Grayson County Texas -The Cholera Epidemic in the Denison Texas area in 1873 By Deb Haines *********************************************** This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by:Deb Haines by - Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm *********************************************** Original image of this page located: http://www.usgwarchives.net/tx/grayson/images/453.jpg 453 IN THE UNITED STATES. the two.) It then prevailed in Kentucky; then in Missouri. In Septem- ber it was as far west as Boonville, Mo. There was no cholera prevail- ing east, south, or west of us. If imported, it came from Boonville, which is six hundred miles north of Denison, on the same line of rail- road. It is claimed that a man from Boonville direct, stopped at the hotel in Denison, when the disease appeared in its violence a day or two after his arrival. Great importance is attached to this. We do not stop to question any link in this chain of importation. Grant that all is true; then explain the deaths from this disease before this man’s arrival. There was a death from this disease on June 25, 1873. This was three months previous to the man’s arrival, and previous (we believe) to the outbreak of cholera at any point in the United States. A second case on occurred on August 8,a third on August 12, both previous to the appear- ance of the disease at the point from which it is claimed to have been imported. Again, not only have many cases occurred before importa- tion was thought of, but cases are met with every year. During the summer just past (1874) we have encountered thirteen distinctly marked cases of this disease. Ten others have been brought to our knowledge. These make twenty-three. As Asiatic cholera was prevailing nowhere, it could not have been imported. Hence the cause must be indigenous. If indigenous, it is not cholera. SECOND. The impossibility of other diseases impairing these nervous centers, and giving rise to these symptoms. If we show that other diseases act like cholera, we show the proba- bility of this having been something else than cholera. Is there any disease which prevails in the South that presents the symptoms of cholera? The skin continues to grow colder, and is bedewed with a cold, un- natural perspiration. He feels oppressed with excessive heat, calls for ice, and while his skin is cold and wet, wishes to be continually fanned. The skin becomes motley and bluish, its sensibility is im- paired; the impress of the finger remains some seconds after pressure is removed; respiration is irregular, with frequent sighing; countenance haggard. In some cases there is watery purging, resembling Asiatic cholera. (Congestive intermittent fever. Hunt, 1st ed., vol. I, p. 511.) A form called algid is characterized by notable reduction of tem- perature; the extremities becoming as cold as marble, or the cold- ness being like that of a cadaver. Profuse sweating characterizes some cases. Vomiting and purging are not infrequently prominent symptoms, leading to a state of collapse, like that in cases of epidemic cholera.-- (Pernicuious intermittent fever. Flint, 3d ed., p. 867.) Indeed, the analogy between many of the symptoms above described and those of epidemic cholera is very striking.(Pernicious intermit- tent fever. Wood, 6th ed., vol. I, p. 331.) Dickson says: The system seems to sink at once prostrate before the invasion or exacerbation, which can scarcely be called at times fe- brile. Reaction does not take place. The skin is cold and covered with a clammy sweat, as in the collapse of cholera; the pulse is weak and fluttering, the stomach is very irritable, the countenance is sunken and pale or livid. The phenomena are evidently the result of defective inner- vation. The propriety of denominating these cases bilious remittent fever, when they frequently run their course without exhibiting the slightest sign of febrile reaction, has been doubted by some. They are, however, produced by the same cause as bilious fever. (Bilious remittent fever. Watson, 3d Am. ed. p. 967.) In a word, we perceive effects which bear, in the more severe and