1814-15 — Wtr., “Putrid Sore Throat” epidemic, eastern VA, esp. Northern Neck VA–>100
—>100 Blanchard estimate.[1]
Some relevant breakouts:
–? Aquia, Stafford Co. “It takes off whole families. I am fearful to send…my family to Aquia.”[2]
–? Eastern VA. “.the epidemical monster.” High mortality and quick spread. Gray, 1819.[3]
–? Militia camps and civilian population around Norfolk and Richmond. Butler, p. 503.
–? Northern Neck / surrounding areas. “…terrible epidemic which overspread the country…”[4]
–? Northern Neck of VA (Lancaster, Northumberland, Richmond and Westmoreland counties.
–? Southside counties. Those south of James River, east of Blue Ridge mts., west of Tidewater.[5]
–? Stafford County, nine in one family. (Gallup 1815, pp. 80-81.)
–? Surry, Surry Co. “Many persons in our county have fallen victim to this dreadful malady.[6]
Narrative Information
Butler: “The winter of 1814-1815 in Virginia was one of the coldest and snowiest for the past several generations. Along with the intense cold came a flu-like epidemic that swept throughout the Northern Neck[7] and down through the lower Tidewater counties. For the militia stationed at the camps around Richmond and at Norfolk, the cold and contagion causes the largest number of deaths of the war. The epidemic was not confined to militia camps, but affected the general population as well….
“Along with the uncommonly cold weather came a very virulent type of sore throat which struck with little warning and intense severity, oftentimes resulting in death shortly afterwards. Referred to in newspapers of the time as the putrid sore throat,[8] or the rotten quinsy, the malignant disorder spread over Virginia’s Northern Neck and Southside counties, sparing neither children nor adults. Dr. Joseph Trent identified the disease sweeping the area in the winter of 1814-15 as a resurgent catarrh fever of malignant influenza from previous years. This new version, according to Trent, was far more virulent and faster spreading than its predecessors….” (p. 505.)
“In Surry, Nicholas Faulcon commented on the extent of the contagion in that region when he wrote… ‘we are all in great alarm here…Many persons in our country have fallen victim to this dreadful malady, and among them our neighbours Mrs. Mancott and her son, William, and Mr. McIntosh. The two former died within 48 hours from the commencement of the attack’ Faulcon reported his wife and twenty of his slaves had sore throats, but the severity of the disease had yet to set in, and he believed them out of danger….” (Butler. “The Winter of 1814-1815.” Pp. 505, 507 in: Defending the Old Dominion: Virginia and Its Militia in the War of 1812.)
Freeman: Feb 4, 1815 correspondence, from Norfolk, VA: “….The epidemic which is making cruel ravages in almost all parts of Virginia has visited the troops, they would have been subject to this disease in any other situation.” (Freeman, Constant, Lt. Col., 1st U.S. Artillery; Col., Corps of Artillery; p. 138 in Fredricksen, John C. The War of 1812: U.S. War Department Correspondence, 1812-1815. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., Inc., 2016.)
Gallup: “1814….From a statement, made in the Richmond Inquirer, printed in Virginia, it appears, that a very severe epidemic disease prevailed in that state, in December. It is called a contagious distemper. Some extracts from a letter to the editors, will give a short account of it; dated county of Stafford, January 3, 1815.
The distemper is distressing beyond any thing you can imagine. It takes off whole families. I am fearful to send any of my family to Aquia.[9] If the disease does not abate, I am apprehensive that it will destroy the greater part of our inhabitants. In King George,[10] there was a family of ten; the whole died except a little boy, who went to a neighbour’s house, after starving a day or two, and asked for some bread. He was asked if he had not a plenty at home; he said that his father, mother, and the rest of the family were asleep, and that he could not wake them. He was asked how long they had been asleep; he said a day or two. The neighbours went over and found nine of them dead!
The alarming disease, noticed in the above, has existed for several weeks in some portions of the seaboard. In the Northern Neck especially it has made the greatest ravages. It frequently kills in from six to twelve hours. It principally preys upon the most robust habits. Some describe it as a typhus fever; others as a violent inflammatory sore throat; the most of them as a putrid ore throat. It affects the throat most violently, and obstructs the circulation of the air through the windpipe. In a few instances, as the one above stated, the houses in which the dead have lain, have been burnt down to prevent the diffusion of the contagion!….[11]
“A few days after the above, a statement was published by Dr. Trent. He calls it epidemic sore throat. He considers the disease to be similar to the malignant influenza, which prevailed last winter in the same neighbourhood, with this difference, that now the force of the disease falls upon the throat, instead of the lungs, thereby endangering suffocation. He does not think it to be croup, nor the putrid sore throat….” (Gallup, Joseph A., M.D. Sketches of Epidemic Diseases in the State of Vermont… 1815, pp. 80-81.)
