Epidemics (Early St. Louis)

CHOLERA (1832-1833)
Cholera reached North America, reporting its first death in Quebec on 08 June 1832 It first invaded New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia and though precautions were taken in St. Louis to cleanse the city and to "remove all unhealthful matters from the streets" - all was of little avail. A solider at Jefferson Barracks was attacked with the disease, which was unwillingly prounced by the physician as Asiatic Cholera, and it soon spread to the heart of the city whose population then was 6,918 (including those who fled town). The number of deaths averaged thrity per day and within two weeks, about twenty a day. It ravaged the city for a month and then stopped ... until February of 1833.

According to The State of Missouri by Walter Williams, the Asiatic Cholera killed over 400 people in St. Louis in 1832.

Sources: Edward's Great West; The State of Missouri

CHOLERA (1848-1852)
The steamboat Amaranth arrived in St. Louis from New Orleans with thirty persons on board infected with cholera. These were followed by others who carried the same disease, but it was initially not detected. The rate of deaths in the months to follow (Jan 36; Feb 21; Mar 78; Apr 126, May 78), not including the steamboats which brought in the dead, and by the week ending June 24th there had been 601 deaths or 86 per day, bringing about great alarm. Meetings were held and the city was cleansed by the health inspectors. Schools were set up as hospitals, and coal, sulphur and tar were burnt in every street though unbeknown to them, it was not the air that needed purifying, but rather the wells and privies. Between this and establishing a quarantine on all infected boats, the disease had rapidly declined by July when only three deaths of cholera were reported.

During the year of 1850 there were deaths in every month, July being the worse with 458 and a total for the year of 883. In 1851, 845 deaths with 505 occurring in June; a total of 802 deaths in 1852, bringing the total of those years to 6,847 lives lost to cholera.

Source: A Trestise on Asiatic Cholera

CHOLERA (1866)
From the St. Louis Medical Reporter dated Dec. 1, 1866 the following mortality of cholera at St. Louis was reported: Week ending Aug 3 - five deaths; Aug 10 - 120 deaths; Aug 17 - 754 deaths; Aug 24 - 991 deaths; Aug 31 - 520 deaths; Sep 7 - 492 deaths; Sep 14 - 294 deaths; Sep 21 - 203 deaths; Sep 28 - 81 deaths; Oct 5 - 30 deaths; Oct 12 - 19 deaths; Oct 26 - 4 deaths; Nov 2 - 3 deaths; Nov 9 - 2 deaths for a total of 3,527.

According to Dr. Spinzig's 1877 publication on the nature of cholera, "when the atmosphere represents the mean of its normal state --- i.e. in addition to the normal degree of temperature and barometrical pressure the mean or an excess of positive electricity or ozon -- epidemic diseases can not occur, and when they have occurred under atmospheric alterations, denoting an abnormal state, upon the return of the normal condition, epidemics decline and ultimately disappear.

Sources: Cholera, The Law of its Occurrence. Non-Occurrence and its Nature

DIPHTHERIA (1886-7; 1895)
Making an alarming appearance, the epedimic prevailed and took the lives of 1,840 persons between 1886-1887. It appeared again in 1895 at which time 3,196 cases were reported with 526 fatalities.

Source: Encyclopedia of the History of St. Louis

SHIP FEVER (1848)
A Fatal and contagious disease brought by immigrants arriving by boat appeared in St. Louis but soon disappeared.

Source: Encyclopedia of the History of St. Louis

SMALLPOX (1873; 1881-1882)
Although smallpox first made its appearance in St. Louis in 1779, there came another epidemic in 1873. Out of 3,759 cases reported, 1,591 were fatalities. The following year 837 died from the smallpox. The epidemic continued into 1874 and 1875 with 1,050 deaths reported.

Smallpox appeared again in 1881 with 115 deaths - all occuring at the quarantine hospital where the patients had been moved. It appeared again the following year in April and was the cause of 233 deaths.

Sources: History of the Exploration and Settlement of Missouri; Encyclopedia of the History of St. Louis

TYPHOID FEVER (1892)
Polluted waters supplied by the reservoiers discharging from Harlem Creek and Prairie Avenue sewer, typhoid fever made its appearance in that neighborhood taking the lives of 514 of 3,624 reported cases.

Source: Encyclopedia of the History of St. Louis

YELLOW FEVER (1878)
After Cuba's independence from Spain, refugees began fleeing and many arrived in New Orleans, which prompted President Rutherford Hayes to sign into law the Quarantine Act in hope of stopping the disease coming to the shores from the ships. A quarantine was stationed on the Mississippi river south of New Orleans and one ill sailor aboard the Emily B. Souder was diagnosed with malaria and was removed from the ship. Although the ship was fumigated and cleared to the dock, others fell ill and died. The news sent one fifth of the population of New Orleans fleeing for safer areas and by 10 Aug the state board of health had declared an epidemic. In St. Louis, the mortality rate was seventy-one of 151 cases, or a ratio of forty-seven percent.

Sources: Reports to the St. Louis Medical Society on Yellow Fever; The Great Fever, American Experience presented online by PBS.

List of Sources