1747 — Measles Epidemic, Philadelphia, PA (cases also reported in CT, NH, NY, SC) — 84
–84 Caulfield. “Some Common Diseases of Colonial Children.” Transactions, Apr 1942, p. 10.
Narrative Information
Caulfield: “On the basis of some figures in the Births and Burials for Christ Church Parish, Philadelphia, it is estimated that there were 84 deaths from measles among the 15,000 inhabitants of that city during 1747. That makes a measles death rate of 560 per 100,000 population, which seems extraordinarily high compared with the present rate of about 0.3 per 100,000.
“Only a few scattered notes are available concerning the disease in New Hampshire,[1] Massachusetts,[2] Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania and South Carolina.” (Caulfield. “Some Common Diseases of Colonial Children.” Transactions, Apr 1942, p. 10.)
Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal: “Last summer (1747) the measles afflicted abundance of children, and a looseness following carried many off, in town (Philadelphia).” (Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal. Notices of the Epidemics of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, in the years 1746, 1747, and 1749,” p. 4.)
Zuckerman: “The first reference to measles in the Philadelphia records is 1714, with subsequent epidemics throughout the 18th century. Overall, mortality was fairly high during the initial and subsequent epidemics, with some variation. The mortality rates in 1747, 1759, and 1772 were particularly devastating and contributed greatly to the overall death rates for these years. For instance, the Christ Church Bills of Mortality list 23 deaths from measles in 1747, 22 deaths in 1759, and 17 deaths in 1772 (Klepp, 1991[3]).” (Zuckerman. Modern Environments and Human Health. 2014.)
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
Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal (Part I, Vol. I). Philadelphia: . & G. Palmer, 1804. Google preview accessed 1-18-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=n3TOUn_ZacgC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Zuckerman, Molly K. (Ed.). Modern Environments and Human Health: Revisiting the Second Epidemiologic Transition. Wiley Blackwell. 2014. Google preview accessed 1-11-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=EdYVAwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=measles&f=false
[1] Jeremy Belknap. History of New Hampshire (Dover, 1812), III. 181: three measles deaths in Hampton between 1745 and 1754 (presumably 1747, 1748, or 1749).
[2] Diaries of Benjamin Lynde and of Benjamin Lynde, Jr., F. E. Oliver, Editor (Boston, 1880), 167.
[3] Susan E. Klepp. “The Swift Progress of Population:” A Documentary and Bibliographic Study of Philadelphia’s Growth, 1642-1859. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1991.