Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V.
Speaker 1: Wilson and I'm Holly Frye.
Speaker 2: A few weeks ago, listener Colin rode in to ask
Speaker 2: for an episode on the Great Epizootic of eighteen seventy two.
Speaker 2: I imagine this might have been inspired by the current
Speaker 2: situation with Avian flu, but I did not ask. An
Speaker 2: episootic is an epidemic but in non human animals, and
Speaker 2: this one was a massive outbreak of a flu like
Speaker 2: illness that was primarily among horses. Was in North America,
Speaker 2: Central America, and some of the islands in the Caribbean.
Speaker 2: There were also a lot of different names for this
Speaker 2: eighteen seventy two outbreak as it was happening.
Speaker 1: A big one was just.
Speaker 2: The epizootic, or the episode, which makes it sounds sillier
Speaker 2: than it was to me. Since it was first reported
Speaker 2: in Canada, people also called it Canadian horse disease. There
Speaker 2: was also horse qatar, catarl fever, mucus fever, distemper blitz,
Speaker 2: guitar la grip, and horse influenza.
Speaker 1: Most of the.
Speaker 2: Horses that got this disease recovered, but this did still
Speaker 2: lead to the deaths of tens of thousands or even
Speaker 2: hundreds of thousands of horses and other equines, and it
Speaker 2: caused massive disruptions all across the continent. Written records of
Speaker 2: disease in horses go back more than one thousand years,
Speaker 2: and records of flu like epidemic horse diseases date back
Speaker 2: to at least the thirteenth century. But unless someone on
Speaker 2: earths a viable sample and tests it, we don't really
Speaker 2: have a way to know which specific pathogen caused any
Speaker 2: of these past diseases, or whether it was the same
Speaker 2: one that caused the eighteen seventy two epizootic. People documented
Speaker 2: epidemics in horses for more than five hundred years before
Speaker 2: the germ theory of disease started to develop in the
Speaker 2: nineteenth century. Although the word virus was already in use,
Speaker 2: the identification of specific viruses didn't happen until the eighteen nineties.
Speaker 2: That was about two decades after this outbreak, so most
Speaker 2: of this history happened before people had the ability to
Speaker 2: pinpoint a specific pathogen, especially as specific virus, as the
Speaker 2: cause of an outbreak. Today, the most common explanation for
Speaker 2: the Great epizootic of eighteen seventy two is equine influenza,
Speaker 2: which is caused by the influenza A virus. Influenza A
Speaker 2: is one virus species, but it has a lot of
Speaker 2: different strains, and some of those strains are very closely
Speaker 2: related to one another. In addition to causing equine influenza,
Speaker 2: strains of influenza A can also cause highly pathogenic avian
Speaker 2: influenza as well as seasonal flu in humans, and it
Speaker 2: also causes other flu like diseases, mainly among birds and mammals.
Speaker 1: Some of the historical outbreaks of flu like diseases in
Speaker 1: horses happened at the same time as outbreaks of similar
Speaker 1: disease in both human and non human animals. This could
Speaker 1: have been from the equine virus infecting other species, or
Speaker 1: from a non equine virus infecting horses, or from multiple
Speaker 1: strains of influenza that all happen to be circulating at
Speaker 1: the same time. That is happening now as we are
Speaker 1: recording this. We have a lot of influenza A, especially
Speaker 1: but also influenza B that's causing seasonal flu in the US,
Speaker 1: and also avian influenza happening at the same time. This
Speaker 1: epizootic happened during the early years of veterinary education in
Speaker 1: North America. We have an up on the history of
Speaker 1: veterinary medicine that we replayed as a Saturday Classic in
Speaker 1: May of twenty twenty two. But briefly, until the start
Speaker 1: of the nineteenth century, there were no veterinary colleges in
Speaker 1: North America. Large animals like horses were primarily being cared
Speaker 1: for by farriers or by people who had been living
Speaker 1: and working with animals for a long time, like farmers
Speaker 1: and stable hands, or people who had trained in human medicine.
Speaker 1: Veterinary colleges started to be established in North America in
Speaker 1: the latter half of the nineteenth century, but the first
Speaker 1: Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree to be awarded in the
Speaker 1: US didn't happen until eighteen seventy six, so that was
Speaker 1: four years after this outbreak started. So a lot of
Speaker 1: the veterinarians who wrote and offered advice about this epizootic
Speaker 1: as it was happening were people who had emigrated to
Speaker 1: North America from Europe, where colleges of veterinary medicine back
Speaker 1: to the mid eighteenth century. One was James Law, Chair
Speaker 1: of Veterinary Medicine and Surgery at Cornell University. He had
Speaker 1: immigrated to the US from Scotland to accept that position
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty seven, when Cornell's veterinary program was first established,
Speaker 1: he wrote a report on the epizootic that described its
Speaker 1: symptoms this way. Quote. A horse in apparently robust and
Speaker 1: vigorous health is seen with drooping head, ears and lips,
Speaker 1: semi closed eyelids, expressionless countenance, and one or two legs
Speaker 1: partially flexed, as if to seek relief from his weariness.
