Typhoid Fever Victims

My daughter's great grandfather died in 1918 of typhoid fever, and his death certificate [copy attached] contains absolutely no information about his funeral or burial arrangements. I started wondering how the deceased victims of typhoid fever were treated after death. If anyone has any information about this period in American history when, not only was the world at war, but was also being ravaged by this pandemic disease, I hope you can find the time to share that information. Thank you.

Tags: 1918, Disease, Fever, Pandemic, Typhoid

Attachments:

FelderRussellDC.jpg, 811 KB

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Mavis Jones on October 10, 2009 at 3:00pm

Don't have an answer to your question but my great-grandmother who died July 25 1917 has a similiar death certificate. According to the death certificate, my great grandmother died from pellegra.

Permalink Reply by Spivey on October 11, 2009 at 8:07am

Hi, Mavis. I don't have any more information either. I wonder if Russell Felder's wife, Jalura Glover, died from the fever as well? She died of 'apoplexy' in 1916. When I see the word 'apoplexy', I think of some kind of fit. Dying so young, I wonder if she was an early victim of this particular scourge. Spivey

Permalink Reply by GeneJ on October 11, 2009 at 8:56am

Hi Spivey:

While there are better sources of information, see the Wikipedia entry for "Apoplexy." In part from the source (emphasis added), "Apoplexy is an outdated medical term, which can be used to mean 'bleeding' .... Apoplexy has been used as a synonym for 'stroke' ... Historically, the word "apoplexy" was also used to describe any sudden death that began with a sudden loss of consciousness, especially one in which the victim died within a matter of seconds after losing consciousness. Those reading historical documents should take into consideration the possibility that the word "apoplexy" may be used to describe the symptom of sudden loss of consciousness immediately preceding death and not an actual verified disease process."

The source cites:
1^ The New York Times, November 20, 1908: "Dowager Empress died of Apoplexy" ...
2^ "Leonhard Euler (1707 - 1783)".
3^ The New York Times, February 19, 1915: "H. Ward Leonard Dies -Electrical Inventor Stricken".
4^ Ferguson Nisbet, John. The Insanity of Genius and the General Inequality of Human Faculty. Elibron Classics. ISBN 1421272997.
5^ The New York Times, December 18, 1894: ""Death of R. L. Stevenson"".

Permalink Reply by Spivey on October 11, 2009 at 12:49pm

Thanks, Gene. I think I will always envision 'apoplexy' as someone falling down having a 'fit' as it was called, even in my day. I am glad to reopen this discussion because the information you and others provide only add to my understanding of what my ancestors' lives were like. Spivey

Permalink Reply by GeneJ on October 11, 2009 at 1:05pm

Hi Spivey:
If you view the source (full Wikipedia entrry for Apoploxy), you'll ffind comments included on such use of the term (empasis added), "It can be used non-medically to mean a state of extreme rage or excitement. The word derives from the Greek word for 'seizure', apoplēxia (ἀποπληξία), in the sense of being struck down." --GJ

Permalink Reply by Spivey on October 11, 2009 at 1:42pm

Thanks, Gene. I shudder to think of what a horrific death that must have been. My saving grae is that in those days our ancestors were somewhat used to death by whatever means [witness the number of births and the number of living children as shown on census records]. I, for one, am not as strong as my ancestors were. Spivey

Permalink Reply by GeneJ on October 11, 2009 at 1:56pm

Hi Spivey:

I didn't quite follow. Wouldn't apoploxy, as found on a death certificate (ala, medical use), describe a "sudden" death.

Permalink Reply by Spivey on October 11, 2009 at 3:49pm

That is where I am lacking, Gene. I do not know what medical conditions 'apoplexy' described. Like I said, to me it meant a person falling out in a fit. Right now, it only conjures up memories of someone rolling on the floor while we stand around in shock. Spivey

Permalink Reply by GeneJ on October 11, 2009 at 3:59pm

Hi Spivey:

As I read the Wikipedia entry, historical documents using the term in a _medical context_ (ie, a death certificate), generally refers to, "sudden loss of consciousness immediately preceding death."

