Epidemic Intermittent Fever; 
ITS 
ANNUAL PROGRESS 
IN CONNECTICUT AND OTHER PARTS OF NEW ENGLAND. 
' / 
GJ. H. WILSON, M. L)., 
- 
MERIDEN, 
Member of the State Board of Health. 
Reprinted from the Report of The State Board of Health, 1882. 
HARTFORD, CONN.: 
Press ok The Case, Lockwood & Brainard Company. 
1883. Great Barrington 79 
Lee 78 
Lenox 78 
Lanesboro 79 
North Adams 80 
West 80 
soO«BONAL X,/jv 
SHOWING THE 
ANNUAL PROGRESS BY TOWNS 
MALARIAL DISEASES, 
G.H.WILSON,MD. 
MERIDEN, CONN. 
CONNECTICUT 
THEODORE G. ELLIS,C E. 
For the State Board of Health . 
Scale of Miles. 
0 12 34.5 67 3 9 10 U 12 13 14-15 
. FhoTe>Bith<y Co.J\ryr Epidemic Intermittent Fever; 
ITS 
ANNUAL PROGRESS 
IN CONNECTICUT AND OTHER PARTS OF NEW ENGLAND. 
" J 
G. H. WILSON, M. 33., 
MERIDEN, 
Member op the State Board of Health. [From the Proceedings of the State Board of Health.] 
EPIDEMIC INTERMITTENT FEVERS. 
I desire to present a study of the movement of the present 
malarial epidemic in Connecticut and other parts of New England, 
illustrated by a map with isochronal lines, showing the extent 
and direction of its annual progress during the past twenty-three 
years. 
The data upon which this article is based have been obtained 
from personal observations, and reports of medical men and others 
in nearly every town in the three States of Connecticut, Massachu- 
setts, and Rhode Island, and are believed to be reliable. Some 
little variation in the particular year when the first cases of ague 
appeared in the respective localities was to be expected, owing to 
the comparative suddenness or insidiousness with which it changed 
the type of disease, as well as the degree of familiarity of the 
observer, with the forms he had to deal with. 
In some instances, manifest errors in the returns have been 
corrected; but in nearly all other cases, including some doubtful 
ones, the lines of annual progress have been drawn upon the map 
as near to the reported date as was compatible with clearness of 
representation. 
In a few instances the reported dates so far failed to correspond 
with those from adjoining towns, that they were inclosed in circles 
by themselves to indicate their exception from the general classifi- 
cation. 
This fidelity to the sources of information interferes here and 
there with the symmetry of the diagramatic representation, but 
the alternative would be liable to sacrifice the truth. 
To avoid confusion, a few lines have been dropped, or lost, in 
that of the year preceding, where the movement for several years 
was not lateral, but forward only. 
With these exceptions, each annual line is drawn to include the 
towns in which malarial affections, chills and fever, had at that 
time appeared. 3 
Having no means of showing intensity, or comparative preva- 
lence, it may be remembered that the mode of invasion has been 
so uniform, in nearly all towns, and sections of towns, districts, 
and hamlets reporting, that we may assume for all, that the cases 
were few the first year, ten times as many the second year, and 
only became general on the third or fourth year. 
It will be seen that the course, as shown by the successive 
waves, and later, by the concentric lines of its annual progress, 
indicates an advance in one definite direction, independent of any 
known or recognized influence, whether atmospheric, telluric, 
magnetic, or climatic, and through the most diverse conditions of 
surface, soil, humidity, and temperature, general and local. 
We are unfortunately constrained by long usage to denominate 
the class of diseases- under consideration malarial, and so in a 
sense endorse by word, what in the argument we must disown. 
Our inability to say what the cause of ague is, does not debar us, 
however, from proving what it is not. In fact, if the question can 
be cleared of the halo of error, which has hitherto surrounded it, 
the truth may more readily appear ; and the object of this paper 
is to show, how little its conclusions agree with the favorite 
opinions of laymen and physicians, from Lancisi down, regarding, 
the cause of ague, and its future in Connecticut. 
In this epidemic we may be sure that ague is not produced by 
“heat, moisture, and decay,” arising from ponds, reservoirs, 
swamps, or low grounds, overflowed by freshets, or exposed by 
evaporation; for new cases arise at any and all seasons of the year, 
and upon the highest land, as it has done in one-third of the towns 
in the State; nor by uncovering lately submerged lands, for in 
most towns no such lands exist. Not only does the disease not 
appear under the conditions appropriate to the paludal theory, 
but it does not confine itself to, or remain in, the alluvial tracts, 
even when established upon them. 
Not from “disturbance of earth,” by grading, ditching, or rail- 
road building in the country, or by laying down sewers, or gas or 
water pipes in towns; for these operations have been going on for 
ages, while no ague came because of them, and it did appear at 
the same relative time in territory whose surface had or had not 
been disturbed. 
