NARRATIVE OF THE CHOLERA EPIDEMIC OF 1873 IN THE UNITED STATES.
43D CONGRESS, 2d Session, House of Representatives. Ex.Doc.No.95
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Pages 265 through 271

their cases.  The burial permits of the county clerk, however, furnish 
reliable information as to fatal cases.

June 3, the first case of cholera occurred in the person of a white man, 
forty-three years of age, who left Gallatin, Tenn., at the time cholera 
was epidemic at that point, on a business visit to the Horse Cove Station, 
some few miles north of Bowling Green.  He was taken ill on his arrival 
at Horse Cave, and took the next train, endeavoring to reach his home.

By the time the train arrived at Bowling Green the disease was fully 
developed.  He was carried to a hotel, where, after a lingering illness, 
he died.  The excreta of this case were disinfected and buried.  No 
other case, as far as can be learned, is to be traced to any connection 
with it.

June 13, the second case occurred in the person of a negro woman, 
fifty-five years old, who had the day before washed the clothing of 
a man who died of cholera on a steamboat during its trip from Evansville, 
Ind.  The case terminated fatally in thirty-six hours.  From this case 
the disease spread and became epidemic; but was confined almost exclusively 
to that portion of the city which is locate don low ground between the 
railroad and the river, while the inhabitants of the main portion of 
the city escaped almost entirely.  The drinking-water of the infected 
portion of the city was obtained almost universally from wells; while 
that of the districts which escaped the epidemic was supplied from the 
Barren river by the reservoir system.  We have recovered the facts of 
86 cases of cholera which occurred at Bowling Green between June 13 and 
August 10; of these cases 65 terminated fatally.  

The disease was carried from Bowling Green to a point in the country 
some ten miles to the southeast of the town by  refugee negro man, 
and at the house at which he found employment six fatal cases occurred.

Woodburn, a small village of Warren County, located upon the line of 
the railroad, about half way between the city of Bowling Green and the 
town of Franklin, suffered most severely from the epidemic, over one 
hundred cases having occurred, a large number of whom died.  We are 
unable to obtain any satisfactory information as to this demonstration.  
Although the village is in such close communication with two large towns 
where the disease was introduced, and became virulently epidemic, Drs. 
Lackey And Williams failed to detect the introduction of the disease 
into Woodburn, and are rather inclined to ascribe its occurrence to 
malarial influences.  They report one case of recovery after the 
administration of half an ounce of quinine; another recovery in which 
two-thirds of an ounce of quinine was used.  In both cases, however, 
opium and calomel were administered.

SIMPSON COUNTY.

Franklin, the county-seat of Simpson County, is situated on the line 
of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, six and a half miles from the 
State line.  The town has a population of 1,240 inhabitants, 569 of 
whom are blacks.  (Census of 1870.)

One mile east of the town flows the west fork of Drake's Creek.  
The town is situated on rather an elevated position; is well drained 
by two ravines which pass through the town, one to the east and the 
other to the west of the court-house, which building forms the center 
of the town.   These drains come together north of the town and empty 
into the creek.

The inhabitants of this town have constant communication with all 
points on the railroad, and a number of the section-hands of this road, 
working on the section between Franklin and Millersburgh, Tenn., 
reside in the town.  During the month of May the town was in good 
sanitary condition; much debris had been removed and destroyed.  
No cases of serious illness occurred in the town until the 5th of 
June, when Ann Hayes, a negro woman, forty years of age, who had 
been on a visit to Gallatin, Tenn., was taken with cholera at her 
home the day of her return, but recovered after a serious illness.  
The house in which she was sick was one of a cluster of cabins 
occupied by negroes on the northeast outskirts of the town, and 
although all the local conditions seemed favorable for the spread 
of the disease, no other cases occurred.  Disinfectants were freely 
employed.

June 10 a with man, thirty-eight years of age, who had returned from a 
visit to Gallatin, Tenn., was attacked with cholera, but recovered.

June 12 a white man fifty-one years of age, also from Gallatin, Tenn., 
was taken with cholera, and died after an illness of ten days.  
The physician who attended this case was attacked with the disease 
June 13, and recovered after a serious illness.  A little daughter 
of this physician was attacked, June 14, with the same disease, and 
died in nine hours.  In the excitement and dismay caused by this 
last case, the precautions which had been adopted in the earlier 
cases were neglected.  The excreta were not disinfected, but were 
thrown upon a heap of debris against the rear fence of the back-
yard.

