1802 — Yellow Fever, Wilmington DE, MD, MA, Philadelphia, NH, Charleston, SC — 561

–561  Blanchard tally based on numbers below.

 

Delaware                    ( 86)

–86  Wilmington         Keating 1879, 81; Sternberg 1908, 720; U.S. MHS  1896, 432.

 

Massachusetts            ( 60)

–60  Boston                 Keating 1879, 81; Sternberg 1908, 719, 720; U.S. MHS  1896, 432.

 

New Hampshire         (  10)

–10  Portsmouth           Keating 1879, 81.

 

New York                  (    2)

–2  New York             Sternberg 1908, 718, 720; U.S. MHS  1896, 432.

 

Pennsylvania              (307)

–835  Philadelphia        UShistory.org.  Philadelphia History, Philadelphia Timeline, 1802.”[1]

–307           “                  Sternberg 1908, 719, 720; U.S. MHS  1896, 432.

 

South Carolina          (  96)

–96  Charleston          Keating 1879, 81; Sternberg 1908, 719-720; U.S. MHS  1896, 432.

–96   “  NYT. “Yellow Fever. Epidemics in Charleston, S.C. – Statistics from 1700.” 9-18-1871.

–96   “  Ramsay. “Medical History From 1670-1808,” Ramsay’s History of SC, 1858, p. 47.

 

Narrative Information

 

Delaware

 

Scharf: “A third visitation of yellow fever occurred in Wilmington in 1802, following another epidemic in Philadelphia. The Board of Health inaugurated a rigid quarantine, and took every possible precaution against the introduction of the plaque, but without effect. The disease appeared on August 2d, and a week later there were several cases in town. There were, however, no deaths until September 1^st, when Johnson Owens, a shallopman employed by Cyrus and Robert Newlin, succumbed. A week later the fever assumed a malignant shape in the lower part of the borough, principally on King Street below Second Street; the alarm became general and people fled to the country in large numbers. Thirty-four deaths occurred during September. On October 1^st there were only six hundred and five people in town south of Market Street, of which number twenty-five were sick. The disease raged with increased violence subsequent to October 15^th and thirty-one deaths occurred from that time to November 2d, when the appearance of frost stopped the contagion.

 

“Among the later deaths was that of John Ferris, Jr., who during the epidemic of 1798, and the present year, had been unceasing in his attentions to the sick. He died on October 31^st. Colonel Thomas Kean, an officer of the Revolutionary army, was also one of the victims. The latter numbered eighty-six out of one hundred and ninety-seven cases, of which one hundred and fifty-six cases and fifty-five deaths occurred east of Market Street and south of Third Street.[2] Following is a list of the deaths which occurred in the period: [omitted here]”

 

South Carolina

 

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, and in 1794, 1795, 1796, 1797, 1799, 1800, 1801, 1802, 1804, and 1807. The number of deaths from it in these, its worst years, were…In 1799, 239; in 1800, 184; in 1802, 96; in 1804, 148; in 1807, 162.”

Sources

 

Keating, J. M. A History of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878 in Memphis, Tenn. Memphis, TN: Howard Association, 1879. Google digitized at: http://books.google.com/books?id=WEIJAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA81&dq=Portsmouth+NH+Yellow+Fever+1802&ei=4SozSczeOoSUzASS7Z3VAQ#PPA454,M1

 

New York Times. “Yellow Fever. Epidemics in Charleston, S.C. – Statistics from 1700.” 9-18-1871. http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=FB0C13F938541A7493CAA81782D85F458784F9

 

New York Times. “Yellow Fever Retrospect.” 10-7-1888. Accessed at:  http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9D03EFD81F38E033A25754C0A9669D94699FD7CF&oref=slogin

 

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

 

Scharf, J. Thomas. History of Delaware: 1609-1888 (Vol. 1). Philadelphia: L. J. Richards & Co., 1888. Accessed 2-28-2015 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=9wd5AAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=true

 

Sternberg, George M. (U.S. Public Health Service, U.S. Marine Hospital Service). “Yellow Fever: History and Geographic Distribution.” Pages 715-722 in Stedman, Thomas L., M.D. (Ed.) Appendix to the Reference Handbook of the Medical Sciences. NY: William Wood & Co., 1908. Google digitized and accessed at:  http://books.google.com/books?id=3ezqX415M5wC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

United States Marine-Hospital Service, Treasury Department. Annual Report of the Supervising Surgeon-General of the Marine-Hospital Service of the United States for the Fiscal Year 1895 (Document No. 1811). Washington:  GPO, 1896. Digitized by Google and accessed at:  http://books.google.com/books?id=aTnxAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

UShistory.org. Philadelphia History. “Philadelphia Timeline, 1861.” Accessed 8-10-2015 at: http://www.ushistory.org/philadelphia/timeline/1861.htm

 

 

 

 

 

[1] Not using in that this estimate is out-of-line with Sternberg and the US Maritime Hospital Service numbers.

[2] Scharf footnote 1 cites “Dr. John Vaughan, an eminent practitioner of that day [who] attended a large number of the yellow fever patients of this period in Wilmington, and by request of the American Philosophical Society published a history of the origin and nature of the disease. Dr. Vaughan introduced vaccination in Wilmington in 1802.”