The epidemic of the yellow fever, which started in Charleston, South Carolina, was intense, intrusive and painful, as Dr. Lining’s letter reveals. The act of naming it as yellow fever would be a potential business risk for the colony. In his letter, Dr. John Lining addresses the history of the yellow fever during the year 1748 in Chareston, South Carolina. Lining provides descriptions of the disease during this time in the hopes that Dr. Robert Wyatt can provide possible cures to the disease. The epidemic of yellow fever, which conquered Charleston, South Carolina, occurred throughout the 1700s, causing numerous fatalities.
Dr. Lining describes those who were susceptible to yellow fever during this time, which included “both sexes of the white colour, especially strangers lately arrived from cold climates, Indians, Mistees, Mulattoes of all ages, excepting young children and of those only such as had formerly escaped the infection” (7). The natives and creoles, who, because they were native to these tropical climates were already exposed to the disease’s infections, were thought to be immune. Diseases developed more strongly and quickly in urbanized and crowded areas. During this time, however, the reasons for certain individuals’ immunity was not understood. Dr. Lining goes on to explain that “negroes” were not susceptible to the disease, though they were equally exposed to the illness (7). While it was not medically proven why slaves had a lower rate of infection than whites, most believed that they had some sort of natural immunity to the disease. Dr. Lining provides the changes in climate and accounts of rain during the months of September and October, which reflected the occurrence of the fever. Dr. Lining includes the starting symptoms people experienced during the start of the disease, which included headaches, joint pain, and loss of appetite (9). “When the disease was very acute”, Dr. Lining writes, “violent convulsions seized” patients (24). Dr. Lining explains to Dr. Wyatt in this letter that warmer climates increased the infection, while colder ones decreased it (25). During the warmer climates, Dr. Lining states, the symptoms patients experienced were heightened, resulting in more violent and fatal scenarios. Those who experienced the fever during cold climates had less intense symptoms and were less likely to die. The conditions of which these patients lived also added to the intensity of the disease. Dr. Lining states that the disease was more fatal for those who “lay in small chambers” (25). Dr. Lining closes his letter with a quote from Dr. Sprat’s Account of the Plague of Athens: “Nature, alas! Was now surpriz’d and all her forces seiz’d, before she was how to resist advis’d” (30).
The historical context of Dr. Lining’s letter describes, in great detail, a disease that prevailed greatly in Charleston, South Carolina during the 1700s. Disease prevailed in Colonial South Carolina, and the yellow fever was the dominant of the diseases. While the public did not state yellow fever to be the epidemic in 1761, the slave merchants denied that it was the yellow fever. They neglected to correctly label the yellow fever epidemic because it would hurt potential business for Charleston. There was a dispute on how the yellow fever epidemic broke out. General William Moultrie believed that the outbreak of the fever occurred among American prisoners after Charleston surrendered to the British in May 1780. The historical context of Dr. Lining’s letter addresses the famous yellow fever epidemic that was widespread in Charleston. As Dr. Lining’s letter suggests, there was a struggle to cure the fever. Dr. Lining’s frustration and anxiety in witnessing the disease is seen throughout the letter. The pattern of gruesome symptoms stunned Lining. By the late 1690s, acts were being passed for the quarantining of the diseases in Charleston. South Carolina played a significant role in the deterioration of the disease for its neighboring colonies. Through the following years, South Carolina began to show a medical advance.
This document, which was found through the database, Early American Imprints, Evan series, is a letter from Dr. John Lining to Dr. Robert Wyatt. Dr. John Lining was a physician at Charleston, while Dr. Robert Wyatt was a professor of medicine at the University of Edinburg. The document, “Description of the American Yellow Fever, Which Prevailed at Charleston, in South Carolina, in the Year 1748” was published in Philadelphia in 1799.
Excerpt from Description of the American Yellow Fever, Which Prevailed at Charleston, in South Carolina, in the Year 1748
Sir,
In obedience to your desire, I have sent you the history of the yellow fever as it appeared in the year 1748, which, as far as I can remember, agreed in its symptoms with the same disease, when it visited this town in former years. In this “ history, l have confined myself to a faithful narration of facts, and have avoided any physical inquiry into the causes of the several symptoms in this disease; as that would have required more leisure than I am, at present, of, and would perhaps have been less useful than a plain description.
. . .
That fever, which continues two or three days, and terminates without any critical discharge by sweat, urine, stool, & leaving the patient excessively weak, with a small pulse, easily depressible by very little motion, or by an erect posture; and which is soon succeeded with an i&teritious color in the white of the eyes and the vomiting, hemorrhages, & and these, without being accompanied with any degree of a febrile pulse and heat, is called in America, the yellow fever.
. . .
For within these twenty-five years, it has only been four times epidemical in this town, namely, in the autumns of the years 1732, 39, 45 and 48, though none of these years (excepting that of 1739, whose summer and autumn were remarkably rainy) were either warmer or more rainy (and some of them less so) than the summers and autumns were in several other years, in which we had not one instance of any one being seized with this fever ; which is contrary to what would probably have happened, if particular constitutions of the weather were productive of it, Without infectious miasmata. But that this is really an infectious disease, seems plain, not only from this, that all the nurses catched it and died of it ; but likewise, as soon as it appeared in town, it soon invaded newcomers, those who never had the disease before, and country-people when they came to town, while those who remained in the country escaped it, as likewise did those who had formerly felt its dire effects, though they walked about the town, visited the sick in all the different states of the disease, and attended the funeral of those who died of it. And lastly, Whenever the disease appeared here, it was easily traced to some person who had lately arrived from some of the West-lndian islands, where it was epidemical. Although the infection was spread with great celerity through the town, yet if any from the country received it in town, and sickened on their return home, the infection spread no further, not even so much as to one the same house.
. . .
III. The subjects which were susceptible of this fever, were both foxes of the white color, especially strangers lately arrived from cold climates, Indians, Mistees, Mulattoes of all ages, excepting young children and of those only such as had formerly escaped the infection. And indeed it is a great happiness that our constitutions undergo such alterations in the small-pox, measles and yellow fever, as for ever afterwards secure us from a second attack of those diseases. There is something very singular in the constitution of the Negroes, which renders them not liable to this fever; for though. many of these were as much exposed as the nurses to the infection, yet I never knew one instance of this fever among them, though they are equally subject With the white people to the bilious fever.
IV. This fever began in the middle or rather towards the cud of August, and continued till near the middle of October, when the weather became cold enough to prevent its further progress.
. . .
On the first day they generally dozed much, but afterwards were very watchful.
10. Restlessness and almost continual gestations came on the second day.
11. A great despondency attend the sick from the first attack.
12. The strength was greatly prostrated from the first attack.
13. The pain in the head, loins and of which they had complained (V) before the attack, were greatly increased and in some the pain in the forehead was very acute and darting; but those pains went generally off the second day.
14. The face was flushed, and the eyes were hot, inflamed and unable to bear much light.
15. On the first day, many of them, at times, were a little delirious, but afterwards not until the recess of the fever.
. . .
XV. As to the prognostics in the third (x) stadium, it is sufficient to say,
“ Nature, alas ! was now surpriz’d,
“And all her forces seiz’d,
“Before she was how to resist advis’d.”*
*Dr. Sprat’s Account of the plague of Athens.