1702 — Summer (late) to early Spring 1703, Smallpox Epidemic, Boston MA –302-313
— 313 Celebrate Boston. “Smallpox Epidemics.” Boston Disasters.
— 302 Henry. “Experience in Massachusetts…with Smallpox…” 1921, p. 221.
— <300 Grob. The Deadly Truth: A History of Disease in America. 2002, p. 73.[1]
— 300 Kohn. Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence. 2001, p. 30.
Narrative Information
Celebrate Boston: “In 1702, 313 person[s] died under its power.” (Celebrate Boston. Boston Disasters. “Smallpox Epidemics.”)
Grob: “In the summer of 1702 the disease [smallpox] appeared in Boston and did not run its course until the following spring. The precise mortality figures are unclear, but out of a population of about 7,000 perhaps 300 deaths were recorded.” (Grob. The Deadly Truth: A History of Disease in America. 2002, p. 73.)
Henry: “In Boston in 1702, with a population of about 7,000, there were 302 deaths from smallpox or 43 per 1,000….
“To get an idea of what…[43] deaths per 1,000 population in one year means, we need only remember how terrible we considered the epidemic of influenza in 1918, and to recall that it caused only 8 or 9 deaths per 1,000 people…An ordinary annual death rate from all causes in Massachusetts today is about 15 per 1,000.” (Henry. “Experience in Massachusetts…with Smallpox and Vaccination.” Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 185, No. 8, p. 221.)
Kohn: “About 4 percent of Boston’s population (some 300 persons out of about 7,000) died from smallpox and scarlet fever, which had broken out at the same time… The epidemic was so dreadful that it prompted the selectmen of the Massachusetts Bay Colony to pass an act or law that authorized the enforced quarantine of diseased people. December 1702 was the peak of the epidemic. The famous American Congregational clergyman Cotton Mather observed at the time that ‘more than fourscore people, were in this black month of December carried from this Town to their long Home’.” (Kohn 2001, p. 30)
Webster: “In 1702…in Boston raged a malignant small-pox, attended in many cases, with a scarlet eruption, which was mistaken for the scarlet fever. It appears from Fairfield’s diary that this disease appeared in June and was at first mild, not fatal to any of the patients. In August died one patient — in September it became very mortal, and in this month was attended with a ‘sort of fever called scarlet fever.’ In October, many died of the ‘fever and the small-pox, and it was a time of sore distress,’ on which account the general courts sat at Cambridge. In December ‘the fever abated;’ but the small-pox continued to be mortal, till the month of February 1703, when it began to subside.
“…I would observe that the progressiveness in this disease of 1702 and the variations in its symptoms, prove it to have been an epidemic…” Webster, Noah. A Brief History of Epidemic and Pestilential Diseases…(in two volumes). 1799, pp. 216-217.)
Sources
Celebrate Boston. Boston Disasters. “Smallpox Epidemics.” Accessed 12-6-2008 at: http://www.celebrateboston.com/disasters/epidemics/smallpox.htm
Grob, Gerald N. The Deadly Truth: A History of Disease in America. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 2002. Partially Google digitized at: http://books.google.com/books?id=U1H5rq3IQUAC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Henry, Jonathan E., M.D. “Experience in Massachusetts and a Few Other Places with Smallpox and Vaccination.” Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 185, No. 8, pp. 221-228, 8-25-1921. Accessed 1-8-2018 at: http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJM192108251850802
Kohn, George Childs (Ed.). Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence From Ancient Times to the Present (Revised Edition). NY: Checkmark Books, 2001.
Webster, Noah. A Brief History of Epidemic and Pestilential Diseases…(in two volumes). Hartford, DT: Hudson & Goodwin, 1799, p. 203. Accessed 1-7-2018 at: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/evans/N27531.0001.001/1:11?rgn=div1;view=fulltext
[1] The narrative note by Grob indicates that “perhaps 300 deaths were recorded.” We employ “<” symbol to indicate “up to 300.” His statement gives the impression that the deaths were due to smallpox.