Family History |
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THE
SMALLPOX JOURNAL OF SOLOMON DROWN by Kate Schrire On September 10th, 1772, Solomon Drown boarded a boat in Providence,
Rhode Island. It was not his first boat trip, and it would certainly
not be his last. Like any nineteen year-old, he was excited at the
prospect of adventure, but he was making this trip for a serious
reason; Solomon Drown was going to New York to deliberately contract
smallpox. Variola
major was one of many diseases brought to the New World by European voyagers
in the early sixteenth century. Like a parasite, the virus jumped from
one human to another. Those sufferers who did not die were left with
lifelong immunity to the disease, forcing the virus to constantly
search out new, vulnerable victims. But even those who survived were
rarely left unscathed; smallpox often left survivors with disfiguring
scars, and even blindness. Native populations, which had never been
exposed to and therefore had no resistance to smallpox, were decimated
and in some cases wiped out by the virus. White Americans, while not
as susceptible as their native counterparts, were repeatedly stricken
by epidemics over the next two and a half centuries. For
Americans of that time faced with the threat of smallpox, there were
two paths of recourse. The first was avoidance. When Solomon was an
infant, a particularly bad epidemic in 1755 resulted in 2,000 of
Boston’s 15,000 citizens fleeing the epidemic – and the city. In
his native Rhode Island, those unfortunate enough to contract smallpox
were quarantined on an island off Newport, where they either recovered
or died. However, in a
populated, urban environment, the threat was always there, and always
real. Given the ineffectiveness of this method, the second option was
inoculation. Inoculation
in the eighteenth century was not the simple, sterile procedure that
vaccination is today. Edward Jenner was still a quarter century away
from his revolutionary experiments with cowpox, which would eventually
transform the medical field and save thousands of lives. For all but
the last years of the eighteenth century, the only way to inoculate
against smallpox was to purposefully infect humans with a live strain
of the disease, taken from a previous sufferer.
While not as life-threatening as contracting the disease in the
normal manner, smallpox by inoculation still resulted in fever, pain
and the small, scarring pockmarks
from which the disease gets its name. Some died, but more did
not, establishing the procedure as a risky but viable alternative to
catching smallpox directly from a contagious sufferer. Solomon
was born in 1753, to a large Rhode Island family. A curious,
thoughtful child, he recorded much of his adolescence in his diaries.
It was a life of relative privilege: he received private instruction
as a boy, and in 1770, he applied and was accepted to Brown
University, or as it was known then, Rhode Island College. We
shall never know the reasons behind this nineteen year-old college
student’s decision; his journal starts at the beginning of his
journey, and ends upon his return home, just over a month later. But
we do know that, whatever his reasoning was, his decision was made in
a climate of fear and tension. Inoculation was a highly controversial
procedure in Western society at the time. Although similar procedures
had been practiced in parts of Asia and Africa for centuries,
inoculation first entered western history records in the early
seventeen hundreds. During the hundred years it was practiced in
Europe and America, it remained a divisive issue. Some
felt that it interfered with God’s will, and others thought that it
was a blasphemous attempt to usurp
God. More commonly, people were fearful that intentionally introducing
smallpox into communities –regardless of method - would instigate
epidemics where originally there were none. This division ran along
class lines. The working classes, who could not afford the time or
costs of the procedure, resented the fact that upper class
inoculations might introduce an epidemic into their communities, which
were less equipped - economically, medically and nutritionally - to
deal with an outbreak. Prominent proponents of inoculation were
occasionally attacked, and in 1774, an inoculation hospital
established in Massachusetts was razed to the ground by angry
protestors. As a result of the controversy and concerns, it was almost
impossible to be inoculated against the disease in New England, where
most cities had outlawed the practice. The
response of wealthy New Englanders was to travel south to be
inoculated. During this period, it became a highly lucrative industry,
transporting, inoculating and caring for the recuperating northern
patients. While not forbidding the exodus, New England resented the
profits being taken out-of-state by locals. Doctors in New York and
New Jersey relied on the travelers from the north for income, and
their economic communities actively discouraged movements in New
