Editing Epidemic typhus (section)

==== Before 19th century ====
During the second year of the [[Peloponnesian War]] (430 BC), the [[city-state]] of [[History of Athens|Athens]] in ancient [[Greece]] had an epidemic, known as the [[Plague of Athens]], which killed, among others, [[Pericles]] and his two elder sons. The plague returned twice more, in 429 BC and in the winter of 427/6 BC. Epidemic typhus is proposed as a strong candidate for the cause of this disease outbreak, supported by both medical and scholarly opinions.<ref>At a January 1999 medical conference at the [[University of Maryland, College Park|University of Maryland]], Dr. David Durack, consulting professor of medicine at [[Duke University]] notes: "Epidemic typhus fever is the best explanation. It hits hardest in times of war and privation, it has about 20 percent mortality, it kills the victim after about seven days, and it sometimes causes a striking complication: gangrene of the tips of the fingers and toes. The Plague of Athens had all these features." see also: [http://www.umm.edu/news/releases/athens.html umm.edu] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200408153546/http://www.umm.edu/news/releases/athens.html |date=2020-04-08 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author-link=Arnold Wycombe Gomme |last=Gomme |first=A.W. |editor-first=A. |editor-last=Andrewes |editor2-first=K.J. |editor2-last=Dover |chapter=Volume 5. Book VIII |title=An Historical Commentary on Thucydides |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1981 |isbn=978-0-19-814198-3 }}</ref>

[[File:Epidemic typhus Burundi.jpg|thumb|Rash caused by epidemic typhus in Burundi]]
The first description of typhus was probably given in 1083 at [[La Trinità della Cava|La Cava abbey]] near [[Salerno]], [[Italy]].<ref>{{cite web |first=Waclaw |last=Szybalski |title=Maintenance of human-fed live lice in the laboratory and production of Weigl's exanthematous typhus vaccine |year=1999 |url=http://www.lwow.home.pl/Weigl.html |access-date=2005-05-21 |archive-date=2021-09-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210904102439/https://www.lwow.home.pl/Weigl.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Beppe |last=Carugo |title=Breve Storia della Medicina, della Diagnostica, delle Arti Sanitarie |year=2006 |edition=2nd |url=http://www.qualitologia.it/attivita/27.pdf |access-date=2013-10-02 |archive-date=2013-10-05 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131005002314/http://www.qualitologia.it/attivita/27.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> In 1546, [[Girolamo Fracastoro]], a [[Florence|Florentine]] physician, described typhus in his famous treatise on viruses and contagion, ''De Contagione et Contagiosis Morbis''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Fracastoro |first=Girolamo |author-link=Girolamo Fracastoro |title=De Contagione et Contagiosis Morbis |url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_B580FxRJwQUC |year=1546 |publisher=apud heredes Lucantonii Iuntae }}</ref>

Typhus was carried to mainland Europe by soldiers who had been fighting on [[Cyprus]]. The first reliable description of the disease appears during the siege of the [[Emirate of Granada]] by the [[Catholic Monarchs]] in 1489 during the [[Granada War]]. These accounts include descriptions of fever and red spots over arms, back and chest, progressing to delirium, gangrenous sores, and the stench of rotting flesh. During the siege, the Catholics lost 3,000 men to enemy action, but an additional 17,000 died of typhus.{{citation needed|date=May 2021}}

Typhus was also common in prisons (and in crowded conditions where lice spread easily), where it was known as ''Gaol fever'' or ''Jail fever''.<ref name="Smith 2019 c252">{{cite web | last=Smith | first=Kiona N. | title=What's The Difference Between Typhus And Typhoid? | website=Forbes | date=January 30, 2019 | url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/kionasmith/2019/01/30/whats-the-difference-between-typhus-and-typhoid/?sh=4b7caab4342a | access-date=February 24, 2024 | archive-date=February 24, 2024 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240224163810/https://www.forbes.com/sites/kionasmith/2019/01/30/whats-the-difference-between-typhus-and-typhoid/?sh=4b7caab4342a | url-status=live }}</ref> Gaol fever often occurs when prisoners are frequently huddled together in dark, filthy rooms. Imprisonment until the next term of court was often equivalent to a death sentence. Typhus was so infectious that prisoners brought before the court sometimes infected the court itself. Following the [[Black Assize of Oxford 1577]], over 510 died from epidemic typhus, including Speaker [[Robert Bell (Speaker)|Robert Bell]], [[Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer]].<ref name="Webb_1857">{{cite journal |last1=Webb |first1=Francis C. |date=October 1857 |title=Historical Account of Gaol Fever |journal=The Sanitary Review and Journal of Public Health |volume=3 |issue=11 |pages=T64 |pmid=30378948 |pmc=5981523 }}</ref> The outbreak that followed, between 1577 and 1579, killed about 10% of the [[English people|English population]]. {{citation needed|date=May 2021}}

During the [[assizes|Lent assize]] held at [[Taunton]] (1730), typhus caused the death of the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, the [[High Sheriff of Somerset]], the sergeant, and hundreds of other persons. During a time when there were 241 capital offences, more prisoners died from 'gaol fever' than were put to death by all the public executioners in the realm. In 1759 an English authority estimated that each year a quarter of the prisoners had died from gaol fever.<ref>Ralph D. Smith, "Comment, Criminal Law – Arrest – The Right to Resist Unlawful Arrest," 7 Nat. Resources J. 119, 122 n.16 (1967) (hereinafter Comment) (citing John Howard, ''The State of Prisons'' 6-7 (1929)) (Howard's observations are from 1773 to 1775). Copied from ''State v. Valentine'', May 1997 132 Wn.2d 1, 935 P.2d 1294</ref> In [[London]], typhus frequently broke out among the ill-kept prisoners of [[Newgate Gaol]] and moved into the general city population.{{citation needed|date=September 2022}}