1732 — Oct, Influenza outbreak, New England, NY, Philadelphia, esp. Ipswich MA/17– >36

—>36  Blanchard estimate based on sources below.

 

Massachusetts            ( >26)

–17  Ipswich. Duffy. Epidemics in Colonial America. 1953, 192; cites Boston Weekly News-Letter.

–~3  Nantucket (“several aged People” died). Caulfield. The Pursuit of a Pestilence, 1950, p. 41.

—  6  New London. Caulfield. The Pursuit of a Pestilence, 1950, p. 41.

 

Philadelphia, PA       (>10?)

–>10?  Blanchard “translation” of “many elderly persons died ‘of the Pleurisy’” into a number.

 

Narrative Information

 

Caulfield: “The epidemic of 1732 should be considered in detail…because it is said that it was a part of an influenza pandemic, or an epidemic that spread throughout the world.

 

“Considering the slowness of the means of travel and the fact that we are concerned with a disease which could have been transmitted only by personal contact, the 1732 epidemic of ‘General Colds’ spread with remarkable rapidity throughout the colonies. It appeared first in Salem about mid-September, and within two or three weeks spread ‘all along to the Eastward, even as far as Casco.’ …by late October it had reached Newport and towns on the Connecticut shore. New York and Philadelphia became involved by November, and on December 12, the Weekly Mercury of Philadelphia reported that it was ‘exceedingly sickly’ in the Lower Counties….

 

“In respect to the severity of the epidemic the reports are difficult to evaluate because of local variations. At least it can be said that the disease was fatal for the infirm and the aged, and incapacitating for the others. Church services were suspended in some towns either because the ministers were sick or the congregations were ‘pretty thin.’ Of seventeen adult deaths in Salem within three weeks, five were described as ‘ancient standers.’[1] On Nantucket ‘several aged People’ died. In New London there were two deaths in each of three families, yet the total deaths for the year in that town did not increase significantly. In New York some of the patients had ‘Pain in the Side’ — the common name for pneumonia in that locality. In Philadelphia many elderly persons died ‘of the colds,’ and several young persons died ‘of the Pleurisy.’ There was a report from the Lower Counties that ‘the living {were} scarce able to bury the Dead.’….On the whole, the epidemic in New England appears to have been more incapacitating than fatal,, for in spite of numerous reports on the prevalence of the disease in Massachusetts fairly reliable figures show no great increase in Boston deaths during 1732.” (Caulfield, pp. 40-42.)

 

Duffy: “Between 1729 and 1733, influenza had a world-wide distribution, and certainly by 1732-33 the disorder was general in America. This particular outbreak was said to have begun in North Germany and spread into every country in Europe, subsequently arriving in North America in the fall of 1733.[2] Actually, the infection struck America concurrently with a severe outbreak in England in the winter of 1732-1733. It was to this attack that Dr. John Huxham first applied the Italian name of influenza,[3] thus introducing the expression into the English medical terminology.[4]

 

“The first evidence of the new outbreak in America appeared in the Boston Weekly News-Letter which noted editorially in October, 1732 that ‘we hardly ever had a more General Visitation by Colds than now, abundance being confined by reason thereof, and we hear it prevails greatly in the Towns all along to the Eastward, even as far as Casco, few Persons escaping it; tho’ we hear the Towns to the Southward, are pretty free from it.’ A few weeks later, a correspondent in Ipswich reported to the News-Letter that ‘the people her have been almost universally afflicted with the Cold & Cough which has chiefly proved mortal to the Aged among us for within less than a Month, seventeen grown persons have died in the town, among whom were many of the most ancient founders.’”[5] (Duffy, pp. 191-192.)

 

Sources

 

Caulfield, Ernest. “The Pursuit of a Pestilence.” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, April 1950, pp. 21-52. Accessed 1-17-2018 at: http://www.americanantiquarian.org/proceedings/44807204.pdf

 

Duffy, John. Epidemics in Colonial America. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1953, reprinted 1979.

 

Turkington, Carol, and Bonnie Lee Ashby, MD. The Encyclopedia of Infectious Diseases (Third Edition). New York: Facts On File, 2007. Google preview accessed 4-12-2018 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=4Xlyaipv3dIC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[1] This looks to be a reference to the seventeen deaths Duffy reports in Ipswich, MA.

[2] Cites, in footnote 15, p. 192: Eugene P. Campbell, “The Epidemiology of Influenza,” in Bulletin of the History of Medicine, XIII (1943), 402-403; Currie, An Account of Climates and Diseases, 100-101; Webster, History of Epidemic Diseases, I, 232.

[3] Another source (Turkington and Ashby), write “its current name was bestowed after the 1732 epidemic in the American colonies, when English doctor John Huxham linked the disease with an old Italian folk word that linked colds, cough, and fever to the ‘influence’ of the stars.” (p. 165 in Influenza section.)

[4] Cites, in footnote 16, p. 192: Campbell, “The Epidemiology of Influenza,” 393-394; J. F. Townsend, “History of Influenza Epidemics,” in Annals of Medical History, N. S., V (1933), 540.

[5] Cites, in footnote 17, p. 192: Boston Weekly News-Letter, No. 1497, Sep 28-Oct 5, No. 1500, October 19-26, 1732.