Gray: “…there occurred an uncommon and excessive fall of rain during the early part of the year, which was succeeded by an equally uncommon and long continued drought, attended with excessive heat. Intermittent and remittent fevers, in all their peculiar forms, visited us this season prematurely; and in almost every instance assumed an unusual obstinacy, which often protracted the complaint till the alphabet of remedies was nearly exhausted; and even after the paroxysms were suspended, there remained in the system an unusually strong propensity to a relapse… Rising still higher in the grade of disease, the bilious fever next made its appearance, borrowing as it progressed, a malignancy foreign to its natural character, which cloven feature always discovered itself by a peculiar tendency to the brain, producing stupor, delirium, and phrenitis.[12]
“I have thought fit thus to sketch a miniature picture of the predecessors of the epidemical monster of my subject, that my readers might be the better able to analyze or decipher his mysterious genealogy. This disease is very generally preceded by a chill, and this chill is almost universally felt between the house of one, two, and three o’clock in the morning; indeed so punctually true is this symptom to its appointed hours, that I regard it as the fixed premonitory sentinel, which faithfully ushers in the true alarm.
“The fever which succeeds the chill is not uniform; sometimes it is high, at other times it is scarcely perceptible… The pulse, in almost every case, is small, weak, and not corded, and frequently irregular, creeping, or intermitting. In some, the first approach of indisposition is announced by a painful, needle-like pricking in the throat, with urgent thirst…Immediately after the rigor, some are affected with pain and stiffness of the neck, with inflammation and swelling of the tonsils….In some cases, there occurs not only a pain in the breast, but in the side, shoulders, and small of the back, attended with such a spasm and rigidity of the muscles, as to draw the whole body backwards…producing such a fixed position, that the body can neither be turned to the one side nor the other, or enjoy a recumbent situation.
“Sometimes the face and eyes are affected with violent inflammation and swelling, which are soon followed by confusion of thought, inarticulate speech, indistinct vision, and furious delirium. Rheumatic and paralytic affections of the limbs are also occasional attendants of the disease. The thyroid gland, in some instances, swells to…a surprising extent… In some cases the tonsils are so enlarged as nearly to meet each other, hindering deglutition, and rendering respiration extremely laborious.
“The uvula is not only generally very greatly swelled, but remarkably elongated; having also at its extremity a remarkable transparent pellicle, resembling a drop of water hanging from the point of an icicle. This elongation of the uvula, in some few instances, is so extremely great as to jeopardize the life of the person upon every attempt to swallow; and I am disposed to believe that some of the very sudden deaths which have occurred, are to be ascribed to suffocation, happening by the falling of the preternatural uvula into the epiglottis, or upper part of the trachea. The tongue is always extremely loaded with a tenacious covering of white fur, particularly that half of it next to its root. The breath and perspiration of the diseased person have, in most instances, a peculiar nauseating factor….
“Some are urgently troubled with pain in the abdominal region, attended with dysenteric gripings, and great looseness….
“The true origin and nature of this daily-traveling, wide-spreading, and fatal epidemic, remain yet unknown… From the heterogeneous symptoms of this disease, and its multifarious forms of attack, I am disposed to regard it as the epitome of all the other fevers…
“The universal fatality of this disease was not more remarkable than its unexampled rapidity. In many cases, the interval from the first moment of complaint, till the moment of death, is not extended beyond the fifth, sixth, seventy, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, or twelfth hour; but generally, the disease runs out its course in one, two, or three hours. In some few instances it spins out its length to the fifth or sixth day, which chronic duration, although it augurs well, does not exempt the patient from danger.
“Sometimes the mildness of the affection would seem to speak it to be nothing more than the ordinary fixed fever of our climate; but at other times it only wants the black vomit to make it the yellow fever of populous cities; or the petechial purple spots, with buboes, to make it the pestilential plague of Egypt.
“For some weeks after its first introduction into this district, its ravages were confined almost exclusively to the white adult subjects, belonging to the lowest rank of society, whose profession and situation in life exposed and subjected them to cold, to want, and unwholesome diet. In a short time it embraced, with augmented malignancy, the African tribe; and next its monarchical usurpation made no discrimination of persons, or rank or colour.
