1847 North American typhus epidemic

The typhus epidemic of 1847 was an outbreak of epidemic typhus caused by a massive Irish emigration in 1847, during the Great Famine, aboard crowded and disease-ridden "coffin ships".

In Canada, more than 20,000 people died from 1847 to 1848, with many quarantined in fever sheds in Grosse Isle, Montreal, Kingston, Toronto and Saint John.

Grosse Isle, Quebec is an island in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, home to a quarantine station set up in 1832 to contain a cholera epidemic, and home to thousands of Irish emigrants from 1832 to 1848.

On 17 May 1847, the first vessel, the Syria, arrived with 430 fever cases. This was followed by eight more ships a few days later. Dr Douglas wrote that he had 'not a bed to lay [the invalids] on… I never contemplated the possibility of every vessel arriving with fever as they do now'. One week later seventeen more vessels had appeared at Grosse Isle. By this time, 695 people were already in hospital. Only two days afterwards the number of vessels reached thirty, with 10,000 immigrants now waiting to be processed. By 29 May, a total of 36 vessels had arrived. The end of May saw forty ships forming a line two miles (3 km) long down the St. Lawrence River. According to Dr Douglas, each one was affected by fever and dysentery. 1100 invalids were accommodated in sheds and tents, or laid out in rows in the church.

Dr. George Douglas, Grosse Isle's chief medical officer, recorded that by midsummer of 1847 the quarantine regulations in force were 'physically impossible' to carry out, making it necessary for the emigrants to stay on board their ships for many days. Douglas believed that washing and airing out the ships would be enough to stop the contagion spreading between infected passengers.

With the arrival of thousands of emigrants, the island was quickly overwhelmed. Tents were set up to house the influx of people, but many new arrivals were left lying on the ground without shelter. Robert Whyte records seeing 'hundreds… literally flung on the beach, left amid the mud and stones to crawl on the dry land as they could'. The Anglican Bishop of Montreal, Bishop Mountain, recalled seeing people lying opposite the church screaming for water, while others lay inside the tents without bedding. One child he saw was covered in vermin; another who had 'been walking with some others, sat down for a moment, and died'. Many children were orphaned.

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