1735 — Aug-July, 1736 — Scarlet Fever Outbreak, Boston, MA –100-114
— 114 Caulfield. Cites Douglas. The Practical History of a New Epidemic…Boston…1735-1736.[1]
— 114 Schultz. “Epidemics in Colonial Philadelphia from 1699-1799…” 2007.[2]
–>100 Christianson. “Medicine in New England,” in Leavitt, Sickness…Health. 1997, 54.
Narrative Information
Caulfield: “There is considerable information available about the great scarlet fever epidemic in Boston during 1735–1736.[3] It first appeared in August, 1735, among a small group of children of the North End, and by September it had spread to several other parts of the town. During the winter it continued to spread until it reached its peak in March and by July it was “almost over.” It was estimated that there were about four thousand cases in a population of sixteen thousand. Douglass noted that it was predominantly a disease of childhood, which means that adults were immune from previous exposure. Thus it could not have been a “new” disease. Though he mentioned a few signs and symptoms which are seen only in diphtheria, there can be no question but that he was dealing primarily with scarlet fever, for he enumerated practically all the signs and symptoms of that disease. He called attention to the intense prostration, delirium, swollen glands, and desquamation. He even mentioned the strawberry tongue, rheumatic pains in the neck, wrists, and ankles; and, alone among early writers on this disease, he noted some cases with bloody urine. His cases varied in severity from benign to malignant, a few of the latter dying within three days. In some there were extensive hemorrhages, and there were some with purpuric spots on the skin; but these cases apparently were rare. During 1736 the disease appeared in Marblehead, Ipswich, and Haverhill, but no detailed accounts of these epidemics are available…
“Douglass computed that there were 114 deaths out of 4,000 cases—a case fatality rate of 2.8 percent; and another independent observer of this same epidemic said that fatalities were less than one in sixty—a rate of 1.7 percent….” (pp. 25-26.)
Christianson: “In 1735-36, scarlet fever and diphtheria struck simultaneously (for the former, largely in Boston), resulting in the most destructive epidemic of any childhood disease in American history. Whereas scarlet fever claimed over 100 deaths from the estimated 4,000 persons infected, diphtheria in New Hampshire alone took 1,500 from a population of 20,000.” (Christianson. “Medicine in New England,” in Leavitt, Sickness…Health. 1997, 54.)
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
Christianson, Eric H. “Medicine in New England,” in Leavitt, Judith Walzer & Ronald L. Numbers. Sickness and Health in America: Readings in the History of Medicine and Public Health (3rd Ed., Revised). Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1997. Google preview accessed 1-17-2018 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=6eOlhNkjXaAC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false
Schultz, Suzanne M. “Epidemics in Colonial Philadelphia from 1699-1799 and The Risk of Dying.” Early America Review, Winter/Spring 2007. Accessed 1-9-2018 at: https://www.varsitytutors.com/earlyamerica/early-america-review/volume-11/early-american-epidemics
Also at: http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/2007_winter_spring/epidemics.html
[1] William Douglas. The Practical History of a New Epidemic Eruptive Miliary Fever, with an Angina Ulcusculosa, Which Prevailed in Boston, New England, in the Years 1735 and 1736.
[2] Cites: Howard A. Kelly and Walter L. Burrage, Dictionary of American Medical Biography; lives of eminent physicians of the United States and Canada from the earliest times (NY: D. Appleton and Co., 1928), p. 340-1.
[3] Cites: Caulfield. Throat Distemper.