Editing Epidemic typhus (section)

==== 19th century ====
Epidemics occurred in the British Isles and throughout Europe, for instance, during the [[English Civil War]], the [[Thirty Years' War]], and the [[Napoleonic Wars]]. Many historians believe that the typhus outbreak among Napoleon's troops is the real reason why he stalled his military campaign into Russia, rather than starvation or the cold.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web|title=Typhus- Biological Weapons|url=https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/intro/bio-typhus.htm|access-date=2020-10-09|website=www.globalsecurity.org|archive-date=2020-10-16|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201016132141/https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/intro/bio-typhus.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> A major epidemic occurred in [[Ireland]] between 1816 and 1819, and again in the late 1830s. Another major typhus epidemic occurred during the [[Great Famine (Ireland)|Great Irish Famine]] between 1846 and 1849. The Irish typhus spread to England, where it was sometimes called "Irish fever" and was noted for its virulence. It killed people of all social classes since lice were endemic and inescapable, but it hit particularly hard in the lower or "unwashed" social strata. It was carried to North America by the many Irish refugees who fled the famine. In Canada, the [[1847 North American typhus epidemic]] killed more than 20,000 people, mainly Irish immigrants in [[fever shed]]s and other forms of quarantine, who had contracted the disease aboard [[coffin ships]].<ref name=mccord1>{{cite web|id=M993X.5.1529.1|title=The government inspector's office|url=http://www.mccord-museum.qc.ca/en/collection/artifacts/M993X.5.1529.1|work=[[McCord Museum]]|access-date=22 January 2012|location=[[Montreal]]|archive-date=8 April 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110408035406/http://www.mccord-museum.qc.ca/en/collection/artifacts/M993X.5.1529.1|url-status=live}}</ref> As many as 900,000 deaths have been attributed to the typhus fever during the Crimean War in 1853–1856,<ref name=":3" /> and 270,000 to the [[1866 Finnish typhus epidemic]].<ref>Ulla Piela, 'Loitsut 1800-luvun Pohjois-Karjalassa', ''Kalevalaseuran vuosikirja'', 68 (1989), 82–107 (p. 82).</ref>

In the United States, a typhus epidemic struck Philadelphia in 1837. The son of [[Franklin Pierce]] died in 1843 of a typhus epidemic in [[Concord, New Hampshire]]. Several epidemics occurred in [[Baltimore]], [[Memphis, Tennessee|Memphis]], and [[Washington, D.C.]] between 1865 and 1873. Typhus fever was also a significant killer during the [[American Civil War]], although [[typhoid]] fever was the more prevalent cause of US Civil War "camp fever." Typhoid is a completely different disease from typhus. Typically more men died on both sides of disease than wounds.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Sartin |first=Jeffrey S. |date=1993-04-01 |title=Infectious Diseases During the Civil War: The Triumph of the “Third Army” |url=https://academic.oup.com/cid/article-abstract/16/4/580/413040?redirectedFrom=fulltext |journal=Clinical Infectious Diseases |volume=16 |issue=4 |pages=580–584 |doi=10.1093/clind/16.4.580 |issn=1058-4838}}</ref>

[[Rudolph Carl Virchow]], a physician, anthropologist, and historian attempted to control an outbreak of typhus in Upper Silesia and wrote a 190-page report about it. He concluded that the solution to the outbreak did not lie in individual treatment or by providing small changes in housing, food or clothing, but rather in widespread structural changes to directly address the issue of poverty. Virchow's experience in Upper Silesia led to his observation that "Medicine is a social science". His report led to changes in German public health policy.{{citation needed|date=May 2021}}