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Epidemics & Pandemics

It is difficult to understand what challenges our ancestors faced to just survive. The amount our ancestors did not know did literally kill many. Plagues and other diseases have been with the human race from the beginning but as travel, with ships and later airplanes, became more available (and faster) these diseases were able to spread much more quickly. Other crisis, such as war and crop failure (resulting in famine) also had a huge impact on our ancestors.

Period Location Disease Notes
1332 India Bubonic plague Bubonic plague was first reported in India but moved along the trade routes into Europe with devastating results.
1346-1348 World wide Bubonic plague Armies also used the "black plague" as an early form of germ warfare, spreading the disease even further.
1348-1350 Europe; Marseille France; Tunis North Africa Bubonic plague Nearly 1/3 the population of Europe succumbed in the first two years.
1349 Norway, Scotland, Prussia, Iceland, and Italy Bubonic plague  
1351 Russia Bubonic plague  
1485 England The Sweat

Transported from Rouen by mercenaries recruited to help establish Henry Tudor.

Also called The Swat, New Acquaintance, Stoupe, or "Knave know they master".
1508 England The Sweat

A fast acting disease that many claimed "they were dancing in court at nine and dead at eleven."

An apparently virile 24 hour disease.
1517 England The Sweat  
1518-1520 Aztec Empire (Mexico) Smallpox Brought to the New World with the Spanish, it aided the conquest since the Aztecs did not have any immunity. Over 25% of the population died.
1527-1530 Inca Empire (Peru) Smallpox Like the Aztecs, the Incan Empire was greatly weakened by European diseases.
1539-1540 England Bubonic plague Loughborough England has been cited as an example of the many plague outbreaks throughout this time period.
1550-1566 England Bubonic plague The population of England may have fallen as much as 6% between 1550 and 1560 due, primarily, to the plague.
1551 England The Sweat  
1577 Oxford England "goal fever"  
1581 York England "goal fever"  
1590 Lincoln England "goal fever"  
1615 England a "burning fever" Little is known of this disease except that it coincided with an outbreak of Hot Ague (fever) elsewhere in England and Europe.
1633-1634 New England Smallpox

American Indian population is hard hit.

Plymouth Massacusetts and the Connecticut River Valley, in particular, were very hard hit.
1634-1635 England Smallpox  
1636 Lake Ontario region Smallpox This epidemic spread from New England.
1636 Hereford England "goal fever"  
1638 England unidentified fever  
1649 New England, Boston Smallpox Boston especially hard hit.
1657 Boston Measles  
1660-1661 England unidentified fever  
1666 London England Bubonic Plague Last great outbreak.
1666 New England Smallpox  
1678 New England Smallpox  
1679 Iroquois land Smallpox  
1687 Boston Measles  
1690 New York (city) Yellow Fever  
1711 Europe, especially Northern Europe Plague Source: World Almanac 1994
1713 Boston Measles  
1721 Boston Smallpox Most of the population fled the city during this very severe outbreak, spreading the disease to other areas of New England and other colonies.
1722

Cotton Mather used a procedure described by his slave, Onesimus, to help reduce the impact of smallpox. He deliberately rubed the pus from an infected person into a cut of a non-infected person. Only 2% of the 300 people that choose this form of innoculation died when the disease hit Boston in 1722.
1729 Boston Measles  
1732-33 World wide Influenza  
1738 SC Smallpox  
1739-40 Boston Measles  
1747 CT, NY, PA, SC Measles  
1759 North America Measles Mostly areas inhabited by white people
1761 North America &
West Indies		 Influenza  
1772 North America Measles  
1775 Boston Smallpox During the siege of the city.
1775 Quebec Smallpox During the invasion of that colony by the Contenential Army.
1775 North America unknown Especially hard in New England
1775-76 World wide Influenza One of worst flu epidemics
1778-1779 New Orleans Smallpox  
1779 Mexico Smallpox  
1780 New Mexico Smallpox Swept through the peublos.
1782 Interior trading posts of Hudson Bay Company Smallpox  
1783 DE (Dover area) Bilious Disorder Extremely fatal
1788 Philadelphia & NY Measles  
1793 VT Influenza and a "putrid fever"  
1793 VA Influenza Killed 500 people in 5 counties in 4 weeks
1793 Philadelphia Yellow Fever Over 4,000 dead
1793 PA (Harrisburg & Middletown) many unexplained deaths  
1794 Philadelphia Yellow Fever  
1796 First successful smallpox vaccination by Edward Jenner on 14 May
1796-97 Philadelphia Yellow Fever  
1798 Philadelphia Yellow Fever One of the worst
1800 First smallpox vaccination in North America on 2 June
1803 New York City Yellow Fever  
1813-14 Central Europe Typhoid Over 200,000 people died.
1817- India Cholera

Starting in Calcutta, cholera quickly spread to other areas of India, and to other parts of the world.

