And so begins The Cholera Chronicles

If you are a regular reader of my blog you are likely thinking that the Cholera Chronicles actually started two blogs ago, and I suppose technically they did. As I explore the epidemic experience in the city of Buffalo during the early to mid-nineteenth century, I find that my path keeps twisting and turning. The best way to keep my thoughts organized is to consider the blog a journal for the next few weeks. If you plan on coming along for the ride I will keep you informed of my research, any interesting morsels that might find their way into the third book in the Orphans and Inmates series, and the location of the next rabbit hole I am likely to fall into.

With the help of a brilliant librarian at the Robert L. Brown History of Medicine Library at the University at Buffalo, I found an article from the Buffalo Medical Journal written by Dr. Austin Flint entitled “Report of the Epidemic Cholera at Buffalo, 1849.” This little gem reported morbidity and mortality statistics for the duration of the epidemic. More importantly, Flint obtained these figures directly from the Proceedings of the Board of Health, which evidently met frequently during the three and a half month epidemic. Recall that the Board of Health was established, as it had been during the epidemic of 1832, directly in response to the cholera threat. The question is where are those proceedings now?

The Proceedings of the Board of Health are an important source of primary data. Both Dr. Flint and two period newspapers (The Buffalo Daily Republic and The Buffalo Morning Express) reported cholera deaths citing those proceedings as their sources. However, the total number of deaths listed in the newspapers does not agree with the statistics published by Dr. Flint. Area physicians reported cholera deaths to the Board of Health from Sisters of Charity Hospital, the Cholera Hospital (established at the beginning of the epidemic to treat individuals who could not afford alternative care), and the homes of individuals who could afford the care of a private physician. An examination of the original proceedings would allow for an accurate account of the reported cases and elucidate any other details not mentioned in the secondary sources. I have several inquiries out to my very resourceful friends in the hopes that these reports will be found.

The question of where the poor were seeking medical treatment during the epidemics came to light as I was looking at the inmate ledgers for the Erie County Poorhouse. The records for 1832 indicate that cholera patients from the city were not sent to the poorhouse and that the institution seemed to be spared the devastating consequences of the dreaded disease. While there are not, to the best of my knowledge, inmate records for the year 1849, two sources address the issue of medical care for the poor during that year. According to Dr. Flint, in the early days of the epidemic, Sisters of Charity Hospital took on the role of pesthouse. However, another building was converted into a cholera hospital for the city’s poor about a week later. In an article dated July 2, 1849, just days before the epidemic was at its peak, The Buffalo Daily Republic reported the following:

The Board of Health would inform the public that a Cholera Hospital has been for some time established at the old stone house on the beach, for the reception of such patients as are not in circumstances to receive proper attention at their own houses.

That same article went on to appeal to city residents to come to the aid of those who could not help themselves.

While the cholera is afflicting many of the poorer inhabitants of our city who have no means of obtaining medical assistance, it would be a humane act on the part of any person to aid in removing such immediately to the Sisters of Charity Hospital or to the Cholera Hospital, where they can and will receive every attention and care.

So with one question answered, another arises. Where was the “old stone house on the beach”? My initial inquiries have not provided me with any clues. Perhaps the elusive Proceedings of the Board of Health contain the answer?

A final fact of interest from Dr. Flint’s paper was the report of a case of cholera at the American Hotel on June 14, 1849. There are no details on this individual, but I think the case could be elaborated upon and included in my third book. Most of Buffalo’s elite social clubs were established later in the nineteenth century, so in A Whisper of Bones, the second book in the Orphans and Inmates series, the American Hotel on Main Street is depicted as a place where well-to-do gentlemen gathered for a pint. I imagine the individual who contracted cholera to be a German business man, maybe a jeweler, having traveled from New York City. In 1849, the first cases of cholera came to New York via Germany and traveled down the Erie Canal. Perhaps this man became infected enroute to Buffalo. This patient allows me to shed light on the lack of socio-economic preferences of the disease because the American Hotel would not have been frequented by men of little means and a reported case there supports the assumption that cholera was not just a disease of the poor. 

The character from the American Hotel has yet to be developed. How old is he? Did he come directly from Germany? Does he have a family back in New York? What, if any, relationship does he have with the Nolan clan? Does he survive the disease? Please feel free to offer suggestions.