Epidemics
Year | Geographic Area | Disease |
1657 | Boston | Measles |
1687 | Boston | Measles |
1690 | New York | Yellow Fever |
1713 | Boston | Measles |
1729 | Boston | Measles |
1732-1733 | Worldwide | Influenza |
1738 | South Carolina | Small Pox |
1739-1740 | Boston | Measles |
1747 | Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New York & South Carolina | Measles |
1759 | North America (areas inhabited by whites) | Influenza |
1761 | North America & West Indies | Influenza |
1772 | North America | Measles |
1775 | North America (especially New England) | unknown epidemic |
1775-1776 | Worldwide | Influenza (one of the worst outbreaks ever) |
1788 | Philadelphia & New York | Measles |
1793 | Vermont | Influenza & "putrid fever" |
1793 | Virginia | Influenza (killed 500 people in 5 counties in 4 weeks) |
1793 | Philadelphia | Yellow Fever (one of the worst outbreaks ever) |
1793 | Dover, Delaware | "extremely fatal" bilious disorder |
1793 | Pennsylvania - Harrisburg & Middletown | many unexplained deaths |
1794 | Philadelphia | Yellow Fever |
1796-1797 | Philadelphia | Yellow Fever |
1798 | Philadelphia | Yellow Fever (one of the worst outbreaks ever) |
1803 | New York | Yellow Fever |
1820-1823 | Nationwide - (starts on Schuylkill River, PA & spreads) | "fever" |
1831-1832 | Nationwide - (brought by English emigrants) | Asiatic Cholera |
1832 | New York & other major cities | Cholera |
1837 | Philadelphia | Typhus |
1841 | Nationwide - especially severe in the south | Yellow Fever |
1847 | New Orleans | Yellow Fever |
1847-1848 | Worldwide | Influenza |
1848-1849 | North America | Cholera |
1850 | Nationwide | Yellow Fever |
1850-1851 | North America | Influenza |
1852 | Nationwide - New Orleans, 8,000 die in summer | Yellow Fever |
1855 | Nationwide | Yellow Fever |
1857-1859 | Worldwide | Influenza (one of disease's greatest epidemics) |
1860-1861 | Pennsylvania | Small Pox |
1865-1873 | Philadelphia, New York, Boston, New Orleans, Baltimore, Memphis & Washington, DC | A series of recurring epidemics of Smallpox, Cholera, Typhus, Typhoid, Scarlet fever & Yellow fever |
1873-1875 | North America & Europe | Influenza |
1878 | New Orleans | Yellow fever (last great epidemic of disease) |
1885 | Plymouth, Pennsylvania | Typhoid |
1886 | Jacksonville, FL | Yellow Fever |
1918 | Worldwide | Influenza (high point year). More people hospitalized
in World War I for Influenza than wounds. US Army training camps became death camps, with 80% death rate in some camps. |