England to relax smallpox legislation. So when he stepped out onto
that ship, Solomon was defying the social and legislative norms of his
home and his society, by exerting the privilege his class and wealth
afforded him. And
finally, he wasn’t merely leaving his home to undergo a minor
medical procedure; he was going to New York in order to be
deliberately infected with a deadly disease in a highly controversial
procedure. And yet, he left willingly, and stepped aboard the boat in
high spirits. His
composure did not last long. Solomon spent most of the voyage being
violently sick, “puking overboard merrily”, as he wryly describes
it. From the first pages of his journal, Solomon established his own,
clear voice, discussing his life and experiences with a frankness
rarely found in journals of the era. Throughout the voyage, he
meticulously notes the exact time of arrival and departure at each
port of call, a precision he mixes with rueful humour in describing
his seasickness, and an appreciation for the scenery surrounding him
as “the vessel gently glided along”. Upon
arriving in New York, Solomon and his friends Daniel and Harry found
lodgings with Reverend John Gano, whom he paid eight dollars for a
month’s board. On his first night in New York, Solomon writes,
“This evening we concluded to be inoculated in the city of New York,
by Dr John Stites.” This is the first time he mentions Dr Stites,
and he gives no explanation for his choice. There were other doctors
performing inoculations in New York at that time. Perhaps the Reverend
Gano suggested Dr Stites, who was his brother-in-law. Regardless, he
paid Dr Stites four dollars to inoculate and provide him with the
necessary treatment during his convalescence. He
grew to trust the judgment and enjoy the company of his doctor,
drinking tea and dining with him regularly, and asking his advice
about suitable texts for his future medical studies, his interest in
medicine already apparent. The
following day, two of Solomon’s fellow passengers from Providence
were inoculated by another doctor. Solomon seemed bothered that they
had gone ahead and been inoculated before him. His anticipation at the
prospect continued throughout the day; he was frustrated when
inoculation was postponed until after the evening Baptist meeting, and
then raced with Harry to be the first to be inoculated. Solomon,
speedy in his eagerness to run inside and strip off his coat, won. His
excitement did not affect his powers of observation; he carefully
described the procedure. “We
are inoculated after the Suttonian Method, which is this, the doctor
with his lancet just scratches up the skin so as to fetch blood, then
fixes a piece of thread, infected with the matter, into the scratch,
upon which, a very tenacious
plaister is applied, and a bandage around the arm.” Solomon
and his friends were lucky; Robert Sutton, a British doctor, had
worked throughout the 1760s to improve both the procedure and outcome
of smallpox inoculation. And despite Sutton’s best attempts to keep
his findings secret (he only published them in 1796, the same year
that Edward Jenner’s invention of vaccination made inoculation
techniques irrelevant), his colleagues disseminated his findings,
which were first published in the New World in 1771, the year before
Solomon arrived in New York. As a result of Sutton’s improvements,
doctors used shallower incisions to insert the virus into patients’
arms, and stopped prepping their patients for inoculation with oral
doses of mercury. Modern medical knowledge suggests that these mercury
treatments probably weakened patients, if not outright killed them. An additional recommendation of the Suttonian method was that patients be strictly quarantined for the safety of other’s. This, however, was one stricture which was ignored by many doctors and their patients. We know now that inoculees were contagious from the first arrival of symptoms until the last of the smallpox scabs fell off; a period of approximately two weeks, which began two weeks after the inoculation. And yet, much of Solomon’s diary details his daily outings while recuperating from his inoculation. Facts like these perhaps explain why there was such resistance to inoculation in New England. We know of no one who became sick after interacting with Solomon, but in a society where people acknowledged the contagious nature of smallpox, the idea of contagious inoculees mingling with urban populations is a terrifying thought. Solomon
did not seem too discomforted by the procedure, describing it as
“being no more than the scratch of a pin”. Indeed, he spent the
rest of the evening paying social calls, running errands, attending a
Baptist meeting, and wandering the city, admiring architecture. Little
happened over the next six days. Solomon dutifully wrote in his
journal, noting the Baptist meetings and religious orations attended,
and the people he met for tea. Despite the brevity of his entries, he
notes each evening that he had taken a pill. He did not not describe
what the pill was for, only that he dutifully took one each night.