People in Iran and southern Russia, for example, became ill as traders brought the disease with them.
1820-23 USA "fever" Starts on the Schuylkill River in PA and spreads across the nation
Oct 26, 1831 Sunderland, England Cholera First recognized case of the 1831-32 epidemic that spread throughout the world by immigrants and trade ships.
1831-32 Europe, Canada, USA Asiatic Cholera Brought by English immigrants
1832 New York & other major cities Cholera Over 3,000 dead in  NYC from July to August! In October over 4,000 died in New Orleans!
1832 Paris, France Cholera  
1833 Columbus OH Cholera  
1834 New York City Cholera  
1837 Philadelphia Typhus  
1841 USA Yellow Fever Especially severe in the South
1847 New Orleans Yellow Fever  
1847-48 World wide Influenza  
1848-49 North America Cholera  
1849 NYC Cholera Over 4,000 dead in NYC during 1848
1850 USA Yellow Fever  
1850-51 North America Influenza  
1851 Coles Co IL Cholera  
1851 The Great Plains Cholera  
1851 MO Cholera  
1852-53 USA Yellow Fever Nearly 8,000 die in New Orleans during the summer.
1854 Corpus Christi TX USA Yellow Fever  
1854 England Cholera Second great outbreak of this disease. Dr. John Snow used this outbreak to chart the disease to water polluted with sewage.
1855 USA (many parts)  Yellow Fever  
1857-59 World wide Influenza One of the greatest outbreaks of this disease.
1860-61 PA Smallpox  
1862-63 Southern California Smallpox Many Native American Indians and Mexicans died.
1865-73 Philadelphia, NY, Boston, New Orleans, Baltimore, Memphis & Washington DC A series of recurring epidemics of Smallpox, Cholera, Typhus, Typhoid, Scarlet Fever and Yellow Fever  
1873 AL Cholera Moved along the railroad lines from Huntsville to Birmingham and Montgomery as these cities industrialized.
1867 Indianola, Galveston, Corpus Christi TX; New Orleans LA Yellow Fever Over 3,00 perish in New Orleans alone.
1873-75 North America & Europe Influenza  
1878 New Orleans Yellow Fever Last great outbreak of the disease; over 13,000 die in the Mississippi Valley alone
1878 Northern NJ (elsewhere?) Diphtheria Occurred in the Spring.
1883 AL Yellow Fever  
1885 Plymouth PA Typhoid  
1886 Jacksonville FL Yellow Fever  
1895 Washington DC Malaria  
1898 Cuba Yellow Fever Spanish-American War; the disease took over 5,000 soldiers (only 968 died in combat!) in just July & August
1899-1901 South Africa Typhoid Fever As many as 43,000 British troops contracted typhoid during the Boer War even though doctors knew it was a waterborne disease.
1903 Ithaca, NY, USA Typhoid Fever Typhoid Mary Maflon infected 53 (officially) but the final number may have been over 1,400. She showed that a person could carry a disease without exhibiting any symptoms.
1916 USA Polio (infantile paralysis) Over 7,000 deaths and more than 27,000 cases reported in America's worst polio epidemic
1918 World wide Spanish Influenza 
(1918 was the high point year)		 More people hospitalized in WWI from Influenza than wounds. US Army training camps became death camps with 80% death rate in some camps.
1941 Australia Rubella (German Measles) This disease was once considered one of the least troublesome childhood diseases.
1952 USA Polio 3,300 dead and over 57,000 cases reported
1962-65 World wide Rubella (German Measles) Affected as many as 12.5 million causing deafness, blindness; approximately 30,000 babies in USA alone due to maternal rubella
1981-Present World wide AIDS/HIV

This pandemic is now known to have "jumped" from monkeys to humans several times before but died out in the local population.

This time, however, transportation helped the disease to spread.

The starting year is probably earlier but this is the time when the disease began to gain recognition.
1989-1991 MD first, later all USA Measles  

 

 

 
 

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