Speaker 1: He stands in one position, or, if urged to move,
Speaker 1: does so with reluctance, sluggishness, and often with unsteady, swaying gait.
Speaker 1: The back is arched and rigid, the limbs carried stiffly,
Speaker 1: and the joints off and crack. At the same time,
Speaker 1: there may be noticed a dry, staring coat, a tenderness
Speaker 1: of the skin when handled, a tendency to coldness of
Speaker 1: the nose, ears, and limbs, and in exceptional cases, shivering,
Speaker 1: tremors or even nervous jerking. A cough is always an
Speaker 1: early symptom, and in the visitation of eighteen seventy two.
Speaker 1: It has been usually the first observed, as it was
Speaker 1: by far the most prominent of the early symptoms.
Speaker 2: Law described the disease as progressing to include a fever,
Speaker 2: rapid pulse that was usually weak and compressible, signs of dehydration,
Speaker 2: and accelerated breathing. A second phase of the illness typically
Speaker 2: included a worsening of all those initial symptoms, as well
Speaker 2: as discharge from the eyes and nose. Touching affected horses
Speaker 2: throats seemed to cause them pain, and afterward they would
Speaker 2: often cough violently. After this phase of the illness, most
Speaker 2: horses recovered, with the disease lasting between two and three weeks,
Speaker 2: but there could also be various complications, including pneumonia, pleurisy,
Speaker 2: and abdominal issues, and this was especially the case in
Speaker 2: horses that were forced to continue working while they were sick.
Speaker 1: Alexandre Leutar had also immigrated to the US, arriving from
Speaker 1: Paris in the eighteen fifties to both practice veterinary medicine
Speaker 1: and earn his MD from University Medical College, which is
Speaker 1: now the New York University School of Medicine. In eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy two. He was Chief Veterinary Surgeon to the New
Speaker 1: York College of Veterinary Surgeons and the consultant to the
Speaker 1: Board of Health. He contributed to a report on the
Speaker 1: progress of the epizootic in New York that included a
Speaker 1: description of just how sudden and widespread it was. He
Speaker 1: summarized the reports of the city's health inspectors as saying
Speaker 1: quote one that all or very nearly all the horses
Speaker 1: in the city were affected by the disease. Two that
Speaker 1: the symptoms appeared suddenly, not only invading nearly all the
Speaker 1: stables at once, but affecting at once nearly all the
Speaker 1: horses in each stable. And three that the disease attacked
Speaker 1: impartially the well housed and well fed and those exposed
Speaker 1: to hardships. Leo Tire also wrote about how to treat
Speaker 1: the illness quote The treatment of influenza must be in
Speaker 1: accordance with the symptoms. During the simple catarrhal form of
Speaker 1: the disease, the diet should consist of dry or boiled oats, mashes,
Speaker 1: oat rye or corn meal, gruels, roots, and fruits. These
Speaker 1: articles should be varied and given in small quantities. The
Speaker 1: temperature should be regulated by blanketing, bandaging of the extremities
Speaker 1: in general or local friction. Good ventilation should be secured,
Speaker 1: and disinfectants used in moderation. He went on to say, quote,
Speaker 1: in the majority of cases, the hygienic measures above mentioned
Speaker 1: together with rest will prove entirely sufficient to affect a cure.
Speaker 1: Rest is of the utmost important. Without it, the animal
Speaker 1: will scarcely escape some of the sequel of the disease.
Speaker 1: Experience has taught me that rest is of paramount importance
Speaker 1: for all those animals whose labors were suspended. As soon
Speaker 1: as they were taken sick, escaped complications and resumed work
Speaker 1: in a few days. On the other hand, a large
Speaker 1: mortality occurred among railroad and stage horses. Many of these animals,
Speaker 1: being kept constantly at work, were attacked by serious complications,
Speaker 1: purpura haemorrhagica being the most frequent and perhaps the most fatal.
Speaker 2: While rest was the primary treatment, Lutar also recommended various
Speaker 2: steps to try to reduce some of the horse's symptoms,
Speaker 2: like using lineaments to relieve a sore throat, steaming with
Speaker 2: boiling water with various ingredients added to soothe coughs, and
Speaker 2: using preparations of antimony as an expectorant. James Law's treatment
Speaker 2: recommendations were very similar, really stressing the need for rest
Speaker 2: and offering way to relieve some of the symptoms. Both
Speaker 2: men stressed that sick horses should not be bled or
Speaker 2: given any kind of purgatives. They needed to be supported
Speaker 2: and allowed to rest as soon as they became ill. Basically,
Speaker 2: this was a lot like the advice that's given to
Speaker 2: people who get the flu today. Although there are some
Speaker 2: anti viral medications that are indicated for some people, and
Speaker 2: there are people who need to go to the hospital
Speaker 2: for further treatment if they become dehydrated or experienced some
Speaker 2: other complications.
Speaker 1: But there were also a lot of quack cures advertised
Speaker 1: in newspapers and journals during this outbreak. The same kinds
Speaker 1: of patent medicines that were advertised to people for all
Speaker 1: kinds of ailments. These, of course, did not work, and
Speaker 1: some of them could be dangerous to the animals they
Speaker 1: were administered to.
