Jedediah Buck

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/evans/N27531.0001.001/1:12?rgn=div1;vie...

Not less remarkable were the seasons in America. In 1740-41, a year later than in Europe, the winter was of the severest kind. Many cattle perished for want of food.

Journals of N. York Assembly, vol. 1. 799, 804. During this winter measles prevailed in Connecticut. The American plague appeared in Philadelphia and Virginia. In Scotland many perished by famin.

Possibly yellow fever.

In 1745 Lima was shaken by an earthquake. An infectious fever broke out among the troops employed in the expedition to Louisbourg. A similar fever prevailed at Boston; and how far the health of the town was affected by the returning troops, I am not informed. This was a time of general sickness.

In Charleston prevailed the infectious yellow fever, while Egypt and Smyrna were suffering the ravages of the plague. The bilious plague prevailed, at the same time, in New-York.

In this year, the town of Stamford in Connecticut was severely distressed by a malignant dysentery, which swept away seventy inhabitants out of a few hundreds. The disease was confined to one street.

The year 1746 was probably still more unhealthy. An earthquake laid Lima and Calao in ruins. The concussion began on the 28th of October, about six hours before the full of the moon; and at intervals, the shocks were repeated for four months, in which time they amounted to four hundred and fifty. During these convulsions, fire burst forth in several places of the distant mountains. Many days before the shocks began, hollow rumbling noises were heard in the earth, at times resembling the discharge of artillery. Similar sounds continued for some time after the earthquake.

See the melancholy tale in Ulloa, vol. 2. 83. Albany was, in this year, visited by a malignant disease called by Colden, a nervous fever; and by Douglas, the yellow fever. From an old citizen, who was living in 1797, my friend Dr. Mitchell obtained the following particulars relative to that disease. The bodies of some of the patients were yellow—the crisis of the disease was the ninth day; if the patient survived that day, he had a good chance for recovery. The disease left many in a state of imbecility of mind, approaching to childishness or idiocy; others were afterwards troubled with swelled legs.