TYPHUS FEVER 97 



the servants of the upper classes were not allowed potatoes, and bread 

 was portioned out to them sparingly, few persons had more than a 

 quartern loaf in the week. The poor pawned their clothes, and even 

 their bedding for money to purchase food, and, as a natural conse- 

 quence, it was common for several members of one family to sleep in 

 the same bed." According to O'Connell, eighty thousand Irish died in 

 1740-1741 of famine and spotted fever and one-fifth the popula- 

 tion of Munster perished. Writing of a nineteenth century epidemic 

 of typhus in Ireland, Murchison says : 



Extreme distress ensued. The four pound loaf was sold in Dublin in 1817 

 for Is, 9d; and the poor throughout Ireland are described as wandering about 

 the country gathering nettles, wild mustard, and other weeds, to satisfy the 

 cravings of hunger. . . . The probable population of Ireland at this time 

 was, in round numbers, six million, and the number of sick was estimated at 

 737,000, or at about one-eighth. In Dublin alone there were about 70,000 cases, 

 making about one-third of the inhabitants. 



Of the same epidemic Carleton wrote: 



People collected at the larger dairy farms waiting for the cattle to be blooded, 

 so that they might take home some of the blood to eat mixed with a little 

 oatmeal. The want .of fuel caused the pot to be set aside, windows and crevices 

 to be stopped, washing of clothes and person to cease, and the inmates of a 

 cabin to huddle together for warmth. This was far from the normal state of 

 the cottages or even of the cabins, but cold and hunger made their inmates 

 apathetic. Admitted later to the hospitals for fever, they were found bronzed 

 with dirt, their hair full of vermin, their ragged clothes so foul and rotten 

 that it was more economical to destroy them and replace them than to clean 

 them. 



The roads were filled with infected vagrants and many a poor 

 cottier not only divided what he had in alms, but by giving shelter to 

 the wanderer introduced the infection into his humble home, while "the 

 dogs of the gentry kept all beggars from their gates." 



The last great Irish famine (1845-1848) was the occasion for the 

 prevalence of relapsing fever and scurvy as well as typhus fever. This 

 scourge was foreseen in the development of the potato blight and was 

 mitigated somewhat by the repeal of the corn laws and by a change 

 in the navigation laws permitting the carrying of food supplies in other 

 than British bottoms. At that time Ireland lived almost exclusively 

 on milk and potatoes. Although it produced more than enough grain 



