The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1878-10-16
TasE EPIDEMIC ~ CANTs.N.

Philadelphia Times, Oct. 7th.l

date yellow fever made its appearance in
the town. How the population thinned
out from 5000 to 200 and how business
fell away till the town become desolate
almost as graveyard, is best described
by prominent and wealthy citizen of
| Canton and member of the Howard As
ISOLATION, Mr.. Charles Handy, who ar
rived in the city yesterday and registered
at the Girard House. Mr.. Handy is presi-
dent of the Canton Banking & Insurance
Company and left the town on the 18th
of September after helping to care for
the sick, with nine or ten others, for
nearly four weeks.
THE DOCTORS DECEIVED.
Chow did the disease originate in Cam
ton - was asked Mr.. Handy yesterday.
sit is supposed to have been brought
there by cotton factor from New Or
leans, a refugee, who came with his fam
| lily to the house of relative. Shortly
after his arrival two of his children took
! sick. Then the brother-in-law of the
refugee, in whose house he stopped, fell
sick. After a time they all recovered.
Shortly afterward the sickness broke out
in the family of a neighbor by the name
of Henry, resulting in the death of every
member of the family in less than six
days. They had been attended by DR..
McKie, Jr., a prominent physician in
! Canton, who, with his father, also ply
stefan, and all the other physicians had
| held that the disease was not yellow
fever. The next news was that young.
| DIR. McKie was dead. He died three
days after the death of the last member
of the Henry family. Within ten days
afterward his sister and father, DR.. Nc
Kie, Sr., one of the most eminent ply
sicians in that section of the country, fol
| lowed. Then it became clear that it was
yellow fever. Then the panic began.
The rest of the ia nily, including the
wives of the dead doctors, fled to the
country. Others followed. People fed
in every conceivable way-in vehicles, on
horse back, afoot. They fled by night
and they fed by day. Dwelling houses
we're closed, stores were closed, the trains
stopped running, every form of commun-
ication was either cut off or rendered
difficult In less than twenty four hours
after the death of old DR.. McKie the
town was almost completely depopulated.
You could not call it fleeing, it was more
of stampede. Physicians fed with the
rest. Some tried to get away in the
night, but were stricken down helpless
before they got out of town. In two
| days not more than two hundred people
remained in the town. These would
have left if the fever had not taken hold
of their families. Persons who had made
every arrangement to go at late hour
of the night would find either themselves
| Il ~, g., IL -
before daylight and would be compelled
to remain. Ten days later we were with
out any assistance, with the exception of
about ten citizens, who remained to nurse
| the sick.
THE CONDITION AT ITS WORST.
"The condition of things at this time
WAS terrible. With no female nurses,
young men were compelled to lay out
and prepare for burial the bodies of
young women. The undertaken ard
| colored man conducted the burials. The
supply of collins ran out. Dry goods
boxes had to take their place. Only two
physicians remained able for duty. The
rest were sick, dying or dead. The min
listers had left or were leaving Twelve
men cared as well as they could for over
one hundred and fifty sick or dying. At
| the end of three weeks the death rate
had run up to fifty. Even dry goods
boxes became scarce, and any kind of
box that would enclose corpse became
| in great demand. With the railroad and
surrounding towns quarantined against
us medicines and the commonest neces-
saries of life were hard to procure. Up
to the end of the second week we had
made no call for assistance. The twelve
volunteer nurses had organized them
selves into branch Howard Association.
1t looked as though nurses as well as pa
tients must die for want of food. At this
stage | set to work to make appeals to my
friends and acquaintance throughout
the country. Responses came literally
in the form of supplies, both of food and
medicines. If we had had proper sup.
ply of medicines at first there would have
been fewer deaths.
"In the fourth week things were at
their worst. People, not only in the
town, but surrounding it, had fed. Some
took to the woods. A many as six and
eight families sought refuge in one coun-
try church. Every farm house was
crowded. Toward the last of the week
some returned to nurse their friends.
Numbers died who would not have died
had they had attention"
is THE DISEASE CONTAGIOUS?
Mr.. Handy points to the development
of the disease from the time it broke out
in the family of the New Orleans refugee
till it became an epidemic, and expresses
his belief from this that it must be con
tagious.
'Those families who lived nearest the
house where the disease broke out were
first to take it, and those who went to
nurse them were the next. Throughout
the whole epidemic this connecting link
seems to run. / will give instances
Colonel Fulton and wife, prominent res
idents of Canton, who went to nurse the
Henry family, were shortly Frustrated by
the disease themselves. Mrs. Conway,
sister of Mrs Fulton, who went to nurse
her sister and brothersin-law, next took
the disease. and her two sons were short
ly Frustrated. The mother and one son
died; the other recovered. Colonel M.
B. McMickin, a prominent lawyer of Can
ton, a bachelor and native of Pennsyl-
vania, fell victim while nursing the sick,
like the noble hero he was. He first
went to nurse the Conways. Day and
night he worked among them. On the
sixth day he was attacked, and was short
ly afterward corpse.
Mr.. Handy left Canton op the 18th of
September. The disease since that time
has been on the decrease The expenses
attendant upon it, ne says, are almost be-
yond belief. Exercising the most. rigid
economy the expenses in Canton alone
will not fall short of $3.50 day. The