Not from the “transportation of clay, manures, or other decay- 
ing and fermenting substances, from New Jersey and New York,” 4 
or of sawdust in the river beds, floated down from the mills of 
the north; for in several.towns so affected none of these things 
have been introduced to this day, and in others, the disease failed 
to appear at the time called for by the theory. 
Not from “ stagnant, or even foul water,” no matter how 
offensive to smell or taste; for water with these qualities has 
always existed in many towns free from ague, and, on the other 
hand, many tracts of dry and sandy soil have been its favorite 
haunts. 
Not from bacillus malar ice in the water, which would be carried 
with the current; while ague moves up stream, and against the 
current of every principal river in Connecticut. 
It cannot be from germs carried by winds; for the direction 
for the year, in the State, and in New England generally, is north 
of west, and is very rarely, and for a short time only, in the 
direction of the ague movement. 
Probably no error is so common among the people of towns, as 
that it may be caused by imperfect drainage, by the filth of 
houses. Doubtless bad conditions lower the vitality and decrease 
the resisting power of the system, and promote the liability to 
suffer from exposure to specific influence, but no amount of filth 
or degree of debility will produce one case of ague de novo. 
Ague is specific, and can only be produced by its own cause. 
That ague is found in all these conditions is fortunate for the 
handy hypothesis of local influence, and the daily use of talkative 
laymen and lazy physicians; but post hoc is not propter hoc. 
These alleged causes of ague might have been left to the defence 
of their inventors, and not have burdened this paper, but for the 
benefit of the contrast which the lessons and conclusions of the 
map present to the unsettled condition of thought on that subject. 
In its invasion of this State the ague crossed, diagonally but deci- 
dedly, every one of our main rivers. Starting on the coast, west of 
the Housatonic, it crossed its valley the next year, but did not ascend 
it, more than about fifteen miles, in as many years. It next crossed 
the Naugatuck, within five miles of its mouth. The Quinnipiac, it 
first reached and crossed, in South Meriden, sixteen miles from 
East Haven; the Connecticut at Middletown, twenty-five miles 
from the Sound ; and the tributaries of the Thames in Coventry, 
forty miles from the sea. 
I would mention that in Rhode Island, also, it entered at 5 
Westerly, and passed through the State to the northeast, leaving 
the southeast and northwest portions unaffected. 
The following table shows the towns affected by malarial dis- 
eases, grouped according to the years when the present epidemic 
first appeared: 11 
1860. Southport. 
1861. Fairfield, Milford, Orange. 
1862. Darien, Bridgeport, Hamden Plains. 
1863. Mt. Carmel, Centerville. 
1864. Hamden, New Haven. 
1865. The western border of North Haven and Wallingford, 
southeast corner of Cheshire, South Meriden. 
1866. Woodbridge and East Haven. 
1867. South Norwalk, Cheshire. 
1868. Norwalk, Derby, North Haven. 
1869. Wallingford, Meriden. 
1870. New Canaan, Wilton, Middletown, Portland, Cromwell, 
Wethersfield. 
1871. Stamford, Westport, Huntington, Southington, Berlin, 
New Britain, Newington, Middlefield, South Glastonbury. 
1872. Weston, Seymour, Oxford, Birmingham, Hartford, East 
Hartford, Haddam, Durham, Rocky Hill. 
1873. Easton, Trumbull, Naugatuck, West Hartford, Old 
Saybrook, Essex. 
1874. Ridgefield, Burlington, Watertown, South Manchester, 
East Haddam. 
1875. Greenwich, Beacon Falls, Roxbury, Woodbury, Torring- 
ton, Avon, South Windsor, East Windsor, Chatham, Chester, 
W estbrook. 
1876. Southbury, West Oxford, Canton, East Granby, Ware- 
house Point, Manchester Center, Lyme, Saybrook, Guilford, Madi- 
son, Clinton, East Lyme. 
1877. Monroe, Newtown, Brookfield, Bridgewater, New Fair- 
field, New Milford, Kent, Salisbury, Sheffield, Mass., Suffield, 
Ellington, Coventry, Columbia, Old Lyme, Glastonbury. 
1878. Greenwich Town, Canaan, North Canaan, Norfolk, and 
Lenox, Mass., Hartland, Granby, Simsbury, Somers, Willington, 
CLASSIFICATION. G 
Lebanon, Waterford, Killingworth, and Agawam and Springfield, 
Mass. 
1879. Cornwall, Bozrah, Montville, Great Barrington, Lanes- 
boro, West Springfield, Chicopee, Northampton, Hadley, Hatfield, 
Brim field, Dudley, Mass. 
1880. Litchfield, Warren, Goshen, Winchester1, Stafford, Tol- 
land, Mansfield, Windham, Sprague, New London. In Massachu- 
setts, Lee, West Stockbridge, North Adams, Southwick, Long 
Meadow. In Rhode Island, Westerly, South-East Providence, 
Barrington. 
1881. Norwich, Thompson. In Massachusetts, Williamstown. 
In Rhode Island, fourteen towns. 
