Norwich bulletin., 1920-11-25
ODD INCIDENTS IN AMERICAN
 HISTORY
GREAT EPIDEMICs IN AMERICA

GREAT EPIDEMICS IN AMERICA |,
 The marked improvement in Govern ment and local sanitation has resulted in the prompt checking of any epidemic in the United States during the past quarter of a century, but in the early history of our country there were number of great ravages of cholera. smallpox and similar contagious diseases.
 One of the first of these was the vel low fever or plague" of 1763, which occurred in Philadelphia in that year. and reached such a degree of malignity thaa it threatened to wipe the city en- known as the "Barbadoes disternper, !" since it seemed to come up the river in ships from the West Indies.
 Following this was the malignant spotted fever, in which the patient had large red spots here and there. It broke out i'll Massachusetts in 1906 and con tinued until 1915 in the various north erns states It usually attacked persons of the most hardy and robust constitu- tions, and often proved fatal in a few hours. Not uncommonly the patient was dead before a physician could be brought to his assistance.
 l In 1922 the yellow fever again Appear l ed in New York with great virulence. l the city south of the park being fenced off and nearly deserted families, merchants. banks and even the city government re- moving to q distance. But in 1S33-5 the | disease was far more virulent. Tn 1922 the Asiatic cholera made fts appearance in the United States for the i first time. coming by way of Canada. It numbered thousands of victims in the North. and in the Southern States 1t made great havoc amongst the slave population. 1 who fell ready and easy subjects of its 1 power. Fatal beyond all precedent was 1 the malady-in New Orleans and St. Louis. | The Middle States never before knew such a terrible visitation
 Again this awful scourge appear red k' | 1S49 to blast the land with death on every side, carrying terror to every home and heart, sweeping tens of thousands i in the grave. In New Orleans 1t broke l out about the middle on December 1S4s | and continued through the winter Sc | frightful were its devastations that it is i estimated to have decimated the in hab- itants that remained in some wards ot the city.
 The same epidemic finally reached New
 York the following May and so violent
 was it's spread that during the weeE l ending July 21 more than seven hun dred deaths occurred. The 3rd day o1 August. 1S49, was appointed by the Pres
 idents of the United States as a day O
 fasting and prayer that Gould woult
 avert the pestilence that waIketh in tn,
 darkness and the destruction that vast
 eth at monday
 Again in 1853 terror and panic seize,
 the land from another visit of the vel
 low fever, or plague. It spent its chic
 force upon that oft doomed city, New Or | yy-ba i. months 10 per cent. of the whole popula tion fell victims.
 Concerning the origin or producinj
 causes of these epidemics authorities hay differed so widely that little of a con s elusive character on these points is clea 1 and the same may be said respecting ssA
 modes of treatment.
 -i In no other place, perhaps, were tn ! manifestations and effects of the deadl
 epidemic of 1793 upon human conduct ex
 hibited more strikingly than in Phiiadel n phia. The dread of the contagion drov ? parents from their children, and eve
 wives from their husbands. All the tie
 of affection and consanguinity were Ter
 asunder. and humanity was left to mour
 over it's own selfshness in the ardor C self preservation.
 Such was the degree of consternatio
 dismay, and affraight which possesse Q peoples minds that, according to M Carey the historian of that period, mo:
 of the inhabitants who could by an
 means make it convenient fled the cit, 'f Of those who remained many shut then 1t selves up in their houses, being afra' If to walk the street.
 Everybody went about smoking q
 gars and tobacco, even women, whic h. was considered as a preventative of tf 1t diseases. while others chewed garr Is freely and some kept it is their peek
 and shoes. Churches, libraries and ott,
 places of public resort were closed, ar -,x those persons who ventured abroad h; ,o handkerehiefs or sponges 1T
 pregnated with vinegar
 ca1pphor to their noses. Citi
 other than Philadelphia which were C bo pecially affected, experienced the sa1 - appalling terror.
 h. (Tomorrow-Fate of the First Amerie tn Born Chld)
 A man usually puts his best fe en forward, but not so with a mule.