Occasionally, he took medicine in the morning, in the form of “a
dose of powders which
they mix up with some fluid and call chocalate. It is as nauseous,
illtasting stuff, I believe, as ever was contrived, and sets me a
puking directly”. It is both hard to believe that chocolate was used
as a treatment for smallpox, and that Solomon would be unfamiliar with
it. At
the same time in Germany, a well-respected medical authority,
Christopher Ludiwg Hoffmann, had recently written a treatise called
‘Potus Chocolate’ proposing the food as a treatment for a range of
maladies. It is possible that American doctors such as Dr Stites had
read or heard of this theory. Chocolate was introduced to America in
1765, seven years before Solomon took it medicinally. Cocoa beans were
imported to Dorchester, Massachusetts, but the chocolate that resulted
was first advertised only in 1774, so it is possible that Solomon,
living relatively close to America’s only chocolate factory, was
unaware of the product, which only the very rich could afford. And
since he was prescribed with cocoa powder, it very possibly was not
sweetened, which would result in a very bitter medication! Aside
from his dislike of his medication, Solomon did not fare too badly in
the days directly following his inoculation. He noted that Dr Stites
limited his diet to simple, unspiced foods. Doctors of the period each
had their own conceptions of how best to see a patient through this
risky period, but aside from his use of cocoa, none of Dr Stites’
prescriptions were unusual. Upon
taking his sixth and final pill, Solomon noted, “My head aches very
much which is a symptom of the approaching smallpox”. It was the
first time he mentioned his own, impending surrender to smallpox. The
next day, his joints were stiff, and he felt pain in his back and
head. He wrote, “the doctor concludes the smallpox will break out
upon me tomorrow”. Although
religion was a routine and natural part of his life, he only wrote
about God once, when faced with the inexorable risk, bearing down upon
him. His journal, his record, the passing of this important experience
in his life, is the context through which he recognizes his
powerlessness. “I shall not write any more,” he stated, “till I
get over the smallpox, if through the tender Mercies of my Father who
is in Heaven, my life should be spared, and Health restored me.” He
managed to scribble one more entry the following day, of one line:
“This day the pock begin to make their appearance upon the skin”. Diarists
of this period are known for the regularity with which they wrote, and
Solomon was no exception. Twenty years before, another diarist also
detailed his experiences with smallpox, this time contracted
unintentionally on a trip to Barbados. That man was George Washington.
And much like Solomon, he attempted to list his growing
symptoms, but in the dark days when smallpox took over his body and
threatened his life, George Washington’s diary was tellingly silent.
And so it is with Solomon, and such silence, in contrast with his
usual curiosity, keen perception and his joy for life, such silence is
more telling than all his attempts, before and after, to describe the
deepest, dark days of his sickness. Today
we understand medically the process which people of the time learnt
through bitter experience; the effects of smallpox as it fights to
possess its host. Once smallpox is introduced to the body, it takes
several days to settle down and start insidiously overwhelming the
body. In
the first week to ten days, as Solomon detailed, the victim feels
perfectly fine. He wanders around, thankfully not yet contagious, as
the virus starts to take root. A week to ten days later, the victim
starts to feel the affects of the virus which is multiplying in his
body; a slight, almost dismissible weakness, some pain or inflammation
in the bones. This
is quickly followed by the first appearance of the pocks. Weaker
individuals sometimes skip this stage, going from feverish to dead in
a matter of days. Most, like Solomon, cannot escape the all-consuming
pocks. At
this point, the virus gains impetus, traveling rapidly through the
body, leaving the itchy, evolving rash in its wake. The pocks have a
life of their own; they start, as Solomon describes them, “very much
resembling flea bites”. Within a day, they have grown into small,
solid bumps. They inhabit the membranes within the body, but now start
pushing through the skin. They cluster on the face, the back, the
arms; even the palms of hands and soles of feet. Over
the next ten days or so, these bumps swell, filling with fluid,
blistering the skin. They burst, seeping contagious, noxious liquid.
This doesn’t bring relief; as these wounds start to scab, they catch
on clothing, linens, making movement unbearable. Until these scabs
shrivel and fall off, the victim is extremely, dangerously contagious.
Solomon
was lucky; inoculees typically experience milder versions of a typical
smallpox infection. There were rare occasions over the week when he
managed to write in his beloved journal. He recorded the number of
pocks he estimated covered his body: three or four hundred. He started
counting the number on each hand, and his face, but the task was too
great. For
once, time does not flow for him in journal entries, or pills, but in
the counting of pocks. There is nothing to do but wait. When
he was over the worst, he described how it felt, in the throes of
affliction: “We were so sore we could scarce stir about; the pock
break out every were without ceremony and are so troublesome that we
can sleep but a little for them. We have the smallpox rather worse
than we expected, or than is common by inoculation”. The
next day, he took his final, horrid dose of medication, and felt well
enough to return to sight-seeing, which cheered him up enormously. He
was healing, and his journal entries were once more full of his awe at
the wealth and size of New York. Several
days later, he noted, “This morning we clean up after the small pox.
