Adair County KY; Narrative of the Cholera Epidemic of 1873 Images Submitted by Deb Haines: Transcription Submitted by Sherri Hall: Date: Tuesday, 22-Apr-2003 Source: Original images may be viewed at ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Part 10; Pages 314 - 319 (contains information pertaining to Adair County) In Adair County, the epidemic of Cholera was confined to the town of Columbia, to one locality of that town, and to a few cases who, having visited the infected locality, returned to their homes in the surrounding country. Columbia has a population of about six hundred inhabitants. Very few negroes reside within the corporation limits. The town is built upon a hill-side, and is by nature most admirably drained. The arrangement of the town is upon a square, in the center of which stands the court-house, and from the square streets are laid off to the north, south, east, and west. Opposite the court-house, and at the corner of the street leading north, is a hotel known as the Winfrey House. Upon the side street, and opposite to the hotel, is a large barn which is used as a livery and sale stable, under the charge of the proprietor of the hotel. In the rear of this stable is a large covered privy, which was used not only by visitors but by nearly all the male inhabitants of the town. Columbia has always been considered a healthy town. The epidemics of the past were Cholera in 1833 and 1835, from which disease the town suffered severely; dysentery in the fall of 1849, from which disease over sixty persons died; congestive intermittent fever in 1862, from which disease a large number of persons died; but from that time until 1873 no disease could be classed as epidemic. In the month of August,1873, the sanitary condition of the town was bad. The ground around the dwellings, as well as the streets, was covered with debris of all kinds. The privies, with the exception of that in rear of the Winfrey House stables, were built on the surface. Stables, pig-pens, chicken-houses were unclean, and around them human excrement was mixed with other debris. The rear premises of the Winfrey House were even in worse condition that is ordinarily observed at country hotels. The rear of the lot upon which the stable stands is lower than the surrounding lots which had been built upon. The privy was over a pit dug into the ground, but this pit was full to overflowing with excrement and the washings of the yard after each rain-fall being into it, the ground in all directions was saturated with the fluid contents of this pit. The rear windows of a row of brick buildings that face upon the public square open into this stable-yard. An effort was made early in August by the physicians of the town to improve the sanitary condition. In some instances they succeeded in inducing the property-holders to clean their premises, and an effort was directed toward at least the stable of the Winfrey House; this effort was opposed by the proprietor as an unwarrantable interference with his property. On the 29th day of August a negro boy, fourteen years of age, who had been as a hostler at the Marion County fair, returned to Columbia and went to work at the stables of the Winfrey House. He had a diarrhea when he arrived, and during the evening made frequent use of the stable-privy. At an early hour the next day (August 30), a negro man who was in charge of these stables was suddenly taken with Cholera. He was carried into a basement-room of the hotel where he died after an illness of forty-eight hours. About 8 o'clock a.m. the same day, the boy whose arrival from Lebanon has been noted, was found in a mule-shed adjoining the stable in collapse. He was carried into the stable preparatory to being placed in a bed, but died in a few moments. Later in the same day, a young lady twenty years of age, the eldest daughter of Mr. WINFREY, who resided some fifteen miles from the town, upon Carey's Creek, but who had been in the town on the previous day, and who was known to have used the stable-privy, was attacked at her home with the same disease, and died after six hours' illness. This outbreak of the disease occurred at a time when the town of Columbia was full of non-residents. The circuit court was in session, and a large number of strangers were registered at the hotel, where were also congregated a number of regular boarders. August 31, the proprietor of the hotel was attacked, and died within twelve hours, and during the early hours of the same day five members of the Winfrey family and six boarders at the hotel were taken ill, a total of twelve cases in one house, all being attacked within a few hours of each other, and within eighteen hours eight deaths had occurred. During this day, all who were able to do so left the house; among others, a Mr. VAUGHN removed his wife to Cane Valley, a small village some eight miles east of Columbia. Then Mr. VAUGHN returned to the Winfrey House to render aid to the sick. At about 3 o'clock p.m. Mrs. VAUGHN was taken with Cholera, and her husband was recalled from the town. September 1, four persons who had boarded at the hotel were taken sick, and within sixteen hours all had died. Of this group of cases, Dr. Henry OWENS, the rear windows of whose office opened into the stable-yard, and who had been assiduous in his attention to the sick, was, after he was himself attacked, carried to his home in the country, where he died. Another gentleman, Col. Robert MILLER, who had the day before left the hotel and gone to the Griffin Springs, some six miles distant, was attacked, and died after an illness of sixteen hours. A negro man who had nursed the negro who was the first case reported on the 30th, died after an illness of fifteen hours. On the same day Mr. VAUGHN, who had left the town on the previous night to nurse his wife sick with Cholera at Case Valley, was taken with the same disease. The lady recovered, but Mr. VAUGHN died after a tedious illness. A white man, fifty years of age, who had used the infected privy on the 30th of August, died at his home on Green River after an illness of fourteen hours; and a young girl living on Casey's Creek, whose father died of Cholera on the 30th, was taken ill and died after ten hours' illness. September 2, a white boy who had frequented the hotel and stables was attacked but recovered. Two white men, father and son, who had nursed the sick at the hotel, and had made the coffins for some of the dead, were taken ill. The father, aged seventy years, died; the son recovered. A farmer who lived some four miles north of the town, but who had been in the hotel stables the previous day, was taken ill at his home and died in twenty-four hours. A gentleman who had left Columbia on Sunday, August 31, died of Cholera at the hotel at Campbellsville, Taylor County. During the three following days no new cases occurred. September 6, a young daughter of Mrs. WINFREY was attacked and recovered. September 8, four cases occurred in persons who had been exposed to the infection at the hotel. The attack was mild in each instance and all recovered. September 10, an aged man and his wife, residing in a secluded position some two miles from the town, were both taken with Cholera. The husband recovered; the wife died. It is not known how they were subjected to the infection. September 20, a man aged seventy-five years was taken with Cholera and died after a few hours' illness, and on the 23d his wife died of the same disease. After the disease had become epidemic, a general police of the town was made. The Winfrey House was closed. The stable was abandoned after the privy had been disinfected and filled with fresh earth. It is the opinion of the two physicians who remained in Columbia during the epidemic that in the majority of the cases the excreta were not disinfected, but that they were cast upon the ground around the houses. A young man who nursed Mr. Winfrey during his illness informed the writer that the dejections of this case were emptied from the window of the room in which the man was sick into a dirty lane which separated the kitchen from the hotel. By Dr. U.L. TAYLOR of Columbia, to whom we are under obligations for important aid in the collection fo the facts of this demonstration, we are informed that the treatment consisted of calomel, opium, astringents, and stimulants. Dr. Taylor is of the opinion that to the use of calomel the only beneficial results that were obtained should be attributed. On the 27th of October, 1873, the writer visited the Winfrey House and asked permission to inspect the rooms in which the Cholera cases had occurred. We found that no effort had been made at cleaning beyond a washing of the bed-clothing and brooming of the floors. The mattresses and other beds remained unchanged and the stains of the defections were visible. Under the upper portion of the bed upon which Winfrey had died a number of soiled rags were found, in all probability just as they were tucked beneath the mattress during its last occupancy. The importance of prompt and immediate cleansing of these rooms, the removal of all soiled articles of property, and a general police of the grounds was most earnestly impressed upon the person in charge of the property, with the only result of eliciting an expression of displeasure at such interference - a closing demonstration of the same foolish obstinacy that had subjected the town to a fearful epidemic. ************************************************************************* USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. 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