A.D. 1827. In the early part of this year, Groningen, Friesland, North Holland, Belgium, and Lower Germany suffered from epidemic influenza. The previous summer (1826) was followed by moist weather, and the countries were damp from inundations. The epidemic raged with such mortality, that the Dutch Government found it necessary to adopt strong measures to relieve the sickness which affected nearly the whole population.
Yellow fever was prevalent in the United States; remittent fever was also rife in various parts of England; the symptoms amounted in severity to those of pestilence, and were such as had scarcely been seen in England since the days of Sydenham.
This year, a singular malady—a sort of rheumatic fever, occasioning great agony,—broke out in the island of St. Thomas, in the West Indies, and affected almost every one of a population amounting to 12,000 persons. It obtained from the negroes the cognomen of ‘dandy fever.’ It proved to be an exceedingly painful disease, crippling persons for weeks and months, and obliging them to move about on crutches; it was, however, rarely fatal: it spread generally all over the West Indian Islands. A similar disease prevailed the year following, A.D. 1828, in Paris, and was considered by the Parisians as being of an extraordinary character. A writer thus describes the malady:—It was generally unaccompanied with any great degree of fever, but affected the whole nervous system in a most peculiar manner; especially by a most painful sense of formication in the hands and feet, as well as a degree of numbness which seized first upon the members, and thence extended over the whole body. The formication and painful numbness of the extremities were so characteristic of the complaint, that at Paris and elsewhere in France it was known by the name of ‘mal des pieds et des mains.’
The cellular tissue, in this disease, became affected after a while; the hands and feet swelled, and œdema attacked the face and several other parts of the frame: immense numbers suffered from it in France. The sensations were compared to those caused by the punctures from the points of a thousand needles, or of some such sharp instrument; an intense degree of heat aggravated the sufferings, and many could scarcely move their body or extremities without great agony; cramps and spasmodic contractions were present in many cases; the digestive organs were greatly disordered, and symptoms of cholera morbus were sometimes developed in the course of the disease; eruptions of various kinds occurred on the body; sleep was prevented by excessive pain and general disturbance of the system; delirium sometimes supervened; the sight and hearing, and the sense of smell, were altogether lost in some, but in others only partially impaired. In some, convalescence followed in a few weeks; in others, not until several months had elapsed. Great numbers fell victims to the malady, and many perished ultimately from its sequelæ.
This year, A.D. 1828, Gibraltar was again visited by yellow pestilence, which attacked both the military and civilians; it commenced in the month of September; it broke out among, and was for some time confined to, the filthiest and most crowded parts, or districts, on the rock, but it ultimately seized on all ranks and classes of society. It was observed to prevail to a greater extent and more severely in some situations than in others, particularly along the line of wall facing the sea,—few of the soldiers stationed there escaping an attack, so that it was soon found necessary to withdraw the sentries stationed in the neighbourhood. From this period to 1834, there was great famine in Italy; the seasons were moist and hot; repeated inundations occurred there, and south winds and summer fogs prevailed. The French army encamped before the city of Naples lost great numbers by pestilence. A disease called ‘la trousse galante’ carried off immense numbers in France. There were during this period great failures of the crops in England and elsewhere in Europe, occasioned by wet and mild winters, followed by hot summers: epidemic pestilence was the consequence.
The breaking out of epidemic pestilence in Orenburg, in August, A.D. 1829, was attended with some extraordinary phenomena,—the atmosphere was suddenly filled with dense masses of small green flies, which in Asia are looked upon as the forerunners of pestilence, and are therefore called plague-flies; the streets swarmed with these insects, and on quitting their houses, the inhabitants were literally covered from head to foot with them.
A.D. 1830. A blight or disease, this year, made its appearance in the potato and other crops in various parts of Germany, in Ireland, and in America. In 1832, it was more general and severe in some situations than in others.