Harry and myself go down to the kitchen fire where we wash ourselves.
This day is just three weeks from the day that we were inoculated”.
He
would soon be returning to Providence, and spent his last week
enjoying the city and running errands, unaware of how contagious he
still was. Somewhat ironically, considering his recent survival of one
of the most deadly diseases of the time, he bought a bottle of
“Daffy’s Elixer Salutis” for half a crown. He did not say why he
felt he needed it, but Daffy’s was a well-known and widely available
cure-all in both Europe and America. Its popularity may have
unconsciously been a response to what modern chemical analysis now
tells us; ‘Elixer Salutis’ was in fact made mostly from alcohol.
Another
task he performed was buying flour. He visited many stores, but could
not find the kind he wanted. Nonetheless, “flour is very scarce in
Providence. I therefore buy two barrels, at 25 cents York currency”. Solomon
also relaxed with his friends, his high spirits a good indication of
his returning health. They visited a Jewish synagogue, an exotic and
intriguing experience, and in an eighteenth century version of a
timeless scenario, ate fried oysters and drank plenty of mead, and
stayed out far too late to “get home without letting Mr and Mrs Gano
know where we had been”. So they went back to the synagogue and then
home, “determining to tell them, if they ask where we have been,
that we have just left the synagogue, and if they should ask us if we
did not want supper, that it is so late we will adjourn it till
tomorrow morning. Thus we escape being found out this time.” The
day before their departure, Solomon wrote that “the doctor has
concluded that Harry is not well enough to go home, having sores about
him which he thinks will frighten the N England people”. This is the
only time Solomon discussed the long term effects – scarring-
typical of surviving smallpox. George Washington famously escaped all
but the lightest of pock scars. Solomon did not tell us whether he too
escaped so lightly; portraits done of him later in life do not show
scars, but then portraits probably would not. Despite
the sores, Harry seemed well, and Solomon decided to return to Rhode
Island without his friend, who would follow when fully recovered. The
next day, Solomon said his farewells to his friends and acquaintances
of the past month, and boarded the Sloop Betty to return home. Dr
Stites came to the wharf to see him off. Despite a difficult journey
home, the sloop frequently becalmed on a windless ocean, he was less
seasick than on his previous journey. Frustrated by their laborious
progress, Solomon felt strong enough to row to shore with other
passengers when in sight of Providence. He finished his journal
simply: “Arrived at 9. All well”. At
some later point, Solomon added a postscript, a reflection on his
experiences, and it gave the greatest insight into why he decided to
embark on such a dangerous journey. “The small pox is a terrible
disease when taken the natural way,” he wrote, “and for the most
part is attended with fatal consequences: but when taken by
inoculation, and proper prescriptions observed, it is disarmed of its
every terror.” Solomon
remained safe from that terror. Three years later, fuelled by the mass
movement of troops at the beginning of the Revolutionary War, smallpox
epidemics broke out across North America. By that point, Solomon had
graduated from Rhode Island College, and was studying to become a
surgeon at the College of Philadelphia. In
his first year of medical studies, three hundred people died in
Philadelphia from smallpox. In fact, the epidemic reached such
proportions that in 1776, New England lifted its ban on inoculation.
Over five thousand civilians rushed to be inoculated, proving
overwhelmingly that inoculation – frightening, blasphemous as ever
– was less terrifying than the thought of an agonizing, drawn-out
death. The
continental army followed this trend in 1777, when it inoculated most
of its troops. It was the first state-sponsored inoculation campaign
in American history. If George Washington, who knew intimately what
smallpox could do, had not implemented this program, perhaps the
Revolutionary War would have ended differently. But these local, if
large, campaigns were not enough to stem the tide. Over seven years,
130,000 North Americans lost their lives to smallpox. Solomon
survived the war, in which he served four years as a ship’s surgeon,
with the same dignity with which he survived smallpox. His relative,
Samuel Ward, the Rhode Island delegate to the Continental congress,
died of smallpox in 1774, three months before he was due to sign the
Declaration of Independence. While Solomon was serving the continental
army, Dr John Stites was chased from his home in New Jersey as a
loyalist traitor. According to legend, Reverend John Gano, who gave
Solomon lodging in New York, baptized George Washington on a snowy
riverbank in Pennsylvania during the war. After
the war, Solomon went on to travel extensively in Europe in his thirst
for knowledge. He worked as a well-respected surgeon in both Ohio and
Rhode Island, serving as a professor in botany and medicine at Brown
University in his later years. He was a popular orator, a respected
scholar in his field and an expert on farming, a husband and father of
nine who never quite quenched his passion for learning. He died in
1834 at the age of eighty, in his home in Rhode Island.
