1876 yellow fever epidemic

Disease outbreak in Savannah, Georgia, United StatesMarch 2026 March 2026 Savannah, Georgia 1,066 The 1876 yellow fever epidemic killed 1,066 people in Savannah, Georgia, United States. The outbreak began in July 1876, with its first victim―and believed source of the infection―being J. W. Schull, a 27-year-old sailor. In the six-week period following his infection, around 5,000 (18%) of the approximately 28,000 residents of Savannah had fled the city to escape the disease.Struggles of the Late 19th Century https://georgiahistory.com/education-outreach/online-exhibits/online-exhibits/three-centuries-of-georgia-history/nineteenth-century/struggles-of-the-late-19th-century/ 2022-12-02 Georgia Historical Society en-US The fever killed 6% of the city's population.Gruenberg James 2012-01-01 The Yellow Fever Epidemic in Savannah, Georgia of 1876: A Case for Applied Historical Analysis https://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/etd_all/1075 Browse all Theses and Dissertations It came 32 years after another yellow fever epidemic, which killed 1,040. Background "There was no yellow fever in the United States in the summer of 1876 before it appeared in Savannah. The disease, therefore, must have been imported there or have originated in that city," stated Alfred A. Woodhull, M.D., Surgeon General of the United States Army, four years later in the pages of the American Public Health Association's (APHA) Public Health Papers and Reports, Volume 5. His study was titled May Not Yellow Fever Originate in the United States?: An Etiological Study of the Epidemic at Savannah in 1876. It was read at the seventh annual meeting of APHA in Nashville, Tennessee, on November 20, 1879.Public Health Papers and Reports, Volume 5 American Public Health Association 1880 89 Investigation thumb|250x250px|Savannah's former Marine Hospital, at which Schull was evaluated Woodhull reported that "a careful inquiry" had pinpointed Delaware native J. W. Schull,1877 Woodhull, Yellow Fever at Savannah, Georgia https://books.google.com/books?id=qq0MXe0BKAkC&dq=j.+w.+schull+savannah+georgia&pg=PA40 The American Journal of the Medical Sciences 74 40 the steward of the schooner F. A. Server, as the primary case of the disease's outbreak.Public Health Papers and Reports, Volume 5 American Public Health Association 1880 90 Schull's vessel had arrived in Savannah from New York City, laden with coal (or ice, according to another source), on July 10, 1876. Schull fell sick while aboard just under two weeks later, on July 23. He was taken ashore to the boarding house of Mrs. Hearn, on Indian Street at the corner of Ann Street, on July 25. After receiving treatment from a doctor, William Duncan, who diagnosed congestive fever,Memoirs of Georgia: Containing Historical Accounts of the State's Civil, Military, Industrial and Professional Interests, and Personal Sketches of Many of Its People · Volume 2 Southern Historical Association 1895 115 Schull stayed there for three days, before being moved to Savannah's Marine Hospital. In the meantime, Mrs. Hearn's son-in-law David Coleman, slept in the bed Schull had been using. He left for Darien, Georgia, on August 16 and, two days later, endured a four-hour fever. He survived and returned to Savannah on August 19.Public Health Papers and Reports, Volume 5 American Public Health Association 1880 89 thumb|250x250px|The Savannah River at the foot of Barnard Street, where Schull's vessel was berthed Yellow fever was not diagnosed in Schull by the surgeon in charge at the Marine Hospital before Schull was discharged from its wards; it only became evident in retrospect.Public Health Papers and Reports, Volume 5 American Public Health Association 1880 91 On August 17, Thomas Magner Jr., a child living at his family's grocery store on the opposite corner of Ann Street from the boarding house, was attacked by the disease, which then "spread rapidly in every direction from that centre." It is believed that the disease could not have been contracted by Schull anywhere but aboard the Server since he had been attached to that vessel for just over a year, during which time it remained solely in United States waters.Public Health Papers and Reports, Volume 5 American Public Health Association 1880 92 It is assumed that Schull was infected by the populace aboard the Spanish brig Ynez, which arrived from Havana on July 16 and was berthed around 90 ft m above the Server at the docks of the Atlantic and Gulf Railroad at the foot of Barnard Street from July 18, five days before Schull was taken ill. Some claim Schull boarded the neighboring vessel, "consorting intimately with her cook, for the sake of cigars", but both its captain and crew denied this.Public Health Papers and Reports, Volume 5 American Public Health Association 1880 93 1,066 people died during the epidemic, and many of Savannah's doctors also attributed the outbreak to local climate and unsanitary conditions in the city.2021-12-01 When a pandemic raged U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service https://www.fws.gov/story/2021-11/when-pandemic-raged 2026-01-26 www.fws.gov en Schull's death Schull died on July 30, 1876, aged 27. While "sitting up in bed calm and cheerful, he was taken with sudden hemorrhage. The blood escaped from his mouth in quantities, was red and frothy, and death ensued almost immediately."Memoirs of Georgia: Containing Historical Accounts of the State's Civil, Military, Industrial and Professional Interests, and Personal Sketches of Many of Its People · Volume 2 Southern Historical Association 1895 114 An autopsy undertaken four hours later recorded that Schull had yellow skin, lungs filled with blood, traces of incipient tubercles in the lungs, with ulcers on their exterior, and his liver was a "complete boxwood color." See also History of yellow fever List of notable disease outbreaks in the United States 1876 in the United States Edward Clifford Anderson Jr., a victim of the epidemic References Category:1876 in the United States Category:1876 disasters Category:1876 in health Category:Disease outbreaks in the United States Category:History of Savannah, Georgia Category:Yellow fever epidemics Category:1870s epidemics Category:Yellow fever in the United States