1771 — May-July, Scarlet Fever (especially children), Duxbury, MA — >10

— >10  Blanchard number.[1]

Narrative Information

Caulfield: “The first good evidence of severe scarlet fever in New England is the newspaper account of a Duxbury epidemic during the spring of 1771. It is worth noting that this, too, was primarily a childhood disease; which is indirect evidence that scarlet fever had been more or less prevalent in New England from 1753 to 1771, even though very few records have been found.

Duxboro [Duxbury], July 5, 1771

A very malignant putrid Fever has, for some Time past, much prevailed in this Town; about 150 Persons, chiefly Children, having had it in the Course of a few Months; to a considerable Proportion of whom it has proved fatal. More especially of late its Malignity has very much increased. And in one Family in particular, (Mr. Benjamin Wadsworth’s) five Children out of Six have died of it in the short Space of a Week; the only one surviving being now dangerously sick.—This Fever seems to differ from what has been usually called the Scarlet Fever only in Point of Malignity; the Appearances in those who have it favourably being in all Respects the same. It is remarkable that though it has made its Appearance in every Part of this Town, scarce a Family or Person in any of the neighbouring Towns have as yet been visited with it.[2]

“The deaths of five Wadsworth and three Soule children in Duxbury during May and June, 1771, and of three Fuller children from “canker rash” in East Haven, Connecticut, during 1773 suggest a malignant type of scarlet fever, one capable of causing multiple deaths.”

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] Our number. Caulfield notes eight deaths in two families during May-June. We extrapolate from “A considerable Proportion” of “about 150” stricken “of whom it has proved fatal” to conclude that at least two others died.

[2] Essex Gazette, July 16, 1771.