Cholera about this period showed itself on the borders of the Black Sea, penetrating thence into the centre of European Russia, where it continued throughout the winter. Towards the beginning of autumn, it commenced with great violence in the Georgian frontier of Persia, having appeared in June, 1830, in the Persian province of Ghilan, on the Caspian shore; from the southern parts of which it extended northward, along the west Caspian shore, until it reached Baku, Tiflis, Astrachan, and numerous other places, in its progress into the very heart of the Russian empire. At Astrachan, from July to the end of August, 4000 died in the city, and 21,270 in the entire province. 2367 persons died of it in Saratov; and shortly afterwards, of 1792 Don Cossacks attacked, 1334 perished. At Penza, situate about 140 miles north of Saratov, 1200 of the population were seized in the course of a fortnight, and 800 sunk under it. At Nischnei Novgorod, where the epidemic soon afterwards broke out, 1863 persons were taken ill, of whom nearly a thousand died. The mortality in Bessarabia and Moldavia was appalling: Jassi, the capital of Moldavia, was almost depopulated. This insatiable malady continued to spread, carrying death in its course westward and northward, through Russia, Poland, Moldavia, the duchy of Posen, Silesia, and Austria, visiting Warsaw, with other towns in Poland, and extending, May, 1831, to Riga and Dantzic; and in June and July to St. Petersburgh and Cronstadt: it reached Berlin on the last day of August, Vienna in September, and Hamburgh on the 7th of October.
A.D. 1831, cholera followed the Russian army employed in the subjugation of Poland; it also proved very destructive in Warsaw and in many other places during the months of April and May. In June it prevailed in Cracow and other adjoining places, extending in its course to Gallicia, Hungary, Smyrna, and Constantinople; it raged with such intensity at Cairo, that 10,400 Mahomedans, besides Jews and Christians, were carried off. During this year, whilst cholera was progressing over the continent of Europe, it appeared at Mecca, where it proved very destructive to the ‘Hadji,’ or pilgrims. In August, it broke out at Alexandria, and nearly at the same time all the towns in the Delta of the Nile suffered from its violence. This year, when the pestilence was at its height at Baghdad, the population of the city was computed to be 80,000; of this number, 7000 perished during the first fortnight: the epidemic continued to increase in severity, until the maximum rate of mortality for some days was 5000 daily: 50,000 are supposed to have been carried off in this devoted city during the two months it was devastated by this awful pestilence. In destructiveness it was equal to any former visitation on record; it was, however, to be attributed, not so much to the effects of pestilential miasmata, as to concurring circumstances which obliged the inhabitants to congregate densely in particular parts of the city. The rivers Euphrates and Tigris are flooded twice in the year, first in the spring, from the melting of the snow in the mountains of Armenia, and afterwards in the autumn, from the periodical rains. The country round about was inundated, this year, to an uncommon degree, beyond any traditional example,—the lower part of the country particularly. At Baghdad the waters were for a time kept from bursting into the town by means of the walls, but on the night of the 26th of April a part thereof on the north-west side of the city was undermined, and fell. The waters immediately rushed in and caused the destruction of about 7000 houses, burying 15,000 persons in the ruins: many of these were lying sick of the pestilence; and there was besides a large number of unburied dead. In consequence of the daily fall or partial ruin of houses from the encroachments of the waters before their subsidence occurred, the inhabitants were crowded together, and from being deprived of their usual resources for the disposal of their dead, the sickening horrors of the pestilence were accumulated tenfold before the eyes of the unfortunate survivors, and thus constituted an additional aggravation of their sufferings. The burial-places were laid under water, and while the disposition and power lasted to bury their dead, every open space, says an eye-witness,—the streets, the courtyards of mosques, and even stables,—were turned up to furnish graves. In one stable-yard, which the terrace of our house overlooked, says the same writer, nearly one hundred graves were opened, and filled in the course of one day and a half; it was a fearful sight indeed to see the uncoffined dead brought in barrows and on the backs of asses, and laid upon the ground, till the graves were made ready for them. As the mortality increased, the dead were thrown out into the streets, and were greedily devoured by the ravenous dogs which swarm in all the cities of the East. He did much, then, who took the dead of his household to the river side and threw them in. The pressure of famine was also greatly felt,—the inundation cut off all supplies from the country round about; no fresh provisions of any kind could be had, and although the higher classes, who generally had a stock of corn on hand, were preserved from absolute want, nevertheless respectable persons were seen in crowds begging from door to door for food.
To continue: about the month of May, an epidemic disease made its appearance in Paris, which on comparison presented symptoms analogous to those of the epidemic pestilence described by Sauvages as occurring A.D. 1743, and also to that described by Ruyoux, A.D. 1762. The term ‘la grippe’ was thought applicable to it.