1666 — Smallpox, (population of Colony about 4,000), Boston, MA –40-50

–40-50  Grob. The Deadly Truth: A History of Disease in America. 2002, p. 72.

–40-40  Hull, in Kohn. Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence… 2001, p. 29.

—   ~40  Bradstreet, in Kohn. Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence… 2001, p. 29.

—   ~40  Odrowaz-Sypniewska.  “New England Timeline.” The New England Colonists Web.

 

Narrative Information

 

Grob: “In 1666…smallpox was introduced into Boston either from England or Canada (where it had struck during the previous five years). Perhaps 40 to 50 persons died, while a much larger number were infected.” (Grob. The Deadly Truth: A History of Disease in America. 2002, p. 72.)

 

Kohn (Revised Edition): “Boston Smallpox Epidemic of 1666. First major smallpox epidemic to ravage Boston. Some historians believe that the disease originated in England and was transported across the Atlantic Ocean by settlers to the Massachusetts Bay Colony; others think that some American Indians introduced smallpox into Boston, for the French and Indians in Canada had been suffering from it during the last five years. In 1666 Boston had about 4,000 inhabitants.

 

“The smallpox (variola) virus did not infect all the Bostonians who were exposed to it because some people are inherently immune to smallpox, but a large number of citizens came down with headaches, backaches, fever, malaise, and sometimes convulsions and delirium, before showing the characteristic smallpox rash. Some of the survivors of the disease were left with pockmarked faces, and others were left blind or infertile.

 

“Simon Bradstreet, English diarist and a founder of Cambridge (near Boston), estimated that ‘there dyed about 40’ persons during the epidemic. John Hull, another English diarist, confirmed Bradstreet’s death toll, writing that there were ‘several hundreds’ of cases and ‘betwixt forty and fifty’ fatalities. Hull also noted that the Boston smallpox outbreak worsened as the weather became colder and that it was ‘a very dying time.’ Hull’s observations concur with modern knowledge of the smallpox virus, which prefers cool, dry weather to hot or humid weather, although epidemics have occurred during all times of the year.” [1](Kohn, G.C. (Ed.). Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence From Ancient Times to the Present (Revised Ed.). 2001, p. 29.)

 

Odrowaz-Sypniewska: “1666 – Boston, Massachusetts’s first major smallpox epidemic kills about forty of four thousand inhabitants.”

 

Sources

 

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

 

Kohn, George Childs (Ed.). Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence From Ancient Times to the Present (Revised Edition). NY: Checkmark Books, 2001.

 

Odrowaz-Sypniewska, Margaret. “New England Timeline.” The New England Colonists Web, Massachusetts Origins. 5-3-2009 at: http://www.angelfire.com/mi4/polcrt/NewEngTimeline.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[1] Recommend for further reading: Hopkins, Princes and Peasants: Smallpox in History; Shurkin, The Invisible Fire; Winslow, A Destroying Angel: The Conquest of Smallpox in Colonial Boston.