The epidemic fevers of 1718-19.
In the fifty years from 1715 to 1765, the three worst periods of epidemic fever in England and Scotland correspond closely to the three periods of actual famine and its attendant train of sicknesses in Ireland, namely, the years 1718-19, 1727-29, and 1740-42. The three divisions of the kingdom suffered in common, Ireland suffering most. The first period, 1718-19, was an extremely slack tide in medical writing, insomuch that hardly any accounts of the reigning maladies remain, except those by Wintringham, of York, and Rogers, of Cork. The whole of the Irish history of fevers and the allied maladies is dealt with in a chapter apart. Of the Scots history, little is known for the first of the three periods beyond a statement that there was a malignant fever and dysentery in Lorn, Argyllshire, in January and February, 1717[99].
Wintringham gives the following account of the synochus, afterwards called typhus, which attracted notice in the summer of 1718 and became more common in the warm season of 1719: in each year it began about May, reached its height in July and lasted all August, carrying off many of those who fell into it.
It began with rigors, nausea and bilious vomiting, followed by alternate heats and chills, with great lassitude and a feeling of heaviness: then thirst and pungent heat, a dry and brown tongue, sometimes black. The patient slept little, did not sweat, and was mostly delirious, or anxious and restless, tossing continually in bed. About the 12th day it was not unusual for profuse and exhausting diarrhœa to come on. In a favourable case the fever ended in a crisis of sweating about the 16th day. Those who were of lax habit, unhealthy, hysteric, or cachectic, were apt to have tremors, spasms and delirium, while others were so prostrated as to have no control over their evacuations, lying in a stupor and raving when roused out of it. In these the fever would continue to the 20th day; in some few it ended without a manifest crisis, and with a slow convalescence[100].
This applies to the city of York, but in what special circumstances we are not told. However, it happens that a physician of York, two generations after, in giving an account of the great improvement that had taken place in its public health, throws some light on its old-world state: “The streets have been widened in many places by taking down a number of old houses built in such a manner as almost to meet in the upper stories, by which the sun and air were almost excluded in the streets and inferior apartments[101].”
In London the fever-deaths, with the deaths from all causes, rose decidedly in 1718, and reached a very high figure in 1719, of which the summer was excessively hot. One cause, at least, was want of employment, especially among weavers in the East End[102]. But the epidemic fever of 1718-19 was not limited to the distressed classes; we have a glimpse of it, under the name of “spotted fever,” in the family of the archbishop of Canterbury:
“On Friday night the archbishop of Canterbury’s sixth daughter was interred in our chancel, with four others preceding, she dying on Monday after three days of the spotted fever. The fourth and seventh are recovered, and hoped past danger[103].”
The following table shows the fever-mortalities for London, from 1718 onwards, and, for comparison, the excessive mortalities in the epidemics of 1710 and 1714:
London Mortalities from Fever, &c.
| Year | Fevers | Spotted fevers | Smallpox | All causes | ||||
| 1710 | 4397 | 343 | 3138 | 24620 | ||||
| 1714 | 4631 | 150 | 2810 | 26569 | ||||
| 1718 | 3475 | 132 | 1884 | 26523 | ||||
| 1719 | 3803 | 124 | 3229 | 28347 | ||||
| 1720 | 3910 | 46 | 1442 | 25454 | ||||
| 1721 | 3331 | 84 | 2375 | 26142 | ||||
| 1722 | 3088 | 22 | 2167 | 25750 | ||||
| 1723 | 3321 | 51 | 3271 | 29197 | ||||
| 1724 | 3262 | 84 | 1227 | 25952 | ||||
| 1725 | 3277 | 59 | 3188 | 25523 | ||||
| 1726 | 4666 | 84 | 1569 | 29647 | ||||
| 1727 | 4728 | 102 | 2379 | 28418 | ||||
| 1728 | 4716 | 94 | 2105 | 27810 | ||||
| 1729 | 5235 | [The entry | 2849 | 29722 | ||||
| 1730 | 4011 | ends.] | 1914 | 26761 | ||||
| 1731 | 3225 | 2640 | 25262 | |||||
| 1732 | 2939 | 1197 | 23358 | |||||
| 1733 | 3831 | 1370 | 29233 | |||||
| 1734 | 3116 | 2688 | 26062 | |||||
| 1735 | 2544 | 1594 | 23538 | |||||
| 1736 | 3361 | 3014 | 27581 | |||||
| 1737 | 4580 | 2084 | 27823 | |||||
| 1738 | 3890 | 1590 | 25825 | |||||
| 1739 | 3334 | 1690 | 25432 | |||||
| 1740 | 4003 | 2725 | 30811 |
In country parishes, according to Short’s abstracts of registers, there was no unusual sickness in 1718 and 1719. But in market towns the mortality rose greatly in 1719, which had an excessively hot summer; and that was the year when the synochus or typhus described by Wintringham reached its worst at York. The mortality kept high for several years after 1719.
Market Towns.
| Year | Registers examined | Registers with excess of deaths | Deaths in same | Births in same | ||||
| 1716 | 30 | 8 | 1060 | 845 | ||||
| 1717 | 30 | 9 | 1485 | 1290 | ||||
| 1718 | 30 | 3 | 249 | 169 | ||||
| 1719 | 30 | 6 | 1737 | 1320 | ||||
| 1720 | 30 | 10 | 2186 | 1461 | ||||
| 1721 | 33 | 9 | 1294 | 952 | ||||
| 1722 | 33 | 11 | 1664 | 1345 | ||||
| 1723 | 33 | 14 | 2532 | 2176 |
The high mortalities in 1721-23 were mostly from smallpox, exact figures of many of the epidemics in Yorkshire and elsewhere being given in the chapter on that disease. The country parishes shared in its prevalence:
Country Parishes.
| Year | Registers examined | Registers with excess of deaths | Deaths in same | Births in same | ||||
| 1721 | 174 | 35 | 793 | 586 | ||||
| 1722 | 175 | 35 | 1015 | 775 | ||||
| 1723 | 174 | 63 | 2021 | 1583 |
Besides smallpox, diarrhoeas and dysenteries in the autumn are given by Wintringham as the reigning maladies, fever not being mentioned.