“At first it looked like an endemical disease, visiting particular neighbourhoods, or particular counties; but it soon threw off its insulated character, and was confined neither by neighborhoods, nor counties….
“If what I have written sheds but one faint glimmering ray of light upon this terror-spreading disease, this destroyer of man, my reward will be great and full….” (Gray. “An Account of the Epidemic Fever…” 1819, pp. 28-36.)
Huntt in Medical Repository: “Dear Sir, In compliance with your request, I will give you a short history of the present epidemic.
“This disease is truly called pneumonia. It generally comes on with a chill, attended with great oppression about the breast, and sense of suffocation. These symptoms are succeeded by pain tin the breast, sore throat, cough, and expectoration of yellow mucus, (sometimes streaked with blood), the temperature of the skin falls below the natural standard, the blood forsakes the superficial vessels, and the pulse becomes depressed, and sometimes almost imperceptible. The first object of the physician, in such cases, should be to restore the heat of the skin, by placing his patients between blankets, making use of hot applications (Dr. Jennings’s patent bath I have found the most convenient mode of applying heat in such cases) and by giving hot teas. As soon as the patient is a little relieved from the cold skin, give a puke of ipecacuanha or tartar emetic; afterwards take three or four ounces of blood from the arm. This operation should be frequently repeated, taking care to continue the warm teas and hot applications. In some cases of great depression of the pulse, I have found it necessary to use small bleedings six or eight times during the day, when the pulse would recover its elasticity, and the lancet then may be used as freely and successfully as in common pleurisy. The medicines which I used during this time, are small doses of calomel and tartar emetic, repeated every three or four hours, as circumstances may require. After depletion, blisters may always be applied with success. When at attack is attended with a hot skin and flushed countenance, the depleting remedies may be used with less caution and more success.
“This disease is rapid in its progress, and requires the most prompt and judicious application of the remedies. If thee lancet is used freely, while the skin is cold, and the pulse depressed, the patient will certainly sink. In these cases the grand object of the physician should be to relieve that large blood vessels from their engorged state, by a gradual abstraction of blood, and by exciting more action in the superficial vessels, which can most effectually be done by the constant perseverance of hot applications.
“I have seen many dissections of persons who have died of this disease, within the last year. The full force of the disease falls upon the fauces, the trachea, and the lungs; and every case showed inflammation, congestion, adhesions, and effusions — therefore, no doubt can be entertained of the most correct mode of treatment, an all that is required, is a judicious application of the depleting remedies.
Most respectfully, your obedient servant, [signed] Henry Huntt.”
(Letter from Henry Huntt, Esq. Hospital Surgeon, United States Army. Washington, February 4th, 1815. Pp. 399-401 in “Epidemic Diseases in Virginia and Maryland,” Medical Repository, V.II, N4.)
Murphy in Philadelphia Journal of the Medical and Physical Sciences:
“Dear Sir,
“I am equally surprised, with yourself, that nothing, from the southern parts of the Union, beyond the meagre accounts which appeared in the daily prints, has ever been given to the public, relative to the character and treatment of the terrible epidemic which overspread the country a few years back. The object of this communication is to supply, in some measure, this unaccountable deficiency…. [p. 110]
“It was in the fall and winter of 1814 and 1815, that this new and terrible scourge visited the Northern Neck of Virginia, and the adjacent country. Exposed on all sides to the incursions of the enemy during the late war, this tract of country was incessantly harassed by the irregular and fatiguing calls of militia duty. I attended the regiment from Westmoreland county, during the latter part of their service, in quality of surgeon’s mate. As early as the month of September, while e were lying near the White House, on the Potomac, several cases of a highly malignant fever made their appearance. In one or two of these, the throat was the chief seat of attack: the rest were of a pneumonic character. The same typhoid appearances, however, were manifested by all. Lying in open tents, with nothing but a little straw for their beds, most of these unfortunate subjects were soon hurried to their graves. In November, after the troops were disbanded, and had returned to their homes, the disease became general, and proved horribly destructive in its sweep.
