At Erivan and Tauris one-fourth of the population were destroyed. In Syria its ravages were extremely varied; in some localities, one-half of the populace were carried off; whilst in others, as in Tripoli, only one in about 200 died. At Tiflis, three-fourths of those seized perished; at Astrachan, two-thirds were carried off. Out of 16,000 attacked in the province of Caucasus, 10,000 fell victims; at Moscow, one-half, and at Orenburg only one-fifth of the inhabitants perished. Out of 54,000 and upwards attacked in the Russian provinces, more than 31,000 died. In Hungary, 400,000 were said to have been seized, and more than half were destroyed. In this country (England) and in Wales, according to the Tables furnished by Dr. Merriman, from the Reports sent in for the Privy Council, out of 62,000 attacked, 20,578 died. In Ireland, out of 54,552 who were taken ill, 21,171 fell victims. In the countries of Asia not subject to European dominion, the data respecting the ravages of this disease were extremely vague and scanty, although there is reason to believe that in some of them they were more extensive than in India.
Yellow fever prevailed in various parts of the United States from the year 1834 until 1839, especially in Charleston. The causes were supposed to have been dependent on the extreme heat of the summer,—the elevation of temperature having been greatly beyond what was ever before known. The town was also crowded by strangers, who were employed to rebuild the city after its conflagration: they were badly lodged; and, in consequence of the high wages that were given, an immense number of dissolute and intemperate persons were attracted to the city. It was chiefly among this class that the disease prevailed.
A.D. 1837, influenza appeared in London in the first week in January, the weather during the preceding four months having been singularly wet, cold, and stormy; large quantities of snow having fallen and collected on the ground, even in the streets of London, where it lay for weeks together. The evaporation of the cold water, the result of the succeeding thaw, rendered the air cold and damp for a long time. In the month of November, this year, a hurricane of great violence occurred from the south-west. On Christmas-day there was a storm of wind and snow simultaneously all over the west of Europe,—snow having fallen even in the streets of Lisbon and Palermo: it fell so heavily in England, that it impeded intercourse throughout the country. It was remarkable that snow fell at Canton in February, a thing unknown to the oldest inhabitants. The French army marching upon Constantina, in Algiers, suffered severely from three days of incessant snow. Tremendous hurricanes were experienced about this period over every part of the European and American seas. The weather in England was uncertain and fluctuating from Christmas to the middle of February, when influenza broke out: its duration in London was six or seven weeks; half the population were attacked, and the ordinary rates of mortality during this time were very nearly doubled. The aged and the very young were those who principally suffered. The inhabitants of Russia, Sweden, and Denmark suffered greatly. In Copenhagen, according to Dr. Otto, at least 30,000 were labouring under the disease at one time, in the month of January. Influenza was rife also in Scotland, where it was observed earlier than in England, and it broke out generally in the northern and eastern parts of England before it showed itself in the southern and western. Paris was visited by this epidemic a month later than London, the disease having previously prevailed in Calais and other intervening places. It broke out with great severity in the northern coast of Spain, being aggravated by the events of the civil war then raging in Biscay and Navarre. An epidemic having the character of the influenza of the northern hemisphere was also rife at Sydney and the Cape of Good Hope in the latter part of the year 1836.
Towards the latter end of March, 1838, yellow fever broke out among the garrison and the inhabitants in the island of Ascension, and committed great ravages. The disease was preceded by heavy rains for several days: large collections of water formed in consequence, which evaporated under the influence of a burning sun. One of the most extensive of these occurred in a foul and offensive site, surrounded by low dwelling-houses occupied by Portuguese prisoners, the majority of whom were attacked. The men employed in pumping out this water, complained much of its offensive effluvium; they also suffered from the fever, and that most severely. The epidemic extended to the crews of several ships of war which touched at the island, and many of the seamen and officers perished.
A.D. 1839. In the month of February, an epidemic pestilence broke out, and proceeded with the rapidity of lightning at Mount St. Bernard. It was characterized by typhoid symptoms, and attended by a lengthened delirium, with occasional short, lucid intervals; out of one family consisting of twenty-one individuals, three only survived: it was confined exclusively to those living on the mountain. Epidemic erysipelas raged with great intensity at Algiers during this period; epidemic disease also prevailed in the district of Coulommiers in France, termed ‘sudor miliaris.’ The premonitory symptoms varied very generally: some of those attacked, when they awoke, found themselves inundated with perspiration; in some, the disease was preceded for some days by prostration of strength, with pains in the joints, &c.: a prominent symptom was a pain and sensation of smothering in the epigastric region; this feeling was greater or less in proportion to the quantity of perspiration, which in some was so profuse that on lifting up the bed-clothes a dense vapour was seen to arise: an eruption appeared after the third or fourth day; ten days after, the epidermis became wrinkled and fell off in the shape of scaly furfuraceous matter. The most fatal cases were those in which agonizing pains were experienced at the epigastrium. The autopsiæ exhibited vesicular eruptions in the intestinal canal. Petechial fever was very prevalent at St. Petersburgh this year (1839); it affected persons in a peculiar manner; during their illness, there was no delirium or appearance of disorder of the intellectual faculties; they spoke and acted sensibly, but after the subsidence of the malady, towards the end of the third or fourth week, they awoke as it were to a consciousness of their condition. Measles also raged epidemically. Yellow fever, this year (1839), was very destructive at Galveston in the republic of Texas.
