1770 — “Chin” (Whooping) Cough epidemic esp. children, Salem (pop. ~5,000), MA — 37
–37 Caulfield. “Some Common Diseases of Colonial Children.” Transactions, 1942, pp. 39-40.
Narrative Information
Caulfield: “The worst epidemic so far encountered [whooping cough section of paper] occurred in Salem during 1770, when there were thirty-seven “chin-cough” deaths in a population of about five thousand.”[1]
Source
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
[1] Caulfield previously notes that whooping cough primarily killed children.