Four days elapsed without the development of new cases, when a 
white man, forty years of age, who lived near the point at which 
the excreta of the little girl had been deposited, was taken with 
the disease and died.  From the 19th to the 28th of June, six 
fatal cases occurred.

From the 28th of June to the 1st of July the disease was in 
abeyance, but on the last-named date seven cholera deaths 
occurred, and in the next fifteen days fifty deaths are reported 
as resulting from this disease.  On July 20 a fatal case occurred, 
and cases of the same character are reported on the 28th of July and 
4th of August.  During the course of the epidemic, seven of the 
physicians of the town were seriously ill of the disease, one of 
whom died.  One case of cholera occurred at the county jail in 
the person of the wife of the jailer, who died after a few hours' 
illness.  The prisoners were at once removed from the building, 
and no cases occurred among them.

From Franklin the disease was carried into the county.  A Mr. 
Vance left the town July 1, and went to a farm six miles distant; 
after his arrival he was attacked with cholera, and died after 
an illness of forty-eight hours.  July 8 the mother-in-law of 
Vance, who resided in the same house, was attacked with the disease 
and died, and within a few days a young child of the same family, 
and a visitor at the house, were attacked and died.  A Mrs. 
Pearson, after nursing many cholera-cases in the town, went to 
the farm of her son-in-law, four miles form town, in a rather 
isolated position.  Mrs. P. was not sick, or suffering in any 
way, except from the physical fatigue induced by her Christian 
efforts in caring for the sick.  The family of the house to 
which she went had not been exposed to the infection; no 
member of the family had been in the infected district, and no 
one but Mrs. P. had come from that district; yet, two days 
after her arrival, the son-in-law was taken with cholera and 
died.  All the other members of the family suffered more or 
less with diarrhoea.

A number of recoveries are reported.

JEFFERSON COUNTY.

The first case of cholera which is recorded as having occurred in 
Jefferson County, in 1873, was in the city of Louisville, on the 
8th day of June, when a white man twenty-nine years of age was 
admitted to the city hospital with cholera.  He had arrived in 
the city at 5 o'clock a.m. the same day from Evansville, Ind.  
At 5:30 a.m. he was taken with purging and vomiting, which 
increased so rapidly in severity that he was obliged to lie 
down on the sidewalk.  From this position he was removed by 
the police and taken to the hospital.  Cholera was fully developed, 
and he died of the disease at 4:37 p.m. of the same day.

June 10, a gentleman, forty years of age, living on Walnut street, 
between Seventh and Eighth streets, was taken with cholera following 
a diarrhoea of a few days' duration.  The second stage was fully 
developed when the disease was arrested.

June 12, a conductor on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, 
who had been taken ill at Nashville, Tenn., arrived at his home 
on Eleventh street, near Broadway, still suffering with the acute 
diarrhoea.  Cholera was violently developed, and the case 
terminated fatally after twenty-four hours' illness.

From June 12 to August 16, inclusive, twenty-one cases, all of 
which terminated fatally, are reported in the city.  In the 
majority of these cases the explosion of the disease was in 
the persons of individuals who had come into the city from 
infected districts.

On the 17th and 18th of August, two deaths from cholera are 
reported at Leeona, a small town of Jefferson County, some 
ten miles distant from Louisville.  It is not known in what 
way these individuals came in contact with the infection, 
other than that they were in the habit of visiting the Louisville 
market once a week.  The district in which these cases occurred 
was decidedly malarial, but the cases of disease from that 
cause had that summer been unusually infrequent.  No cases 
followed among those who nursed these cases and performed 
domestic offices for them.

September 4, at Louisville, a young female, fourteen years of 
age, died of cholera after nine hours' illness, and the same 
day and in the same family a white child fours week old was 
taken with the same disease, and died after forty-eight hours.  
The history of this family is of great interest, and the report 
is transcribed in detail.

HISTORY OF CHOLERA IN THE BAUER FAMILY.

By Turner Anderson, M.D., Louisville, Ky.

Residence of family on the south side of Green street, between 
Fourteenth and Fifteenth, frame cottage, low and damp; kitchen 
floor several inches below the surrounding ground; no provision 
for drainage.  Privy, wash-house, and coal-shed under one roof, 
and all in dirty condition.  Family consisting of the mother, 
two single daughters, two married daughters, one son-in-law, 
and two grandchildren.

