Rudolf Martin Hofmann

Death certificate lists "summer complaint" as cause of death.

Information: Summer Complaint: The dreaded " summer complaint " of children enrolls upon its list of victims a much larger number than are destroyed by all the other diseases of infancy combined during the hot summer months ; during one week in July, 1866, more than 1,200 babies died of this complaint in New York City.

The condition generally begins, or rather is preceded for some days, by diarrhea ; this is soon followed by violent vomiting, and for a time the vomiting and purging constitute the prominent features of the complaint. After two or three days, sometimes only hours, the vomiting ceases, while the looseness of the bowels persists. The child loses all inclination for the breast; is peevish, fretful, and subsequently listless and apathetic ; the head is hot, the abdomen usually swollen and often tender. In severe cases the stools, at first green and frothy, become quite watery and almost devoid of all the usual characteristics. Such cases often terminate fatally within four or five days or sooner; during the latter part of the attack the infant becomes cold, its features pallid and sunken, the abdomen retracted ; the general appearance suggests an emaciation such as follows a long and wasting sickness.

Such is the rapid course of this complaint during the very hot weather and in the more closely settled parts of our cities. If the heat be not so intense the affection is usually of longer duration or of less immediate severity; for weeks and months, indeed, throughout the entire summer, the child is tormented with diarrhea ; vomiting is frequent; the stools are usually green and very offensive ; there is but little inclination for food, and whatever is swallowed usually re­appears within an hour, so that it seems impossible for the child to subsist upon the small quantity of nourishment retained. The infant emaciates rapidly and often becomes a really painful object to look upon. All the symptoms are aggravated during the unusually hot days, and improve correspondingly when the temperature falls ; indeed, if the child be kept at home the result seems to depend largely upon the weather. This affection is especially apt to attack the child during the teething process, and rarely occurs after all the teeth have been cut.