1793 — Scarlet Fever, New England, New Jersey, New York, Philadelphia, PA — >25
–>25 Blanchard tally of “State” breakouts below.
Connecticut (>10)
–1 Branford. “Burials in Branford South Society” (MS., Conn. Historical Society), in Caulfield.
–2 Middletown, Dec. Middletown First Society Records; in Caulfield, p. 34, footnote 81.
–7 Stonington, Feb-Oct. Stonington First Congregational Church Records.[1]
–? Elsewhere in CT or other deaths in these three towns for which Caulfield found records?
New Jersey ( 6)
–6 Morristown (one parish). Record of First Presbyterian Church of Morristown; in Caulfield, 34.
New York ( ?)
–? New York City. Caulfield 1942, p. 34.
Pennsylvania (>19)
–19 Bethlehem. Webster 1799, p. 297.[2]
–19 Bethlehem, Feb-May. Kohn. “New England Scarlet Fever Epidemic of 1793-95,” p. 235.
— ? Philadelphia, Feb-Aug. Rush. An Account of the Bilious Remitting Yellow Fever. 1796, 14.[3]
Narrative Information
Caulfield: “During the following winter,[4] and particularly during the spring of 1793, malignant scarlet fever was reported in New England, New York, and Philadelphia. According to Rush[5] the Philadelphia epidemic from February to August reached its peak in July ‘with symptoms of great violence.’ Six patients died in one parish in Morristown, New Jersey.[6] In New York City there was ‘great mortality,’ and in some cases at Red Hook ‘the paroxysms invaded the patient in the form of madness.’[7] Connecticut records vary considerably. There were no deaths during an epidemic in Hartford from April to May, nor any among “several cases of ulcerous sore throat” in New Haven. But the disease was said to have been “very mortal” at New Fairfield, and other deaths occurred at Branford, Fairfield, Middletown, Preston, and Stonington. The few available details concerning the disease in Massachusetts and Vermont are insignificant.” (Caulfield. “Some Common Diseases of Colonial Children.” Transactions, Vol. 35, April 1942, p. 34.)
Kohn: “In August 1792 the town of Bethlehem in eastern Pennsylvania endured a mild form of scarlet fever; nearly every family and child was affected there. Then a severe outbreak occurred from February to May 1793 in Bethlehem; 19 children died from angina maligna….
“Some speculate hat scarlet fever advanced from there northeastward into coastal Connecticut… others say it came from Vermont south into Connecticut, where many persons succumbed to this contagious disease, notably in the towns of New Fairfield and Litchfield, in 1793 and 1794 (in late winter and spring, when the illness most commonly strikes).
“Hartford, Connecticut, suffered many human deaths from the epidemic, first in May 1793 and again in February 1794 when a second wave of scarlet fever claimed more lives than the first….”[8]
Packard: “In 1793 and 1794 scarlet fever prevailed in more or less epidemic form throughout all the Northern States.” (Packard. The History of Medicine in the United States. 1901, p. 94.)
Webster: “….On the 11th of January 1793 appeared a comet in the constellation of Cepheus. It was seen for the last time by Mr. Rittenhouse on the 8th of February.
“In the course of this winter and the spring succeeding, the scarlet fever raged in New-York, with considerable mortality. It became epidemic also in Philadelphia, in the course of the spring months….
“In February 1793 the scarlet fever invaded the town of Bethlehem, like “an armed man,” says Mr. Backus, Medical Repository, vol. 1. 524. He calls the disease angina maligna, and it doubtless put on the symptoms of it in many places. It seized almost every family and child. It abated in May, disappeared in November, and re-appeared in January 1794 with nearly its former violence. Nineteen children died in the first invasion, and fourteen, in the second.
“We have here distinct marks of progression. The disease in a mild form appeared in August 1792, then disappeared. In February following, it invaded the town in its worst form. Six months therefore intervened between its precursor, or mild form, and its invasion with full force. The same disease appeared in the neighboring district of country and in distant parts, in nearly the same longitude, in the course of this year; but I have not materials for a detail of facts.
“I find however, it prevailed in Litchfield in 1793, and was supposed to be imported into that town from Vermont. It was also very mortal in New-Fairfield, the same year. I therefore presume the disease to have been very general through the western districts of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont, and to have prevailed as far westward as Pennsylvania, in this year. Of its progress beyond that state, I have no information.” (Webster, pp. 297-298.)
Sources
Caulfield, Ernest. “Some Common Diseases of Colonial Children.” Transactions of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Vol. 35, April 1942, pp. 4-65. Accessed 1-17-2018 at: https://www.colonialsociety.org/node/865
Kohn, George Childs (Ed.). Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence From Ancient Times to the Present (Revised Edition). NY: Checkmark Books, 2001.
Packard, Francis Randolph, M.D. The History of Medicine in the United States. Philadelphia and London, J. B. Lippincott Company, 1901. Google preview accessed 1-26-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=dCxAAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Webster, Noah. A Brief History of Epidemic and Pestilential Diseases; with the principal phenomena of the physical world which precede and accompany them, and observations deduced from the facts stated (in two volumes). Section VIII. “Historical view of pestilential epidemics, from the year 1788 to 1798 inclusive, comprehending the last epidemic period in American.” Hartford, DT: Hudson & Goodwin, 1799. Accessed 1-7-2018 at: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/evans/N27531.0001.001/1:11?rgn=div1;view=fulltext
[1] Manuscript, Connecticut State Library, cited in Caulfield p. 34, footnote 81.
[2] Two sentences earlier Webster was speaking of Philadelphia, thus our inference is that he is writing about Bethlehem PA, not Bethlehem CT. Kohn (Plague & Pestilence, Revised, 2001), specifically notes 19 deaths in Bethlehem, PA in 1793 (p. 295).
[3] In Caulfield 1942, p. 34.
[4] Had been discussing scarlet fever in 1792 in previous sentence.
[5] An Account of the Bilious Remitting Yellow Fever (Edinburgh, 1796), p. 14.
[6] In fn 79, cites: The Record of the First Presbyterian Church of Morristown, N.J., II (August, 1881), p. 159.
[7] In footnote 80, cites: Webster. Pestilential Diseases, I, p. 298.
[8] Cites, as further reading: Duffy. Epidemics in Colonial America; Webster, A Brief History of Epidemic…Diseases; Winslow, The Conquest of Epidemic Disease.