causes of death that have been eliminated or treated effectively with
immunizations or antibiotics, both of which were not developed until the
1940’s.
Selected
Reading:
Drake, Daniel
MD, Physician to the West, Selected Writings
of Daniel Drake, 1970, University Press, Lexington, KY.
Drake, Daniel MD, A Systematic Treatise on
the Principal Diseases of the Interior Valley of North America, 1850,
Cincinnati.
Farrell, Jeanette, Invisible Enemies, Stories of Infectious
Disease, 1998, New York, Farrar, ISBN 0-374-33637-7
Goss, Charles F., Cincinnati – The Queen City, 1912,
Leonard, Lewis Alexander, Greater Cincinnati and Its People,
1927, Lewis Publishing, Cincinnati.
Archaic Medical Terms for Genealogists –
Multiple internet sites eg. http://www.genproxy.co.uk/old_medical_terms.htm
Compiled
by John Tholking MD
Membership in First Families is open to descendants of pioneers
who were residents of Hamilton County, OH before December 31, 1820. Pioneers of Hamilton County, Northwest
Territory, which included areas of current Ohio, Michigan and Indiana are also
eligible.. (See Tracer Vol. 21 #1 2000) Applications or requests for forms may be
sent to FFHC, Hamilton County Chapter OGS, PO Box 15865, Cincinnati, OH 45215-0865.