Conversely, when the term is used other than in a medical context (ala, two laypersons discussing a seizure or a "fit"), it might refer to "state of extreme rage or excitement."

Permalink Reply by GeneJ on October 11, 2009 at 8:42am

You may already have this information, but as I've seen it on several death certificates recently, thought I'd post a reference to the Wikipedia entry for "Pellagra."

From the source, in part, "Pellagra is a vitamin deficiency disease [caused by a] lack of niacin (vitamin B3) ... Pellagra can be common in people who obtain most of their food energy from maize (often called "corn") … Maize is a poor source of tryptophan as well as niacin if it is not nixtamalized. Nixtamalization of the corn corrects the niacin deficiency, and is a common practice in Native American cultures that grow corn … Untreated, the disease can kill within four or five years ... "

Also from the Wikipedia entry (emphasis added), "Pellagra was first described in Spain in 1735 by Gaspar Casal ... led to the disease being known as "Asturian leprosy" ... it is recognized as the first modern pathological description of a syndrome(1) In the early 1900s, pellagra reached epidemic proportions in the American South. There were 1,306 reported pellagra deaths in South Carolina during the first ten months of 1915; 100,000 Southerners were affected in 1916. At this time, the scientific community held that pellagra was probably caused by a germ or some unknown toxin in corn.[4] The Spartanburg Pellagra Hospital in Spartanburg, South Carolina, was the nation's first facility dedicated to discovering the cause of pellagra. It was established in 1914 with a special congressional appropriation to the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) and set up primarily for research. In 1915, Joseph Goldberger, assigned to study pellagra by the Surgeon General of the United States, showed that pellagra was linked to diet by inducing the disease in prisoners, using the Spartanburg Pellagra Hospital as his clinic. By 1926, Goldberger established that a balanced diet or a small amount of brewer's yeast[5] prevented pellagra. Skepticism nonetheless persisted in the medical community until 1937, when Conrad Elvehjem showed that the vitamin niacin cured pellagra (manifested as black tongue) in dogs. Later studies by Tom Spies, Marion Blankenhorn, and Clark Cooper established that niacin also cured pellagra in humans, for which Time Magazine dubbed them its 1938 Men of the Year in comprehensive science."

Refer to the link for a complete listing of the sources. A few below [quoting]:
4. ^ Bollet A (1992). "Politics and pellagra: the epidemic of pellagra in the U.S. in the early twentieth century". Yale J Biol Med 65 (3): 211–21. PMID 1285449.
5. ^ Swan, Patricia (2005). "Goldberger's War: The Life and Work of a Public Health Crusader (review)". Bulletin of the History of Medicine (The Johns Hopkins University Press) 79 (1): 146–7. doi:10.1353/bhm.2005.0046. http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/bulletin_of_the_history_of_medicine/v0....
6. ^ Miller DF (1978). "Pellagra deaths in the United States". Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 31 (4): 558–9. PMID 637029.

Permalink Reply by Spivey on October 11, 2009 at 10:21am

WOW! I have to digest this information. One of my biggest brick walls in doing research into my family history has been family lore. Both my father and my uncle said their mother was a pure-bred Apache Indian. When I looked into Apaches in Georgia, however, I encountered nothing but resistance to the notion that Georgia was Apache territory, so I gave up that line of research [not because I thought my father and uncle were being untruthful but because of the resistance I got everywhere to the notion that my paternal grandmother could have been an Apache].

I am not changing my research strategies because I am not looking to be a member of a Native American tribe/nation. [I have enough difficulty being a Black American, I don't need that headache.] However, the closer I get to confirming family lore, the closer I get to documenting wht is important to me - my familiy hsitory.

Permalink Reply by Mavis Jones on October 13, 2009 at 10:53pm

Gene,

Thanks. After finding ggrandmother's death certificate, I did read up on pellagra. Still confused as to why nothing is indiciated in the undertaker and burial sections of the death certificate.