Ebola in Eighteenth-Century England? January 24, 2018
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern , trackback
This is a mysterious illness that led to most of the members of a family in Suffolk (England) losing their limbs in 1762. Was there an Ebola outbreak in mid eighteenth-century England? Presumably not. But what is happening here? The case was presented to the Royal Society in 1862 by a Dr. Woolaston. This is a later summary.
John Downing, a poor labouring man, living at Wattisham, in January last, had a wife and six children, the eldest a girl of 15 years of age, the youngest about four months. They were all that time very healthy, and one of them had been ill for some time before. On Sunday the 10th of January, 1762, the eldest girl complained, in the morning, of a pain in her leg, particularly in the calf of her leg; towards evening the pain grew exceedingly violent. The same evening, another girl complained of the same violent pain in the same leg. On the Monday, the mother and another child; and on Tuesday, all the rest of the family were afflicted in the same manner, some in one leg and some in both legs. The little infant was taken from the mother’s breast; it seemed to be in pain, but the limbs did not mortify: it lived a few weeks. The mother and the other five children continued in violent pain a considerable time, In about four, five, or six days, the diseased leg began to turn black gradually, appearing at first covered with blue spots, as if it had been bruised. The other leg of those who were affected at first only in one leg, about that time also began to be affected with the same excruciating pain, and in a few days the leg also began to mortify. The mortified parts separated gradually from the sound parts, and the surgeon had, in most of the cases, no other trouble than to cut through the bone, which was black and almost dry.
Here is the casualty list.
Mary, the mother, aged 40 years, has lost the right foot at the ancle [sic]; the left foot also is off, and the two bones of the leg remain almost dry, with only some little putrid flesh adhering in the same places. The flesh is sound to about two inches below the knee. The bones would have been sawn through that place, if she would have consented to it.
Mary, aged 15 years, both legs off below the knees.
Elizabeth, aged 13 years, both legs off below the knees.
Sarah, aged 10 years, one foot off at the ancle: the other foot was affected, but not in so great a degree, and is now sound again.
Robert, aged 8, both legs off below the knees.
Edward, aged 4 years, both feet off.
An infant, 4 months old, dead.
The father was attacked about a fortnight after the rest of the family, and in a slight degree; the pain being confined to his fingers. Two fingers of the right hand continued for a long time discoloured, and partly shrunk and contracted; but he begins now to have some use of them. — The nails of the other hand were also discoloured; he lost two of them.
The chronicler gives one final thought.
It is remarkable, that during all the time of this misfortune the whole family are said to have appeared well in other respects, ate heartily, and slept well, when the violence of the pain began to abate. The mother is now emaciated, and has very little use of her hands. The eldest girl has a superficial ulcer in one thigh, and seems also ill. The rest of the family are pretty well. The stumps of some of them perfectly healed.
Beach is not usually much interested in medical marvels or, as here, horrors, but he is really curious about what is behind this one. Did we have an unknown disease break out in idyllic deep England? Did time travelling Soviet scientists carry out an experiment in biological warfare? Did a hysteric reaction in a family match up with the proclivities of a local doctor who was ‘into’ amputations? The best explanation is probably ergotism, which was suggested by one member of the Royal Society in 1808.
Any other thoughts: drbeachcombing AT gmail DOT com
Margaret W writes in, 29 Jan 2017: This is most definitely not my area of expertise, but this seems vascular in origin. The calf pain made me at first think of DVT, but reading on it seems to be more like limb ischaemia. The excruciating pain, limb going black, and the state of the bone on amputation all suggest a loss of arterial supply. There don’t seem to have been any symptoms of leg pain before this, so I suspect acute limb ischaemia rather than critical limb ischaemia (which is on the background of more chronic arterial problems). The question then is what caused simultaneous ischaemic events in multiple family members? The family members who lost limbs are all genetically related via the female line; the father has much more minor symptoms. So could it be that there is an underlying genetic vulnerability, then something acute and shared which increased the risk (the above article gives a table of factors predisposing to acute limb ischaemia)? I first thought of genetic hypercoaguable states – but these often cause venous thrombosis in pregnancy, and the mother obviously had six successful pregnancies. I would be very interested in a vascular specialist’s thoughts on this – I may be barking up the wrong tree entirely!
Setec Astronomy writes in, 29 Jan 2017: What’s described cannot be Ebola*, but Ergotism doesn’t really fit. For one thing, it was familiar to people at that time, but even more such nasty cases would certainly have caused neurological symptoms. A clue in my mind is the excruciating pain, which is characteristic of necrotic effects, and especially necrotizing fasciitis, and some other infections. If there was some contaminated surface/soil/tool that would explain the spread. I suppose it’s possible that such contamination could have been deliberate, but there’s no reason to believe that.
*Ebola is characterized by the effects of massive viremia, and these infections seem localized.
Also got a couple of emails about anthrax…