July 30, at 11 p.m., was called to see Mrs. G., one of the 
married daughters.  Found her vomiting, purging, and cramping.  
The attack had been sudden, and without any know cause.  
Morphia was exhibited hypodermically, and quinine, gr.v., 
ordered to be given every second hour. This was followed by 
the prompt relief of all symptoms of the attack, and in 
forty-eight hours she was out of bed.  Two weeks previously 
this lady had been delivered of a male child.  On the 23d of 
August Mrs. G. went to Bowling Green, Ky., to visit her husband, 
who was engaged in business at that town.  August 25, two days 
after her arrival in Bowling Green, Mrs. G. was taken with cholera, 
and died after twenty-four hours' illness.  August 28 the body of 
Mrs. G. was brought in a wooden coffin to Louisville, and taken 
to her mother's house.  Prior to burial the coffin was opened and 
the remains of Mrs. G. were viewed by her family.

September 2, a child of the late Mrs. G., two years of age, was 
taken with diarrhoea and vomiting.  It was treated with albuminous 
drinks, soda, morphia, and mint-water, and recovered.September 4, 
a single daughter of Mrs. B., fourteen years of age, was taken 
with cholera at 5 o'clock a.m.  At 7 o'clock a.m., when called to 
the case, found the patient collapsed, and she died at 1.30 o'clock 
p.m.  The same day the infant of Mrs. G., four weeks old, was taken 
with cholera, and died after forty-eight hours' illness.

September 6, Mrs. A., the second married daughter of Mrs. B., 
was taken with cholera after a slight diarrhoea, and died within 
twenty-four hours.  The day of her attack this lady had been 
removed from her mother's house to the second story of a building 
on Market street, between Tenth and Eleventh streets.  Mrs. A. was 
seven months pregnant.

The night upon which Mrs. A. died the remaining daughter, 
seventeen years of age, was taken with acute symptoms of the 
disease, but it was arrested by the hypodermic use of morphia.

After the occurrence of the case which followed the arrival of 
the remains of Mrs. G., all the members of the Bauer family who 
survived were placed upon quinine in decided doses, with the 
exception of Mrs. A., who declined to so on account of her 
pregnancy; and although all suffered from diarrhoea, in none 
did vomiting and cramping occur.

LOUISVILLE, KY., October, 1873.

September 8, a medical man of Marion County, Ky., who had 
visited Louisville to attend a sick member of his family, 
was violently attacked with cholera, and died at St.Joseph's 
Infirmary, after twenty-four hours' illness.During the night 
of September 3 and 4, this gentlman had been in attendance 
upon Dr. Mat. Logan, of Washington County, and had been 
hurriedly called to Louisville to see his father, who 
supposed himself attacked with cholera.

HENDERSON COUNTY.

Henderson, the county seat of Henderson County, is situated 
on the south bank of the Ohio river, two hundred and twelve 
miles below the city of Louisville, Ky., and twelve below 
Evansville, Ind. 

In 1870 this city had a population of 4,171 individuals, 
of whom 1,489 were negroes.Henderson is a thriving river-
town, and is the tobacco market of the greater portion of 
the Green river country.  The city has daily communication 
with all points upon the Ohio River by several lines of 
Saint Louis and Southeastern Railway.  This road south of 
Henderson connects with the Louisville, Paducah and 
Southwestern, the Louisville, Nashville and Great Southern, 
and the Nashville, Chattanooga and Saint Louis Railroads.

The city is built upon an alluvial bed, overlaying a strata 
of clay which is several feet in thickness, when sand and 
gravel is reached.  In the eastern portion of the city, at a 
depth of 8 feet, a blue mud is reached, which emits a most 
offensive odor.  The peculiarities of the natural levees 
which have been already noted as existing along all western 
water-courses of North America are here observed, and as no 
system of artificial drainage or sewerage has been attempted, 
ponds and pools of stagnant water are to be found within the 
town limits.  During the wet months the streets and roads are 
almost impassable, and the cellars of houses in the southern 
portions of the town fill with water.

Water is obtained from wells and cisterns alone, although the 
most admirable natural facilities exit for the establishment 
of a water-supply upon the reservoir plan.  Privies are upon 
the surface of the ground.  The sanitary condition of the 
town was bad prior to the cholera outbreak.  No board of 
health had been in existence for several years, but when 
cholera arrived in 1873 a hasty organization was established.  
Property-holders were required to police their premises; ponds 
and pools of stagnant water were drained off and filled with 
fresh earth.  Crude disinfectants were actively used.