“In consequence of the first cases having appeared in camp, the origin of the disease was pretty generally ascribed to its influence, and its propagation, of course, was imputed to contagion. From what I have already said relative to the darkness which rests upon the remote causes of epidemics, you may readily infer that I am no wise disposed to throw myself into the lists of controversy. I would simply remark, that the spread of disease may be much more readily accounted for upon the assumption of an atmospherical, than a contagious influence. It appears to be utterly impossible, in a thinly settled country like this, to reconcile its rapid and almost simultaneous diffusion over such an extended surface, with the slow and uncertain effects of successive contact. It is admitted that the virus of contagion can only radiate from an infected body to the distance of a few feet. It is also granted, that a free exposure to air dilutes and impairs its malignity. Analogy, too, would suggest that the very cold weather which was exclusively selected by the disease, must also have diminished its effusive power. Moreover, it frequently happened that numbers were effected who had had no sort of communication whatever (that could be traced), with the imputed sources of infection. These considerations are sufficient to point out the difficulties which lie in the way of the opinion of its contagiousness. On the other hand, by placing the morbific [sic] power in the atmosphere — a fluid which e are constantly breathing, and which is always in contact with our bodies — we are presented with an easy method of accounting for its diffusion, however rapid and extensive….
“The disease was ushered in by a variety of premonitory symptoms — such as muscular debility and inquietude, weakness of the joints, aversion to move about, languor and dejection of spirits, cold extremities, impaired appetite, tightness about the chest, stricture across the forehead, depraved taste, buzzing in the ears, dull and watery eyes, &c. To these soon succeeded a sense of chilliness, alternating with sudden flushings, and accompanied with flying pains about the head, praecordia,[13] thorax, or joints.
“After the disease was fully formed, then ensued a remarkable prostration of strength; the alternations of cold and heat were now more strongly marked, the former not unfrequently amounting to a violent and protracted ague. The breathing became hurried and laborious — the countenance either wild and frantic, or stamped with a peculiar impression of suppressed suffering and agony — the eyes suffused, watry, and rolling — the tongue covered with a whitish slime…the bowels torpid…the skin parched, smooth, tense, and now and then mottled — the pulse at this time was commonly full, but unresisting and compressible — the pain, before wandering and unsettled, became now permanently established in some particular part.
“Later in the progress of the disease, the pulse became extremely frequent, contracted, irregular, and feeble. The nervous system laboured under either an immoveable weight of oppression, constituting profound lethargy or coma, or exhibited signs of excessive irritation, such as frantic delirium, tendinous [sic] commotion, great restlessness and desire to change position, tremulous tongue, quavering lips, &c. The tongue, in this stage, was covered with a dark-brown crust, hard and tenacious, which enveloped likewise the gums and teeth. The mind, at this time, often presented a sad and moving picture of distress. Amid the wild and shattered state of its energies, it exhibited tokens of constant apprehension and alarm. It was the prey of a thousand torturing visions. The spectre of death incessantly haunted it, and while there was power remaining, its terrors were conveyed in sudden starts, and wild, broken ejaculations, accompanied with an indescribable horror of countenance, and distracted energy of manner….
“The most prevalent forms of the disease were those of pneumonia and quinsey.[14] In some places the latter greatly predominated : in the circle of my own practice the cases were pretty much divided. These, however, were not the only shapes which it assumed. The hip and knee joints were not unfrequently the points of local attack. Occasionally the pain was seated in the eye — often in the head, just over the eyebrows — and now and then in a toe or a finger. Sometimes the poison was so completely concealed as to elude the most careful examination. The pulse at times was no guide at all. It happened to me, more than once, to witness the dissolution of patients who, till within an hour or two before death, appeared to have little or nothing the matter with them. At other times, when all the usual guides were absent, there was an indescribable something in the look and general cast of the countenance, which clearly denoted the rapid approach of death.
“In regard to the comparative fatality of its forms, that of quinsey was decidedly the most mortal. It was not unusual for patients to be carried off with it in twelve hours. On examination, the soft parts forming the passage to the throat would be found extremely turgid, dry, of a dark purplish, or mahogany hue, and shining appearance….Death was occasioned by suffocation….” (pp. 116-120.) (Murphy. “Observations on the Character and Treatment of the Spotted Fever, as it appeared in the Lower Neck of Virginia, and the adjacent country, in the Fall and Winter of 1814 and 1815. Communicated in a letter to the Editor, By R. Murphy, M.D. Read before the Philadelphia Academy of Medicine.” Pp. 110- in The Philadelphia Journal of the Medical and Physical Sciences, Vol. 3, No. 5, 1821.)
