PARADISE SUN
LIGHT FOR ALL
Special Edition
Monday, July 19, 1830
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
OF GREAT IMPORT
Doctor Hannah Savard reminds the residents of Paradise that all drinking water and water used in preparing food must be boiled. Further, it is of crucial importance that the new guidelines on the digging of privies be observed. These measures are our best hope to bring the quickest possible end to the typhoid epidemic that has struck at the very heart of our families.
In the past week two children and five adults are dead of typhoid or complications of typhoid. They are
Mrs. Lorena Fiddler and her daughter Margaret, age four
Mr. Baldwin O’Brien
Friend Margery Blackstone
Friend Magnus Allen
Mrs. Jennet Scott Bonner and a stillborn daughter, in childbed
Friend Alois Farmer
Interesting that my fourth book, “Wayward Son: Lineage Series, Book Four,” has a latrine/privy situation where the people get cholera instead of typhoid. There were apparently TWO epidemics during the 1830’s… one spreading south from Philadelphia and the other spreading north from NYC. Both were caused by poor sanitation and privies too close to water supplies.
Epidemics in the 19th century were horrific, in large part because the illnesses were so little understood.