During the afternoon of May 20, 1873, Mrs. Deacon, a lady 
fifty-seven years of age, who had spent the morning working 
her vegetable and flower garden, after a heart dinner of 
early vegetables and pastry, which she ate without the aid 
of her artificial teeth, was attached with severe abdominal 
pain attended with nausea, vomiting, and diarrheoa.  The attack 
was sudden and without any premonition other than a sensation 
of discomfort from the amount of food taken into the stomach.  
In the absence of her regular medical attendant, Dr. W. M. 
Hanna was called to treat the case.  Dr. Hanna found the 
patient prostrated, restless, and anxious, with a cold skin 
and small feeble pulse.  The matter vomited contained 
undigested food; the dejections were the fecal contents 
of the intestines.  Morphia sulphas, gr.1/2, was administered 
hypodermically, and relived the severity of the symptoms.  At 6 
o'clock p.m. Dr. Thompson, who was the family physician, 
saw the case.  There had been no return of the vomiting or 
purging.  Quinine, gr.x, calomel, vj, were made into two 
powders, and it was directed that during the night both 
should be given.

May 21.  The patient had rested well during the night, but was 
found feeble, with a weak pulse and cold surface, and constantly 
disposed to doze.  She was given capsicum, gr.i, carbonate of 
ammonia, gr.v, quinine, gr.v, and a dose of the same character 
was ordered to be taken every two hours.  She remained quiet 
during the day, with no change in her symptoms until between 
7 and 8 o'clock p.m., when she had an action from her bowels, 
which is described by Dr. Thompson, and Dr. J. A. Hodge, who 
was in consultation, as soap-suds in character, and at least 
half a gallon in quantity.  After this dejection the patient 
sank rapidly, and died in collapse at 2 o'clock a.m. the next 
day.

After death it was learned that, during the first night, a 
powder of morphia which Dr. Hanna had left with a member of 
the family, to be given in case of a return of the vomiting 
and purging, prior to Dr. Thompson's taking charge of the 
case, had been given without any necessity being apparent, 
and without the knowledge of the medical attendants.  It was 
also learned that during the 21st instant at least a pint of 
whisky had been administered; this also without professional 
authority.

Considerable excitement was produced by this death in the town.  
It was pronounced by many to have been a case of cholera, but 
no cases of even a suspicious character occurred until after a 
lapse of twenty-one days, when a case of cholera by direct 
importation is reported.

At a conversational meeting of the Henderson Medical Club 
on the 16th of July, 1874, which the writer had the honor 
to attend, this case fully discussed.  The fact that all 
the characteristic symptoms of cholera were absent was 
demonstrated by the medical attendants, and the gentlemen 
present (all the practitioners of the city) with but one 
exception, united in discarding the case from cholera 
consideration.

On the 10th of June, 1873, a horse-trainer named McGavit, 
a negro, about twenty years of age, arrived at Henderson 
with some horses.  He had come directly from Nashville, 
Tenn., and went at once to the Henderson County fair-grounds.  
He was troubled with diarrhoea before he arrived at Henderson, 
and within a few hours after he reached the fair-grounds became 
seriously ill.  Dr. J. D. Collins was called to the case, but 
on arrival found the patient fully collapsed.  Morphia and 
atropia were exhibited hypodermically, and camphor was given 
internally.  Frictions and dry heat were ordered to the surface 
of the body.  During the evening he partially reacted, but 
relapsed during the night, and died early on the 12th instant.  
This man was nursed by Mr. Craft, the superintendent of the race-
horses, and by the stable-boys.  He was visited by a number of 
negroes living in Henderson.  Mr. Craft was not attacked, and 
the stable-boys escaped with but a single exception.  One man 
had diarrhoea, vomiting, and cramps, but was relieved by rest 
and some "cholera-medicine."  It cannot be determined who the 
town negroes were who visited this case.

Dr. J. H. Letcher reports a case of acute diarrhoea, attended 
with great prostration, in the person of an elderly man named 
Fields, who was employed about the depot of the Henderson and 
Nashville Railroad.  This man was promptly treated, and recovered 
after an illness of a few days.