A.D. 1840, blight appeared in Germany among the crops, especially the potato; it prevailed to so great an extent, Dr. Martius reports, as to cause a very serious alarm, and even to threaten the total extinction of that esculent. At the same time, the island of Arran, with other parts of the Highlands of Scotland, suffered from a similar disease among the potato crops: it prevailed there from 1839 to 1842, destroying at least half the vegetation.
A.D. 1841, plague raged in Syria, and at Erzeroum with great violence. During this period, extending to the year following, 1842, an epidemic religious ecstasy, as it was called, prevailed in Sweden. This singular epidemic malady was distinguished by two prominent and remarkable symptoms,—one physical, consisting of spasm, or involuntary contractions or contortions, &c.; the other, mental, being an ecstasy, more or less involuntary, during which the patients fancied themselves divinely inspired, and felt impelled to speak of supernatural things which they fancied they saw; they were occasionally moved to preach. It was the female portion of the community that suffered most. Anything offensive to the mind re-acted convulsively on the body, causing a sort of chorea, which it was attempted to distinguish or divide into two distinct forms of the disease, called mental and physical chorea. Several thousand persons were attacked by the disease; it was rarely fatal. Persons who had been affected, when convalescing, felt languid and debilitated, both in body and mind. Yellow fever at this period was fatal at Key West, East Florida, in the United States. Early in 1841 remittent fever occurred among the crew of the ‘Wanderer’ a ship belonging to the Royal Navy, chiefly among the boats’ crews who had been employed in the rivers Nunez and Pongos. Seventy persons were taken ill, and nine died. In the course of this year, remittent fever prevailed in many other Queen’s ships employed on the African coast to put down the slave trade.
A.D. 1843. Blight seized on the potato crop this year throughout the United States, and also in British America. Epidemic erysipelas, known by the popular name of ‘the black tongue,’ broke out in November, 1843, in Ripley county, United States, and traversed most of the townships of the Delaware, Dearborn county, &c. This disease, Dr. Sutton says, “has either assumed several characters, or we have several epidemics traversing the country together: one was erysipelas connected with cynanche tonsillaris, or swelling of some of the lymphatic glands in the throat; and another was considered to be a typhoid pneumonia, sometimes accompanied by enlargement of the axillary glands. These two diseases,” continued the writer, “have been so intimately connected in my practice, that it has been a question to me whether the last was not a pulmonic erysipelas, the premonitory symptoms in each disease being alike, the character of the fever in each being the same, and it was often the case that one form of the disease changed into that of the other. The disease was not generally fatal.” Boston, in the autumn of this year, was visited by an epidemic fever; it prevailed also at a place called Erie in the county of New York, during the months of October and November. This little town, or rather settlement, Erie, is made up of some half-dozen houses, containing a population of forty-three persons, of which number twenty-eight were seized between the 19th November and 7th December, ten of them dying of the disease. Some disputes existed in this little community, and the generality of them were of opinion that the wells had been poisoned by some evil-disposed persons: there was not, however, the least foundation for any such supposition. The disease commenced with rigors, chills, pain in the loins and head; typhoid symptoms supervened, the tongue becoming brown and dry; low muttering delirium was noticed, also a cough, with expectoration of a muco-purulent character. Another small town which about this period was visited by a very fatal disease, yellow fever, is an inland settlement in Wilkinson county, Mississippi, containing a population of 750 inhabitants. It is situated about forty miles from Natchez, on high ground, 340 feet above the level or bank of the Mississippi with a gradual slope in all directions; there is no creek, pond, or low land near the town,—in short, on a review of the town and surrounding country, it would be pronounced to be one of the most eligible sites in the south for a healthy settlement. At the time there was no yellow fever prevalent at New Orleans,—in fact, there had not been any case of the disease in any place along the river; consequently it could not have been imported. Nearly every one in the town was seized; and the mortality was great, seven to ten dying daily in so small a population for the first week. The disease was very rapid in its progress; the patients were suddenly seized with violent pains in the head and loins, and with burning fever; in a short time vomiting of a blackish fluid, similar to coffee-grounds, ensued, and in a few hours death closed the scene.
A.D. 1842 and 1843, cholera in a sporadic form raged with considerable violence in many parts of Persia, continuing at intervals during the two subsequent years.
A.D. 1844, yellow pestilence committed great ravages at Goree, in Senegal.