Though Flatbush was quickly developing and becoming increasingly popular, the area was not without its faults. During the period of 1850-1920, Flatbush was plagued with many different kinds of illnesses, including cholera, yellow fever, smallpox, and typhoid fever. In the 1850s, cholera’s rampant run was drawing to a close in Brooklyn, with cholera one fifteenth of what it had previously been
Though Flatbush was quickly developing and becoming increasingly popular, the area was not without its faults. During the period of 1850-1920, Flatbush was plagued with many different kinds of illnesses, including cholera, yellow fever, smallpox, and typhoid fever. In the 1850s, cholera’s rampant run was drawing to a close in Brooklyn, with cholera one fifteenth of what it had previously been.[i] However, Flatbush still saw several deaths per week from cholera in August 1854. [ii] This disease affected a range of New Yorkers, from new immigrants to old workers, wives of policemen to patients in the local insane asylum.[iii] By the 1860s, this disease seems to have been eradicated because no articles on cholera were published at this time. The worries of cholera were replaced by fear of the yellow fever. Yellow fever was present and widespread in some areas, including Flatbush, as early as 1856.[iv] However, it was not until 1858 that yellow fever truly became as dreaded as cholera, with patients being removed to a hospital in Flatbush.[v]
Yellow fever continued to rage throughout Brooklyn in the 1860s, and the early 1870s saw the fear of the disease continue as false reports of the fever submitted by worried family members reached health offices. The same article that reported false accounts of yellow fever also revealed that the newest dangerous disease in Flatbush in the 1870s was smallpox. It is stated that “fifty-four small-pox patients [were] in the hospital at Flatbush, being an increase of 400 percent within the last month.” [vi] That rapid growth led Flatbush’s Small-Pox Hospital to receive unfavorable reviews, though the critic in question in the article, “The Horrors of a Small-Pox Hospital,” was perhaps not the best judge.[vii] Another disease present during this time period was typhoid fever, as seen in the case of the Sisters of Mercy and the residents of their institution.[viii]
[i] “Mortality in Brooklyn – Decrease of the Cholera,” New York Times, August 28, 1854.
[ii] “Death by Cholera,” New York Times, August 28, 1854.
[iii] “The Cholera,” New York Times, August 26, 1854.
[iv] “The Yellow Fever of 1856,” New York Times, February 13, 1858.
[v] “Yellow Fever in New-York and Brooklyn,” The New York Times, August 31, 1858.
[vi] “Brooklyn,” New York Times, September 30, 1871.
[vii] “The Horrors of a Small-Pox Hospital,” New York Times, January 22, 1876.
[viii] “Typhoid Fever – Forty-One Patients in a Female Reformatory Asylum,” New York Times, March 20, 1872.
