Distemper?

[Phoenix]

The Voss family in Stinsford, Dorset succumbed to distemper in 1783:

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/iexec?htx=View&r=5538&dbid=2243&iid=32435_239691-00169&fn=William&ln=Voss&st=r&ssrc=pt_t49447998_p13698160548_kpidz0q3d1369816054 8z0q26pgz0q3d32768z0q252c32768z0q26pgplz0q3dpidz0q 252cpid_m1&pid=1341992

This can't be rabies, so what is it?

[Nell]

According to

http://www.nimr.mrc.ac.uk/mill-hill-essays/distemper-and-influenza-at-mill-hill

"The interest of medical scientists in distemper was based in part
on similarities between the disease and such human diseases as
measles and influenza, all of which first involve infection of the
respiratory tract."

So it may have been something like that. Or perhaps the recorder couldn't spell "dysentry":d

[Phoenix]

On the next page, what appears to be the same thing is described as the bloody flux.

[Phoenix]

So yes, dysentry. No wonder the children were carried off so quickly.

[Sue at the seaside]

I can't see the image you've posted (sub has expired) but the thought of Distemper whisked me back to days in college studying virology! I haven't thought about the asocciation of viruses in years, Measles, Distemper and Rinderpest I used to love that subject!

Distemper can't be transmitted between dogs and humans, well we know that now, but in 1700s thay may not have, if the dogs were ill and then the family were ill, it could have been an assumtion that the family caught it from the dog/s.

Are you sure it could say dysentry?

[Phoenix]

Sue, it very clearly says Distemper, but they are falling like flies, and on the following page it says bloody flux, so I assume, with Nell, that they actually meant dysentry. A horrible way to die and with all the filthy bedding it is amazing that anyone at all survived in the household.