June 21, a Mrs. Haslett, who had arrived on the 19th instant 
from Nashville, Tenn., at which city she resided, and where, 
prior to here departure, some members of her family and many 
of her near neighbors had died of cholera, was taken seriously 
ill.  The disease was diagnosed by Dr. Ben.Letcher to be cholera.  
This woman had been attacked with diarrhoea previous to her 
leaving Nashville, but had not informed her friends, fearing 
that they might prevent her journey.  During June 20 this 
diarrhoea was profuse, exhausting but painless, and when the 
patient was first visited by Dr.Letcher, violent vomiting and 
cramping had occurred.  This case presented all the recognized 
symptoms of pronounced cholera; partially reacted, but relapsed, 
and died June 24.  She had been sick, and died at a second-class 
boarding-house frequented by railroad-hands.

June 23, Dr. J.D. Collins reports a negro man named Smith as 
having been attacked with cholera.  He was in collapse when 
first seen, but under the hypodermic use of morphia and 
atropia reacted, and on the twelfth day of his illness was 
pronounced convalescent.  It is not known where this negro 
became infected, but it is probable that he worked wherever 
he could obtain employment at the railroad-yard. 

On the same day a young man named Watson was taken with 
cholera some three miles of out town, at a saw-mill where he 
worked.  The disease was fully developed, and he died after 
an illness of twenty-four hours. This man had been a frequent 
visitor in Henderson, where he frequented a drinking-house 
quite near the railroad-depot.

June 24, a man named Kennedy is reported as suffering from 
an acute diarrhoea, attended with great exhaustion.  The diarrhoea 
was controlled and in a few days he was convalescent.  
This man was a "brakeman on a through freight-train" between 
Henderson and Nashville.  His train remained in Nashville 
one and a half days after each trip, and about twelve hours 
in Henderson.

June 25, a man named Beasley, who was a fireman on the "yard-
engine," was taken with painless and exhausting diarrhoea, which 
was early treated, and he recovered.  This man boarded at the 
house in which Mrs. Haslett was sick and at which she died.

The same day the negro woman employed as cook at this boarding-
house, and who had assisted in washing the body of Mrs. Haslett 
after death, was taken with diarrhoea, which demanded active 
treatment, and she recovered.

June 26, two cases of recoveries are reported.

June 27, a man named Simmons was taken with cholera, at a 
boarding-house on Water street to which he had removed from 
the house in which Mrs. Haslett died.  Simmons had diarrhoea 
some two or three days previous to this attack.  The symptoms 
of the second stage were developed.  Treated with morphia 
hypodermically, and recovered.  The same day a young man named K
eogh was taken ill in an adjoining house; had rice-water discharges, 
and cramped for two hours.  He was treated in a similar manner, 
and recovered.

Amanda Letcher, a negro washwoman living in a cluster of cabins 
occupied by negroes in the southwestern portion of the city, 
was taken with the disease, and died after an illness of twenty-
four hours.

June 29, a man named Robert Miller was taken with cholera, 
and died at the boarding-house on Water street at which 
Simmons was sick.

A man named John Harker was taken with the same disease at a 
low tavern on Water street close by the infected house.  He 
lingered for forty-eight hours, when he died.  The same day 
three cases are reported that recovered.

June 30, a traveler named Winston arrived from Memphis, Tenn.  
At the time of his arrival he suffered form diarrhoea; vomiting 
attended with cramps soon came on.  He was treated with morphia 
and atropia hypodermically, and recovered.

July 1, eight cases of cholera, with four deaths, are reported.  
The epidemic was fully established.

A focus of infection was established in the southwest portion 
of the town, where in a block eight fatal cases occurred, and 
two others died after removal to the temporary hospital.  The 
first case in this group occurred in the person of a negro 
child, five years of age, who mother was a washerwoman.  The 
child was attacked with vomiting and purging during the night 
of July 4, and died early on the following morning.  No care 
was taken of the dejections.  During the night of July 5, the 
mother was attacked and died at 3 o'clock a.m. the next day.  
After the funeral of the woman, her remaining children, four in 
number, were taken to an isolated building which had been 
arranged for a cholera-hospital, but at the time had contained no 
patients.  Here all four children were taken with cholera, and 
two of them died.  After the removal the hut in which they 
had lived was pulled down, when it was found that the drainage 
of the ground around the cabin had been into a depression below 
the floor, and that a cess-pool had been estabished.  Into this 
filthy hole the dejecta of the child had been thrown.  In the 
block in which the Towles family had lived four other houses 
had been infected; in them five deaths occurred.

During the epidemic one hundred and sixteen cases of cholera 
occurred in the town of Henderson, thrity-five of whic were fatal.  
Of 

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