1792 — Yellow Fever Epidemic, Charleston, SC — <96

— <96  Blanchard guestimate.[1]

— “raged” in epidemic form.  Ramsay. Ramsay’s History of South Carolina… 1858, p. 47.

Narrative Information

Emmert: “Epidemics In The United States. According to the late Dr. Toner, the most important epidemics which prevailed in the United States during the eighteenth century were as follows:….Yellow Fever:….in Charleston, S.C. in 1700, 1703, 1728, 1732, 1739, 1745, 1748, 1749, 1753, 1755, 1758, 1792….” (Emmert, J. M. M.D. “State Medicine, Past, Present and Future. Oration on State Medicine Delivered Before the Fifty-Third Annual Meeting of the American Medical Association, At Saratoga Springs, N.Y., June 10-13, 1902.” The Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 24, June 14, 1902, p. 1571.)

Kohn: “Charleston Yellow Fever Epidemics of 1792-1999 — Yellow fever epidemics that affected the city of Charleston, South Carolina, in the summer of 1792 and each summer from 1794 to 1799….”

Ramsay: “For forty-four years after 1748 there was no epidemic attack of this disease [yellow fever], though there were occasionally in different summers a few sporadic cases of it. In the year 1792 a new era of the yellow fever commenced. It raged in Charlestown in that year…”

Sources

Emmert, J. M. M.D. “State Medicine, Past, Present and Future. Oration on State Medicine Delivered Before the Fifty-Third Annual Meeting of the American Medical Association, At Saratoga Springs, N.Y., June 10-13, 1902.” Pp. 1568-1578 in The Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 24, June 14, 1902. Digitized by Google and accessed 6-9-2019 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=f401AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Kohn, George Childs (Ed.). Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence From Ancient Times to the Present (Revised Edition). NY: Checkmark Books, 2001.

Ramsay, David (M.D.). Ramsay’s History of South Carolina, From its First Settlement in 1670 to the Year 1808. Published by W. J. Duffie, Newberry, SC, printed in Charleston by Walker, Evans & Co., 1858. Digitized by archive.org and accessed 9-11-2016 at: https://archive.org/stream/ramsayshistorys00ramsgoog#page/n4/mode/2up

[1] We do not know the death toll. Ramsay writes that yellow fever raged in epidemic for the first time since 1742 and in 1795-1797, 1799-1802, 1804 and 1807. He notes the number of deaths in “its worst years,” with no mention of deaths in 1792. The lowest of the death tolls noted, though, was 96 in 1802. This might mean that the toll in 1792 was less than in 1802, or simply that data did not exist or was unavailable for 1792. For purposes of out compilation we guestimate less than 96. If, as noted, it “raged” one might suppose at least several dozen deaths. Certainly there was a sufficient number of deaths to draw the attention of Toner and others who noted a yellow fever “epidemic” in Charleston in 1792.