Sources
Butler, Stuart L. “The Winter of 1814-1815.” Pp. 505-507 in: Defending the Old Dominion: Virginia and Its Militia in the War of 1812. Lanham, Boulder, NY, Toronto, Plymouth, UK: University Press of America, Inc., 2013. Google preview accessed 2-19-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=g9PIII7ISoMC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Freeman, Constant, Lt. Col., 1st U.S. Artillery; Col., Corps of Artillery; p. 138 in Fredricksen, John C. The War of 1812: U.S. War Department Correspondence, 1812-1815. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., Inc., 2016. Google digital preview accessed 2-21-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=F_TBDAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Gallup, Joseph A., M.D. Sketches of Epidemic Diseases in the State of Vermont; From its First Settlement to the year 1815, with a Consideration of their Causes, Phenomena, and Treatment. Boston: T. B. Wait & Sons, 1815. Accessed 2-7-2018 at: https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/bookviewer?PID=nlm:nlmuid-2555005R-bk
Gray, Thomas B. W., M.D. “An Account of the Epidemic Fever which prevailed in that district of Virginia called the ‘Northern Neck,’ in the year 1814-1815.” Pp. 28-36. in The American Medical Recorder, of Original Papers and Intelligence in Medicine and Surgery (John Eberle, compiler). Philadelphia: James Webster, 1819. Google preview accessed 2-19-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=ySWgAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Murphy, R. M.D. “Observations on the Character and Treatment of the Spotted Fever, as it appeared in the Lower Neck of Virginia, and the adjacent country, in the Fall and Winter of 1814 and 1815. Communicated in a letter to the Editor, By R. Murphy, M.D. Read before the Philadelphia Academy of Medicine.” Pp. 110-126 in The Philadelphia Journal of the Medical and Physical Sciences (N. Chapman, M.D., Editor), Vol. 3, No. 5, 1821. Google preview accessed 2-20-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=M28pMxeMAD4C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Rumsey, David. Historical Map Collection. “Southside Region.” The State of Virginia from the beast Authorities (Samuel Lewis, 1794). Accessed 2-21-2018 at: http://www.virginiaplaces.org/regions/14southside.html
The Medical Repository (and Review of American Publications on Medicine (Samuel Latham Mitchill, editor), “Epidemic Diseases in Virginia and Maryland,” Vol. II. No. 4 (New Series). pp. 398-399. New York: T. and J. Swords, 1815. Accessed 2-20-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=ZZpbAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=virginia%20epidemic&f=false
[1] Our guestimate, noting that from the “Narrative Information” section one gets impression that hundreds died amongst the militia and the civiliam populations. Virtually all sources note the epidemic was horrible — high fatality rate, spread quickly, and presented itself in symptoms that were frightening. None of the sources we cite here, or others we have consulted, make a stab at the mortality. Thus, in order to recognize this epidemic and give a number for the tally, we “guestimate” at least one hundred if not more, while we think it could have been hundreds.
[2] Richmond Enquirer correspondence of Jan 3, 1815 in Gallup, 1815, pp. 80-81.
[3] “The universal fatality of this disease was not more remarkable than its unexampled rapidity.”
[4] “…this new and terrible scourge visited the Northern Neck of Virginia, and the adjacent country.” (Murphy, pp. 110-111.)
[5] David Rumsey Historical Map Collection. “Southside Region.” The State of Virginia from the beast Authorities (Samuel Lewis, 1794).
[6] Names four his correspondent knows. (Butler , p. 507.)
[7] “The Northern Neck is the northernmost of the three peninsulas (traditionally called ‘necks’ in Virginia) on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay in the Commonwealth of Virginia.” (Wikipedia. “Northern Neck.” 12-4-2017.)
[8] “Putrid throat: a historic term for a severely inflamed throat, with tissue destruction, and fetid odor, often due to strep throat (streptococcal pharyngitis) or diphtheria. (Medicinenet.com/ “Medical Definition of Putrid throat.” Accessed 2-20-2018.
[9] Stafford County, VA.
[10] County seat of King George County.
[11] From another source we find that these were abstracts from a longer letter of written from Falmouth (Strafford County) February 3, 1815. It is in “Epidemic Diseases in Virginia and Maryland,” The Medical Repository (and Review of American Publications on Medicine, pp. 398-399 in The Medical Repository Vol. II. No. 4 (New Series). Samuel Latham Mitchill, editor. New York: T. and J. Swords, 1815. Accessed 2-20-2018.
[12] Inflammation of the brain. (Wikipedia. Phrenitis. Accessed 2-19-2018.
[13] Part of the body near or in front of the heart.
[14] Infection behind the tonsil.