How do you spot an epidemic?

[Phoenix]

Here is an outbreak of diptheria in Thursley, Surrey in 1933:

https://www.ancestry.co.uk/imageviewer/collections/4786/images/40815_1831109333_1385-00038?backlabel=ReturnSearchResults&queryId=580f761590e8d3d0bf31d4cda48245e2&pId=2575387

My grandfather's job had meant the family moved from Thursley to Godalming, presumably in the summer. Fifty years on, I visited the church with Mum, and saw the tiny graves in the churchyard. They were former schoolfriends. It made a profound and lasting impression on her. It created several column inches in the local press:

https://search.findmypast.co.uk/bna/viewarticle?id=BL/0000727/19330930/202&stringtohighlight=thursley


(And led to an indignant rebuttal the following week at the idea that London slum children might have caused the outbreak)


But "only" two children died. This is an outbreak, rather than an epidemic. How do you spot such things?

[Olde Crone]

There was a dramatic story in my family about my mother's brother who died from diphtheria in 1928. Grandma was 7 months pregnant, there was deep snow, no money for the doctor, so Gran walked two miles in the snow carrying her two year old son to hospital. When she got there he was dead. The Matron gave her a cup of tea before she walked back home again and Gran spoke of this kindness for the rest of her life!

I thought it was unlikely this happened but eventually got his death cert. He did indeed die of diptheria, in early Feb and was "dead on arrival at hospital" - diptheria 5 days. He wasn't quite two years old.

I must admit, I never considered an outbreak or an epidemic, but where there's one case of diptheria there must be many.

Much earlier and in Lancashire, one Vicar obligingly wrote causes of death in the burial register and it was often possible to spot an epidemic or at least a virulent outbreak, which decimated the children mostly, of course.I

OC

[Margaret in Burton]

My dad had diphtheria about 1937/8. He was in the local isolation hospital. He remembered that his parents couldn’t visit and he was only allowed to see them through a window.

[Anstey Nomad]

My daughters' great aunt had diphtheria in the 1920s and is still around to tell the tale!

She will be 99 in September and is determined to make her century and beat her older sister who only made it to a measly 98!

There are maps of Coventry in the nineteenth century plotting the cholera outbreaks. I'm not sure how you would pick them up from GRO indexes, but you might get lucky with parish registers more detailed than usual.

[Olde Crone]

My grandmother was dirt poor, a poverty we don't see these days, so perhaps his poor constitution meant he succumbed more easily than a healthy well nourished child.

OC

[Merry]

I typed 'diphtheria' into the newspaper search on FMP and when I viewed the number of matches per year there were some interesting peeks and troughs.

[HarrysMum]

There was a dramatic story in my family about my mother's brother who died from diphtheria in 1928. Grandma was 7 months pregnant, there was deep snow, no money for the doctor, so Gran walked two miles in the snow carrying her two year old son to hospital. When she got there he was dead. The Matron gave her a cup of tea before she walked back home again and Gran spoke of this kindness for the rest of her life!

I thought it was unlikely this happened but eventually got his death cert. He did indeed die of diptheria, in early Feb and was "dead on arrival at hospital" - diptheria 5 days. He wasn't quite two years old.

I must admit, I never considered an outbreak or an epidemic, but where there's one case of diptheria there must be many.

Much earlier and in Lancashire, one Vicar obligingly wrote causes of death in the burial register and it was often possible to spot an epidemic or at least a virulent outbreak, which decimated the children mostly, of course.I

OC

There was a brilliant one in Lancs OPC. I can’t remember the surname, but there were several burials, probably Hawkshead, around the same date. Then there is one which has the added info after the person’s name “ which brought the sickness in”. Nothing like naming and shaming…..

[Jill]

From the logbooks of the school where I work:

"17th July 1889
In accordance with Dr Fussell’s (MH E Sussex) advice the school was reopened on Monday Jul 15th after being closed for about 8 ½ weeks for an Epidemic of Diphtheria imported by the best of our belief, by children from Wivelsfield Parish. Over 100 cases – probably 150, have occurred with 5 deaths. Happily the attack was not of a malignant kind but even quite mild attacks have been followed by very serious loss of speech & sight. We are still obliged to exclude several children and shall be compelled to do so for two or three weeks to come. The average attendances in consequence very seriously reduced and as this causes in addition to the loss practically of the first 3 months of our School year, the welfare of the school must be seriously hampered for some time to come. RE Wyatt, Manager"


In the logbooks 1920-1954, the first mention of diphtheria is in 1935 when it is noted that several children had been inoculated and were having a couple of days off afterwards. From 1937 the local GP was coming into school regularly to give injections.