1770-71 — Winter, Influenza Epidemic “took scores of lives,” Philadelphia, PA — >40

—>40  Blanchard translation of “scores” (a “score” means 20), into a number from Hawke, 83.[1]

—    ?  Duffy writes that “Philadelphia was ravaged by an influenza epidemic.”[2]

 

Narrative Information

 

Duffy: “In the winter of 1770-71 Philadelphia was ravaged by an influenza epidemic, “An account of which I have preserved in my notebook,’ wrote a contemporary physician, ‘and have found it to agree exactly with the histories of the Influenza in this and other countries.’” (Duffy. Epidemics in Colonial America. 1979, pp. 199-200.)

 

Hawke: “Rush…estimated that when he began to practice, the annual death rate in Philadelphia was at least one in every twenty-five citizens (in contrast with one in fifty in 1809)….The next winter, 1770-1771, influenza took scores of lives.” (Hawke. Benjamin Rush. 1971, p. 83.)

 

Sources

 

Duffy, John. Epidemics in Colonial America. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1953, reprinted 1979.

 

Hawke, David Freeman. Benjamin Rush: Revolutionary Gadfly. Indianapolis & New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc., 1971. Google preview accessed 4-12-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=z1u9-0UX1E4C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[1] If the plural of “score” is to be taken literally, then there would have been at least two-score (or at least 40) deaths.

[2] While this does not answer the question of how many people died, we know from other colonial experiences with influenza epidemics that many elderly and weakened-by-some-other-malady people died during these epidemics.