1795 — Dysentery epidemics, esp. Branford, East Haven, New Haven, CT/96, Norwich VT/60->156

lornajarrettblanchard January 1, 1795

— >156 Blanchard tally of State and local breakouts below.

Connecticut (>96)

— 14 Branford. Branford Congregational Church Records (MS., CT His. Society), in Caulfield.

— 18 East Haven. Dodd, East Haven Register, cited in Caulfield, April 1942, p. 64.

–>64 New Haven. Caulfield 1942, p. 64, and CT State Med Society Proceedings, p. 82.[1]

Maryland ( ?)

–? Baltimore. Caulfield. “Some Common Diseases of Colonial Children.” Apr 1942, p. 64.

Massachusetts ( ?)

–1 Lancaster, July 25. Daughter of Dr. James Carter, age 2. Lancaster Records, p. 352.

–? Sterling. Caulfield. “Some Common Diseases of Colonial Children.” Apr 1942, p. 64.

New York ( ?)

–? Coxsackie, Green County, west side of Hudson River. Webster. Epidemic Diseases, 315.[2]

–? Dutchess County. Caulfield. “Some Common Diseases of Colonial Children.” Apr 1942, 64.[3]

Vermont ( 60)

–60 Norwich, Windsor County.

Narrative Information

Caulfield on Dysentery in 1795: “During 1795 Sterling, Massachusetts, New Haven, East Haven, and Branford, Connecticut, Dutchess County, New York, and Baltimore were the hardest hit.”[4]

Thompson: “Norwich….The township has, generally, been very healthy. The dysentery, however, prevailed here in 1795, and carried off 60 persons…” (Thompson. A Gazetteer of the State of Vermont. 1824, p. 202.)

Sources

Beach, William Morrow, M.D. “Contagions and Epidemics in America,” pp. 388-395 in The Sanitarian (A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Preservation of Health, Mental and Physical Culture), Vol. XIV, No. 186. New York: A. N. Bell, May 1885. Google preview accessed 2-8-2017 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=XIUCAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=1794&f=false

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

Connecticut State Medical Society. Proceedings of the Connecticut State Medical Society 1920, 128^th Annual Convention (James Frederick Rogers, Editor). Published by the Society, Sep 1920. Google preview accessed 1-27-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=gHACAAAAYAAJ&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.

Nourse, Henry S. (Editor). The Birth, Marriage and Death Register, Church Records and Epitaphs of Lancaster, Massachusetts, 1643-1850. Clinton, MA: W. J. Coulter, Printer, 1890. Google preview accessed 2-8-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=RBN5AAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Thompson, Zadock. A Gazetteer of the State of Vermont; Containing A Brief General View of the State, A Historical and Topographical Description of all the Counties, Towns, Rivers &c. Together with a Map and several other Engravings. Montpelier, VT: Published by E. P. Walton (Printer) and the author, 1824. Google preview accessed 2-11-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=YHIDAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

United States Bureau of the Census, Department of Commerce and Labor. Heads of Families at the First Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1790, Connecticut. Washington: Government Printing Office 1908. Accessed 2-8-2018 at: https://www.census.gov/prod/www/decennial.html

Webster, Noah. A Brief History of Epidemic and Pestilential Diseases; with the principal phenomena of the physical world which precede and accompany them, and observations deduced from the facts stated (in two volumes). Hartford, CT: Hudson & Goodwin, 1799. Accessed 1-7-2018 at: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/evans/N27531.0001.001/1:13?rgn=div1;view=fulltext

[1] My number in order to recognize and contribute to a tally. Both sources cite Noah Webster. The CT Medical Society Proceedings provides a quote: “In the following year (1795) a malignant dysentery originated and prevailed in New Haven, destroying more lives than the bilious plague of 1794.” We have it from Kohn (2001, p. 236) that there were 64 yellow fever deaths in New Haven in 1794. The population of the city of New Haven in the 1790 Census was 4,484. In the contiguous East Haven, the population the same year was 1,025, and registered 18 dysentery deaths. If New Haven experienced four times the East Haven mortality of 18, based on population size this would come to 78. Thus the presumption of over 64 deaths seems somewhat conservative. Additionally, we pull from Beach in The Sanitarian (Vol. 14, p. 302), “Contagions and Epidemics in America”): “In 1794 the yellow fever appeared in New Haven, Conn., and spread along the coast; but in the following season, 1795, an epidemic dysentery carried off more people than had died of yellow fever during the preceding season.”

[2] After noting that “a mortal dysentery and typhus fever” “prevailed” in Dutchess County, adds: “At Coxsakie [sic] on the west of the Hudson, raged similar diseases with fatal effects.”

[3] Caulfield cites Webster. Found, on page 315 of his Brief History of Epidemic and Pestilential Diseases, the statement: “The extreme unhealthiness of the summer of 1795, was manifested by unusual mortality in various…parts of the country. On the level plains of Dutchess county in New-York state, prevailed a mortal dysentery and typhus fever.”

[4] In footnote 200, cites: Dodd, East Haven Register, Branford Congregational Church Records; Colin Mackenzie (of Baltimore), An Inaugural Dissertation on the Dysentery (Philadelphia, 1797); and Noah Webster.