Epidemics in the United States

Here is a list of some of the well known epidemics from unknown sources.

  • 1657 Boston Measles
  • 1687 Boston Measles
  • 1690 New York Yellow Fever
  • 1713 Boston Measles
  • 1729 Boston Measles
  • 1732-3 Worldwide Influenza
  • 1738 South Carolina Smallpox
  • 1739-40 Boston Measles
  • 1747 CT,NY,PA,SC Measles
  • 1759 N. Amer [areas inhabited by white people] Measles
  • 1761 N. Amer and West Indies Influenza
  • 1772 N. America Measles
  • 1775 N. Amer [especially hard in NE] epidemic Unknown
  • 1775-6 Worldwide [one of the worst epidemics] Influenza
  • 1783 Dover, DE [extremely fatal] Bilious Disorder
  • 1788 Philadelphia and New York Measles
  • 1793 Vermont [a "putrid" fever] and Influenza
  • 1793 VA [killed 500 in 5 counties in 4 weeks] Influenza
  • 1793 Philadelphia [one of the worst epidemics] Yellow Fever
  • 1793 Harrisburg, PA [many unexplained deaths] Unknown
  • 1793 Middletown, PA [many mysterious deaths] Unknown
  • 1794 Philadelphia, PA Yellow Fever
  • 1796-7 Philadelphia, PA Yellow Fever
  • 1798 Philadelphia, PA [one of the worst] Yellow Fever
  • 1803 New York Yellow Fever
  • 1820-3 Nationwide [starts-Schuylkill River and spreads] "Fever"
  • 1831-2 Nationwide [brought by English emigrants] Asiatic Cholera
  • 1832 NY City and other major cities Cholera
  • 1837 Philadelphia Typhus
  • 1841 Nationwide [especially severe in the south] Yellow Fever
  • 1847 New Orleans Yellow Fever
  • 1847-8 Worldwide Influenza
  • 1848-9 North America Cholera
  • 1850 Nationwide Yellow Fever
  • 1850-1 North America Influenza
  • 1852 Nationwide [New Orleans-8,000 die in summer] Yellow Fever
  • 1855 Nationwide [many parts] Yellow Fever
  • 1857-9 Worldwide [one of the greated epidemics] Influenza
  • 1860-1 Pennsylvania Smallpox
  • 1865-73 Philadelphia, NY, Boston, New Orleans Smallpox, Baltimore, Memphis, Washington DC Cholera, A series of recurring epidemics of Typhus Typhoid Scarlet Fever Yellow Fever
  • 1873-5 N. America and Europe Influenza
  • 1878 New Orleans [last great epidemic] Yellow Fever
  • 1885 Plymouth, PA Typhoid
  • 1886 Jacksonville, FL Yellow Fever
  • 1918 Worldwide[high point yr] Influenza more people were hospitalized in WWI from this epidemic than wounds. US Army training camps became death camps, with 80% death rate in some camps

Specific instances of cholera

  • 1833 Columbus, OH
  • 1834 New York City
  • 1849 New York
  • 1851 Coles Co., IL, The Great Plains, and Missouri

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