516 A. E. Verrill — The Bermuda Islands. 



Small pox was often epidemic in the islands, before the introduc- 

 tion of vaccination, and often proved very fatal. 



In the Royal Gazette for Nov. 27, 1784, (founded Jan. 17, 1784) 

 Dr. Dalzill of Somerset advertises to vaccinate " Whites and 

 Blacks, to pay each $7.00, and find all necessaries." But this was, 

 perhaps, vaccination with small pox virus, not with kine pox. 



The regular vaccination with kine pox was certainly introduced in 

 1804 ; but a fatal epidemic of small pox occurred in 1829, when it 

 became so alarming that Governor Popple dispatched two war 

 vessels in quest of vaccine matter. One went to Halifax and one to 

 the Bahamas. 



In 1818 and 1819, there was a bad epidemic, said to have been of 

 yellow fever, that spread all over the islands. 



In 1779 and 17s0 there was a fatal epidemic of "jail fever," 

 (probably t\ T phus fever) that originated among the American pris- 

 oners of war, who were crowded into the miserable, foul, and ill-ven- 

 tilated prison, which was described as little better than the " black 

 hole of Calcutta." It seems almost incredible, at this time, that 

 English officers and governors could have been so brutal and desti- 

 tute of the ordinary feelings of humanity as many of those of that 

 comparatively modern period proved themselves to have been.* 

 Probably that brutal " type " is not extinct, either in England or 

 elsewhere, but only held in check by public opinion. But this pes- 

 tilence spread beyond the prisons and over the islands generally, 

 affecting the innocent and guilty alike. It may have been typhoid 

 fever. 



An epidemic of typhoid fever among the soldiers in 1868 is 

 recorded in the British Medical Journal, p. 474, 1868. 



Doctor Harvey, in the same work (1890, pt. ii, pp. 1172-3), has 

 shown that the principal endemic fever of the Bermudas, as proved 

 by the records of the post mortem examinations in the Naval Hos- 

 pital, continued since 1811, has been typhoid fever, and that it has 

 prevailed more or less every summer and autumn since 1811, and 

 doubtless at least as far back as 1780. But in former times, and up 

 to 1862, it was generally mistaken for typhus fever or remittent 

 fever. He attributes it to the local unsanitary condition of many of 

 the houses and out-buildings, and the use of water from polluted 

 wells "at the grog shops and other native houses" by the sailors 

 and soldiers, when the cisterns fail in summer. 



* English historians have found the official rejiorts made at the time, regard- 

 ing the condition of this prison, "too disgusting for publication'." 



