(Look Back with Bob Enoch - Photo Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection)

THE SICKLY SEASON of 1822-23

By Diana Hill

Treatment for those affected by the epidemic, as described by Dr. Hildreth will shock us today: Blisters were created on the stomach, arms and legs by applying hot plasters to the skin.

During the chills, powdered hot peppers, liquor, and salts were mixed together, soaked in a flannel cloth and applied, hot, to the arms and legs. The worst cases were given small doses of mercury every 3-4 hours. Sometimes powdered charcoal mixed with yeast was found helpful. Mild cases were “easily managed with bark, snakeroot, etc.” Cold water was useful as a drink and was applied externally during the high fevers.

Those who survived would often have relapses which were treated with bloodletting and iron supplements. Such was the accepted medical care 200 years ago.

The epidemic of 1822 eased with the heavy frosts of November.

Though the spring of 1823 was pleasant, it rained steadily from June through August, causing all streams to be filled with water. The low lands were wet so long that they gave off disgusting, noxious odors. Farmers complained that ploughing the earth gave off the same sickly smell. The epidemic began again in June, spreading throughout the area, and this time was more deadly in the country than in the towns. Dr. Hildreth said, “This was doubtless occasioned by the greater quantity of stagnant water about them, and the luxuriant growth of weeds which overran the farms from want of hands to till them, thereby obstructing the free circulation of the air, and by their decay filling it with poisonous vapours.” (At this time, people presumed that some odors could cause disease. Doctors were not yet convinced that germs played a part in illness, and the discovery that insects could carry disease didn’t come until the 1890s.)

The rains of summer led to a fall of great harvests, though weeds grew 15-18 feet high. Luckily fruit and grain were plentiful, for Dr. Hildreth felt that otherwise there would have been famine in the land. “There were not well people enough to take care of the sick, much less to attend to the cultivation of their farms.”

“From the great number affected, and the illness of the physicians, numbers were deprived altogether of medical advice, or were only visited once or twice in the course of The Sickness. From these causes, many lives were lost, that, with regular attention, might have been saved.”

Marietta again called a day of fasting and prayer for July 17, 1823.

Dr. Hildreth visited 60-80 patients a day that summer. In August he contracted the disease himself. He was cured in a few days by taking Jesuit’s bark in quarter oz. doses. This was an experimental medicine at the time and few patients would try it, but it contained quinine which was later used to successfully treat malaria.

As in the year before, the disease raged until November’s heavy frosts. Nearly all who escaped the disease in 1822 were sickened with it in 1823. Those who survived it in 1822 were not seriously affected in 1823.

To continue….

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Diana Hill, a retired Wood County educator, is secretary of the Wood County Historical and Preservation Society.

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Bob Enoch is president of the Wood County Historical and Preservation Society. If you have comments or questions about Look Back items, please contact him at: roberteenoch@gmail.com, or by mail at WCHPS, PO Box 565, Parkersburg, WV 26102.