A Malignant Disease

GRINNELL, Iowa, April 30.

ED. GAZETTE – Dear Sir:  As you will have rumors various, as to recent and sudden deaths in this [village], I wish, in a few words, to give you the facts.  There have been five deaths in this village within four days.  The first person, Mrs. N. Whitney, a most estimable lady, was sick three days and delirious from the first.

The other four were not sick a day – three died to-day.  Dr. Pulsiver, a resident dentist, assisted in a post-mortem examination of Miss Sears, one of the deceased and received a cut on his finger.  His extreme illness was only a few hours.  Miss Schoonover, and her son of six years, died the same hour.

The most marked features in the progress of the disease are loss of pulse and a spotted appearance of the skin for a few hours previous to death.

Drs. Holyoke and Harris of this place, and Drs. Sears, Patten and Conley are in attendance and give no opinion as to the disease, but it is presumed that it is a malignant typhoid.

The worst, with think, is over: such is our hope.  Those with similar symptoms to the deceased, are improving.

There is naturally excitement in this usually healthy and quiet village, and I have given you all the facts, which I have no doubt are highly colored for the public mind ere this.

We are in deep mourning, but leave the events with the Almighty.

Yours,

J. B. GRINNELL.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Friday Morning, May 2, 1862, p. 1