Diary of 1st Lieutenant Lemuel A. Abbott: Wednesday, November 23, 1864

Pleasant and not very cold; started for Cousin David's at 9 o'clock a. m.; called at Mr. Flint's, at Rodney Seaver's and on Cousin Aurora Benedict; found Cousin Abby Howe at Ro's, too; took Thanksgiving dinner with Cousin Lois and David Smith's family, and went to Barre. Hattie Burnham is ill with diphtheria.

SOURCE: Lemuel Abijah Abbott, Personal Recollections and Civil War Diary, 1864, p. 232

Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes to Sardis Birchard: October 31, 1862

Columbus, October 31, 1862.

Dear Uncle: — Lucy has had a pretty severe attack of diphtheria. For three or four days she was in a good deal of pain and could neither swallow nor talk. Yesterday and today she has been able to sit up, and is in excellent spirits. We expect to return to Cincinnati next week, and in a week or ten days after I shall probably go to the Twenty-third. My arm has improved the last week more than any time before.

You are glad to hear so good an account of Ned! Lucy says you ought to be glad to hear so good an account of her! That she drove him so skillfully, she thinks a feat.

Unless you come down here by Monday next, we shall be gone home. Laura is looked for with her spouse tomorrow.

Sincerely,

R.

S. BlRCHARD.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 363

To Cure Diptheria

A gentleman who has administered the following remedy for diphtheria, informs us that it has always proved effectual in affording speedy relief.  Take a common tobacco pipe, (new) place a live coal within the bowl, drop a little tar upon the coal, and let the patient draw smoke into the mouth and discharge it through the nostrils.  The remedy is safe and simple, and should be tried whenever occasion may require.  Many valuable lives may be saved, our informant confidently believes, by prompt treatment as above.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Thursday Morning, April 3, 1862, p. 2

Diptheria is prevailing . . .

. . . to an alarming extent in the State of Maine.  In the town of Patten, one in eleven of the entire population have died from it, while great mortality prevails in other portions of the state.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Saturday Morning, March 15, 1862, p. 2