The general direction taken by the main line of annual progress 
in this malarial invasion, will be seen, by reference to the dates on 
the map at the head of each successive wave, to be northeast by 
north, slightly curving to the left; and this course was pursued 
during fifteen years, or until 1875, when it had reached the town 
of Windsor on the Connecticut. After that time, the radiation, or 
lateral spread of the disease, became more decided, covering finally, 
nearly every town in this State, passing the line of Massachusetts, 
at Agawam, in 1878. In the next four years it had attacked all 
the towns in Western Massachusetts and a few scattered over the 
eastern part of that State, and, invaded Vermont and New Hamp- 
shire, as well as Rhode Island. 
Or, to be more definite: .The epidemic approached New England, 
through this State from the south, and first touched the shore, in 
two places, at about the same time, or within a year, the first being 
in the southern part of Fairfield and the second in Darien, from 
neither of which did it spread to any considerable extent, but 
gradually increased in intensity, as it usually has done, in the dif- 
ferent towns, since that time. 
The third point was in Milford in 1861, whence it extended 
over a great part of the State, reaching Orange the same year, and 
Hamden Plains in 1863, Mount Carmel in 1864, and New Haven 
later the same season. 
In 1865 it passed the village of Quinnipiac, the eastern border 
of Cheshire, and the western part of North Haven and Walling- 
ford, to South Meriden, where it crossed the Quinnipiac river. 
In 1866 it appeared at Morris Cove in East Haven, and at Wood- 7 
bridge. During the next three years its advance was slow but 
steady, reaching Branford, the villages of North Haven, Walling- 
ford, and the southwestern quarter of the city and town of Meriden 
in 1869; in 1870, the northwestern part of Meriden, and crossed 
the mountains to Middletown, Cromwell, Portland, and Wethers- 
field. In 1871 it passed to Berlin, New Britain, Southington, 
Newington, South Glastonbury, and Middlefield; in 1872, north to 
Hartford, East Hartford, Rocky. Hill, and south to Haddam. In 
1873 it advanced to West Hartford, on the north, Easton and 
Trumbull, on the west, and made a skip to Old Saybrook and 
Essex on the east, tbe towns between Branford and Essex not 
being affected until 1876-8. In 1875 it reached Windsor and. 
spread laterally, involving many towns north and west. 1876 
added a few towns to round out the concentric lines—Guilford, 
Madison, Clinton, Saybrook, Lyme, East Lyme, Canton, East Gran- 
by, and Warehouse Point. 1877 was remarkable for the number 
of towns attacked, although the progress was not much greater 
than before, but, extending eastwardly along the whole line from 
the seaboard to Massachusetts, it took in Old Lyme, Hebron, 
Columbia, Coventry, Ellington, and Suffield. 
On the west, a similar wave included every town in the Housa- 
tonic valley, from Monroe to Sheffield. 
1878 completed the width of the State, and added Agawam and 
Springfield, as well as the noted town of Lenox, Mass., and a tier 
of eastern towns, between Somers and Waterford. 
In 1879-80 it made the usual advance in all directions except 
the west, which was already under its influence, finished the Litch- 
field region, and the journey to the State of Rhode Island, where 
three towns were first included in the reports. So also were all 
the towns in the four western counties of Massachusetts, and a few 
scattering ones farther east. 
In 1881 it invaded anew the States of Vermont and New 
Hampshire, and more than half the towns in Rhode Island. 
Among the important exceptions to the general movement, now 
described, was the outbreak in Danbury, Bethel, and part of New 
town, in 1865, twelve years before the main line reached them, and 
Sherman the previous year, 1876. 
This region adjoins Westchester County, New York, where 
ague is perennial, and may have received its impulse from that 
direction. In fact, it seems very natural to include the whole 8 
Housatonic valley above Trumbull, in a southwesterly wave from 
the neighboring State. Our information regarding the movement 
from that direction, though meager, strengthens the idea of a north- 
easterly movement similar to that in central Connecticut the same 
year, which reached from Old Lyme to Suffield. 
There may be a question, also, whether the Litchfield region re- 
ceived its ague from the east or west. Colchester and Enfield 
may be included in the exceptions. 
In reference to the source from which the ague reached us, it 
will be seen that its main line of progress, as has been said, is a 
slight curve northeast and southwest. Now by following it ltack- 
ward we naturally reach that part of Long Island where ague was 
rife from 1850-60, and continuing the course it carries us to New 
Jersey. The same rule would apply to the wave in western Con- 
necticut. 
In conclusion, it appears that New England is now suffering from 
an epidemic of intermittent, which has moved from the first, and is 
still moving, northeasterly, with an irregular front, continuous in 
time, but sometimes interrupted in manner. 
It is not too much to suppose, that it came over from Long 
Island and New Jersey, and possibly further south, as well as from 
the same region over Westchester County; that its front ex- 
tends from the Hudson on the west, to Buzzard’s Bay on the east; 
that it has moved a hundred miles north and east, and still 
reaches out its favors to those belated northmen and down-easters, 
who have hitherto mocked us.