1747 — June 29- frost (probably Oct), Yellow Fever, Philadelphia, PA — >43
— >43 La Roche. Yellow Fever…in Philadelphia from 1699-1854… (Vol. 1), 1855, p. 59.[1]
Narrative Information
Barton, June 29 letter: “XVIII. Notice of the Yellow-Fever, as it appeared at Philadelphia, in the year 1747.
“The following memorandum is worthy of preservation. It is an extract of a letter from Mr. David Palmer, to the late Mr. Edward Penington, of Philadelphia.
People are exceeding sickly in many parts of the country, and especially in this city, where upwards of twenty are frequently buried in a day; the Yellow-Fever being very brief, carrying off healthy people in two or three days. I heartily wish we many both escape the dangers with which we are threatened, that we may once more meet…
David Palmer, Philadelphia, 6th mo. 29th, 1747.
(Barton. Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal, Vol. II, Part II, 1805, p. 89.)
Barton, Sep 3 letter: “Since my last [editor], a contagious Fever has raged amongst us, which admits of no relief, cure, or abatement; never intermitting to the last moments of life. It has carried off three of my most intimate acquaintance, among which are my dear friends Mr. Andres Hamilton, and Mr. Currie. Philadelphia has been a melancholy place, and many, whose business and family would permit them, have fled the city. But the air is now become much cooler, and those under the disorder revive: the symptoms (a pain in the head and back, vomiting) are less violent, and the fever gradually abates. Messrs. Allen and Turner’s family are yet under the disease, the one having lost a near relation, and Mr. Allen himself not out of danger. Philadelphia, September 3d, 1747.” (Barton. Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal, (Part I, Vol. I), 1804, p. 136.)
Barton, Sep 24th communication: “September 24th, 1747. The Yellow-Fever is yet amongst us. Yesterday was buried young Samuel Powell, who died of it.”[2] (Barton. Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal (Part I, Vol. I). 1804, p. 137.)
Duffy: “The following years [1747] yellow fever returned to Philadelphia after an absence of six years.[3] A letter from the Pennsylvania council to the proprietor in 1747 reported that a malignant fever had been lurking in town all summer, but fortunately had not been so fatal as the previous outbreak of 1741. The council pointed out that the fever invariably began in the mud and filth around the docks and requested advice and assistance in alleviating this condition. Thomas Penn, the proprietor, countered that there was no necessity for improving the docks because the disease had been traced to the West Indies [Caribbean] and was in no way connected with the unsanitary conditions….
“Following the pattern of the last epidemic in New York, the 1747 Philadelphia infection spread beyond the city and into Delaware. The Reverend Thomas Bluett of Dover, Delaware, reported that yellow fever ‘of which multitudes died in Philª & many in the lower Countys,’ had afflicted the province, but fall brought a gradual abatement.”[4] (Duffy. Epidemics in Colonial America. 1953, reprinted 1979, pp. 158-159.)
La Roche: “Very different is the character of the testimony we possess relative to the prevalence of the yellow fever…in 1747; for although on this, as on former occasions, we must be contented with the statements of a few unprofessional writers, yet these statements leave no doubt as to the epidemic development of the disease in that year….
“As on other occasions, the fever, in 1747, broke out during the hottest part of summer…it already existed at the close of June….and we may infer, not only from the course the disease has pursued at other times, but from Dr. Franklin’s letter, that it continued to prevail till arrested by the accession of frost. In this letter, which…bears date of 16th October, the doctor says: ‘Besides the measles and flux,[5] which have carried off many children, we have lost some grown persons by what we call the yellow fever; though that is almost, if not quite, over, thanks to God.’
“The disease was mostly confined within the limits of the southern part of the city, below the drawbridge, and at lodgings for sailors, and in the neighbourhood of the dock, which was then uncovered.[6] As to the mortality it occasioned, we know but little; but there is reason to believe that, though, as Mr. Palmer stated, it frequently occurred that twenty were buried in a day, it was not great — much inferior, both numerically and in comparison to population to what it had been in some of the former, and has been in subsequent epidemics. Mr. Willing says that it caused the death of several [at least three] men of standing, and about forty others of those in the neighbourhood of the bridge; but, as the fever extended its ravages below the dock, we may presume the number of deaths from it was larger than here mentioned. Be this as it may, the fever became soon the source of great alarm among the citizens, and engrossed the conversation in all companies. So early as the 3d of September, Philadelphia, according to Lardner, had become a melancholy place, and many, whose business and family would permit them, fled the city, and sought refuge in the country….
“As to the causes of the epidemic, its origin, and mode of propagation, the public mind, judging from the letter-writers referred to, seemed to have been more fully made up than it had been heretofore. The disease is said to have exhibited contagious properties, and to have been imported from abroad. Pemberton contents himself with giving it, in general terms, a West India origin. Others were more explicit as to the particular mode of its introduction. Mr. Chew, in a passage I insert, not as expressing his individual sentiment on the subject, but that of the public generally and of the medical practitioners of the day, says: ‘I well remember it was the universal opinion that the disease was imported in a vessel from some part of the West Indies, and was communicated by the clothing contained in the chest of a person who died on the disease in the West Indies (Willing says Barbadoes); and that the person or persons who were present at the opening of the said chest were the first who were taken with the yellow fever; and to some or all of them it had proved fatal….” (La Roche. Yellow Fever…as it has Occurred in Philadelphia from 1699-1854… (Vol. 1 of 2), 1855, pp. 59-60.)
Sources
Barton, Benjamin Smith, MD (Collected and Arranged by). The Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal (Part I, Vol. I, 1804). Philadelphia: J. Conrad & Co., 1804. Google preview accessed 4-4-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=n3TOUn_ZacgC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Barton, Benjamin Smith, MD (Collected and Arranged by). The Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal (Parts I and II, Vol. II). Philadelphia: J. Conrad & Co., 1805. Google preview accessed 4-4-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=KzxJAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Duffy, John. Epidemics in Colonial America. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1953, reprinted 1979.
La Roche, Rene, M.D. Yellow Fever, Considered in its Historical, Pathological, Etiological, and Therapeutical Relations, Including A Sketch of the Disease as it has Occurred in Philadelphia from 1699-1854… (Vol. 1 of 2). Philadelphia: Blanchard and Lea, 1855. Google preview accessed 3-15-2018 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=Fsg1AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
[1] See La Roche in Narrative section. After citing sources noting deaths of several notable citizens as well as forty others “below the bridge” he states his belief that death toll was higher than this because the disease spread further than below the bridge.
[2] A footnote speculates that this was an extract from one of the letters of a Mr. John Bartram, printed earlier.
[3] In 1741, 250 people died from yellow fever in Philadelphia. (See my 1741 entry in Chronology & Spreadsheet.)
[4] Cites, in footnote 40, p. 159: Thomas Bluett to Secretary, Dover in Kent, Del., January 4, 1748, in S.P.G. [Society for the Propagation of the Gospel], MSS., B16-17, fp. 251; Rush, Medical Inquiries, 4th ed., III, 100.;
[5] The latter possibly is a reference to dysentery.
[6] Cites, in footnote 1, p. 60: Pemberton, pp. 6, 7; Th. Willing, p. 9.