NARRATIVE OF THE CHOLERA EPIDEMIC OF 1873 
CONTAINED IN PART 4 (PAGES 272 THROUGH 279)
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Images Submitted By: DEB HAINES 
  [http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00003.html#0000719]
Transcribed By: CHERYL WILSON 
  [http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00003.html#0000720]
Date: 22 Apr 2003
Subject: NARRATIVE OF THE CHOLERA EPIDEMIC OF 1873 
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We are especially indebted to Dr. John L. Cook for aid in collecting 
the information herewith presented.


CARTER COUNTY

CHOLERA EPIDEMIC OF 1873 IN CARTER COUNTY.

Please note CHOLERA is an acute infectious epidemic disease caused
by the bacterium vibrio comma, characterized by watery diarrhea,
vomiting, cramps, suppression of urine, and collapse.
(The Tormont Webster's Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary)

By Dr. P. H. Bailhache,Surgeon United States Marine-Hospital Service.
(Received through the Supervising Surgeon Marine-Hospital Service.)

Carter is a county in the northeastern portion of the State of 
Kentucky, bordering upon Virginia, from which State it is separated 
by the Big Sandy River, a navigable stream.  Grayson, the county-town, 
has a population of about fifteen hundred inhabitants.  This town is 
located upon the Little Sandy River, in a hilly region which abounds 
in coal and iron ore.

On the 19th or 20th of June a number of railroad employs, who were 
working on a railroad cut some four miles south of the town of 
Grayson, were suddenly taken sick with vomiting and purging.  Seven 
of these men died in three or four days, and as it was supposed that 
they had been poisoned; all left the work and the neighborhood.

June 23, Mike Vincent, a laborer, at that time hauling for the 
railroad, and living one mile below the place where the negroes 
who had died were housed, was taken with a similar disease, but 
recovered.

June 24, James Bryson, who lived about two miles from Vincent, 
was taken with the same disease, and died.

The negroes who were first attacked had their cabins along the 
banks of the Little Sandy Creek.  Vincent lived one mile below 
these cabins, and Bryson two miles below upon the same stream.  
The negroes, Vincent and Bryson (no one else lived between them) 
all drank of the water from this stream.  In other words, the 
washings from the negro camp flowed past Vincent and Bryson, 
who both used the water.  The section hands of the railroad 
were constantly going and coming to and from the Ohio river 
boats.

From Bryson's house, the disease was carried by his father 
up the valley to the Iron Hill Furnace, where he died of the 
disease.  At this furnace the explosion of the disease occurred.  
The employes were "poor white trash" and negroes, who were 
huddled together in ill-ventilated, filthy shanties, drinking 
stagnant and unhealthy water.

Only two or three cases of the disease occurred in the town 
of Grayson, and these cases were easily traceable to 
communication with the epidemic at the furnace.

Thirty-two cases are reported, with twenty deaths.

Dr. L. Prichard reports that he depended upon the early 
treatment by hypodermic injections of morphia.


Original images of the pages can be found at 
http://www.usgwarchives.net/ky/state/cholera.


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