1758-59 — Measles Epidemic, Philadelphia, PA (cases also in MA ME NJ SC VA) — >100

Philadelphia

–>100  Caulfield. “Some Common Diseases of Colonial Children.” Transactions, Apr 1942, 10-11.

 

Narrative Information

 

Caulfield: “The epidemic [measles] which began in 1758 continued into January, 1760. Records of it have been found in about twenty-five towns from Maine to South Carolina.[1]….It is estimated that there were over one hundred deaths in Philadelphia.” (“Some Common Diseases of Colonial Children.” Transactions, Apr 1942, 10-11.)[2]

 

Deppisch on Martha Washington (Mount Vernon, VA): “In January 1760, Martha’s second husband, George Washington, used the services of the Rev. Charles Green, a local clergyman with medical training, when Martha contracted measles.” (Deppisch, Ludwig M. The Health of the First Ladies: Medical Histories from Martha Washington to Michelle Obama. 2015, p. 16.)

 

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

 

Deppisch, Ludwig M. The Health of the First Ladies: Medical Histories from Martha Washington to Michelle Obama. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., Inc., 2015, p. 16. Google preview accessed 1-18-2017 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=wy1qBgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[1] Caulfield note: See Vital Records of Medford, 377, 391, 421, 455, 458 (Gill, Hawks, Reeves, Warren, White); Diaries of Benjamin Lynde and of Benjamin Lynde, Jr., 187 (for Boston); Lionel Chalmers, An Account of the Weather and Diseases of South Carolina (London, 1776), II, 161. Parkman Diary (Ms. American Antiquarian Society) for epidemics in various towns in Worcester County between February and July, 1759.

[2] The material we have reproduced from Caulfield, in this measles section of his presentation, has a subhead “1758-1760.” He makes it clear, though, that the measles continued only “into January, 1760.” A number of locations where it was present are noted. It is not clear what the time-frame was for Philadelphia. However, in that most epidemics have a higher mortality in the earlier periods, rather than at the end, we have dropped Jan 1760 from our heading, in the belief that the disease would have been of an epidemic nature within the 1758-59 time-frame.