Although
the smallpox epidemic ebbed, smallpox remained a threat to mankind for
one and a half centuries after Solomon’s death. Thanks to vigorous
campaigning by the World Health Organization and other international
organizations, there have been no documented cases of smallpox since
1979. Post-9/11,
concerns regarding smallpox as a bioterrorist weapon have prompted the
US government to reproduce and stockpile vaccinations. The Center for
Disease Control currently maintains enough vaccines to immunize every
person in America against smallpox. According
to the CDC, “One confirmed case of smallpox is considered a public
health emergency.” There
is still no proven cure for smallpox. ANNOTATED
BIBLIOGRAPHY Advertisement for Chocolate. Boston Port Bill, 1774. Early American Imprints. First Series; no. 42610. Microfiche. New York : Readex Microprint, 1985.
Small advertisement advertising chocolate produced in Rhode
Island. “Daffy’s
Elixir.” Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia. 5 February 2006. March 2006.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daffy's_Elixir>.
Brief article listing the
ingredients of this popular tonic. Drown, Solomon.
“A Journal of a Voige to Shitepolne Bay in the West” Providence:
1768. Brief
diary of Solomon Drown, written at the age of fifteen. Details a
journey taken with his father by boat. Drown,
Solomon. Smallpox Journal.
New York, September 10 – October 12, 1772. Twenty-page
journal of Solomon Drown, describing his journey from Rhode Island to
New York, where he was inoculated against the smallpox. Information
about life in that era, as well as the record of his recovery from the
smallpox, his return home, and some general thoughts on inoculation. Fenn,
Elizabeth A. Pox Americana: the
Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82. New York: Hill and Wang, 2001. Book
written on variola major, smallpox virus. Focuses on the widespread
epidemics of 1775-82, and how it affected the Revolutionary War.
Includes descriptions of the disease, statistics and information about
inoculation – controversies, treatment, development. Hughes,
Rupert. “Letter to the Editor: Washington’s Baptism” Time 26 Sept. 1932: v.20:13. Time
Archive.
<http://time-proxy.yaga.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,744421,00.html>. Letter
written disputing the legend of George Washington’s baptism in Forge
Valley by Rev. John Gano. In response to the article”Washington’s
Baptism” listed below. Mitchell,
Martha. “Solomon Drown.” Encyclopedia
Brunoniana. Providence: Brown University, 2003.
<http://www.brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau/Databases/Encyclopedia/search.php?serial=D0150>. Entry
in Brown University’s encyclopedia detailing the background, life
and interests of Solomon Drown. Parker-Galbreath,
Simon. “Eighth Generation: Dr John Stites.” Ancestors
of Simon. 21 March 2006 <http://www.simonpg.com/d61.htm>. Amateur
genealogist’s reconstruction of the life of Dr John Stites, based on
various, cited sources. Parker-Galbreath, Simon. “John Stites: Audit Office Compensation Application 1.” Ancestors of Simon. 21 March 2006
<http://www.simonpg.com/stites-ao1.htm>. Facsimile
of an official document detailing John Stites’ attempts to claim
compensation following his forced removal from his farm in New Jersey
during the Revolutionary War. United
States. Center for Disease Control. What
You Should Know About a Smallpox Outbreak. Feb. 2006. 9 April 2006
<http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/smallpox/basics/outbreak.asp>. Details
US policies regarding a potential smallpox bioterrorist attack. Gives
information on vaccines, and the current state of smallpox in the
world. “Washington’s
Baptism” Time 5 Sept.
1932: v.20:10. Time Archive.
<http://time-proxy.yaga.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,744297,00.html>.
Article
describing how George Washington was baptized in Forge Valley by Rev.
John Gano during the Revolutionary War. See Rupert Hughes’ response,
above. |