The Ouachita Telegraph - Several Die from Charbon

Date: Oct 2000
Submitted by: Lora Peppers <lpeppers@ouachita.lib.la.us>



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The Ouachita Telegraph
Saturday, May 7, 1887
Page 3, Column 1

 Charbon, that terribly poisonous disease which is so fatal to stock, after
having caused the death of many head and inflicted severe loss upon many of
the people of this parish who were liable to bear it has about run its
course with the stock but what is more terrible it has broken out among the
people in the Colony with fatal effect.  On Monday night Mr. G.M. McCallum
had the misfortune to lose a son; on Tuesday morning he came to town to get
medical aid for his family, of whom his wife and two daughters were down
with it.  At the time he was suffering from an attack of the terrible
disease.  He reported that Dr. T.Y. Cosper and wife and a Mr. Ambleton and
several negroes also had it.  Mr. Ambleton, we learn, has since died.  It is
thought that the disease is communicated by inoculation from mosquitoes and
gnats which had bitten diseased stock.  We think, however, that the disease
has been contracted in most instances by people while skinning stock which
have died from an attack of charbon.

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