Speaker 2: We will look at the way this outbreak progressed after
Speaker 2: a sponsor break. Most accounts from the eighteen seventies say
Speaker 2: the epizootics started in Ontario, Canada in areas north of
Speaker 2: Toronto in September of eighteen seventy two. Much later, it
Speaker 2: was noted that there had also been some isolated outbreaks
Speaker 2: of horse illnesses in August as well. Those were in
Speaker 2: Mercer County, Pennsylvania, Hillsboro and Merrimack, New Hampshire, and Forsyth County,
Speaker 2: North Carolina. All of these states are on the east
Speaker 2: coast of the US, but otherwise they are not very
Speaker 2: close together at all, and it's not really clear if
Speaker 2: these outbreaks were related to the epizootic or caused by
Speaker 2: the same pathogen. Regardless of whether those August cases were
Speaker 2: related or not, once the disease got to Toronto, it
Speaker 2: started spreading more widely. Fourteen cases were reported in Toronto
Speaker 2: on September thirtieth, and by October eleventh, there were reports
Speaker 2: of sick horses Niagara Falls, and on the next day,
Speaker 2: the disease had reached Ottawa.
Speaker 1: By this point, even though people hadn't figured out how
Speaker 1: to isolate and identify specific pathogens, the germ theory of
Speaker 1: disease was becoming more widely accepted, but flu like illnesses
Speaker 1: were still something of an exception, especially in cases of
Speaker 1: widespread outbreaks. Like this one. It started very suddenly, sickening
Speaker 1: large numbers of animals, seemingly all at once. Keepers reported
Speaker 1: whole stables of animals being sickened over less than forty
Speaker 1: eight hours, and the illness wasn't spreading from one stall
Speaker 1: to the next, as though each horse was contracting it
Speaker 1: from the one next to them. It showed up all over,
Speaker 1: so initially people thought it might be related to some
Speaker 1: kind of atmospheric condition or the weather, rather than any
Speaker 1: kind of contagion.
Speaker 2: But the outbreak quickly reached places that had a totally
Speaker 2: different landscape, climate, and weather than the parts of Canada
Speaker 2: that were first affected. On October thirteenth, the disease reached Detroit, Michigan,
Speaker 2: and Buffalo, New York. Half the horses in Rochester, New York,
Speaker 2: were sick by the seventeenth and by the nineteenth, the
Speaker 2: diseases in Syracuse. By October twenty second, it was in
Speaker 2: New York City and Boston, and it became very obvious
Speaker 2: that it was following transportation lines, specifically railroads and canals.
Speaker 2: Infection rates were massive, effecting at least eighty percent of horses,
Speaker 2: sometimes as many as ninety nine percent, as well as donkeys, mules,
Speaker 2: and even some circus animals like zebras.
Speaker 1: On October twenty eighth, the disease was reported in Washington,
Speaker 1: d c. By the start of November, the illness had
Speaker 1: hit Cleveland, Ohio, and Charleston, South Carolina. It was continuing
Speaker 1: to spread in Canada as well, reaching Halifax, Nova, Scotia
Speaker 1: on November fourth. By the eleventh, it was in Indianapolis, Indiana,
Speaker 1: and Savannah, Georgia. It reached Atlanta, Georgia and Chattanooga, Tennessee
Speaker 1: on the eighteenth.
Speaker 2: The Episoatic was reported in Havana, Cuba, on December seventh.
Speaker 2: In early February of eighteen seventy three, it reached Monterey, Mexico.
Speaker 2: It didn't reach California until March, but by April it
Speaker 2: had spread across much of the state. This included San Francisco,
Speaker 2: where it reached on April nineteenth, and by the twenty
Speaker 2: fifth all of the city's railroad horses were affected. The
Speaker 2: Episoatic continued into Central America over the summer, reaching Guatemala
Speaker 2: in July and El Salvador in August, and the outbreak
Speaker 2: seems to have stopped there by December of eighteen seventy three,
Speaker 2: there had been no reports of the disease south of
Speaker 2: San Salvador. While we don't know the reasons for sure,
Speaker 2: this part of Central America wasn't as densely populated, with
Speaker 2: fewer horses and no railroads to rapidly carry animals from
Speaker 2: place to place before people realized they were sick. The
Speaker 2: Panama Railroad was built in eighteen fifty five, but that
Speaker 2: was well over one thousand kilometers away from the farthest
Speaker 2: south the epizootic was reported. The epizootic also didn't cross oceans.
Speaker 2: Given how quickly the illness struck, how fast it spread,
Speaker 2: and how long it lasted, any animals being transported across
Speaker 2: the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean likely would have recovered by
Speaker 2: the time that ship arrived, or if not, their illness
Speaker 2: would have been obvious enough to keep the animals quarantined
Speaker 2: aboard the ship. A few places were exempt, and a
Speaker 2: lot of those were islands. The epizootic never reached Prince
Speaker 2: Edward Islands because the seas around it were impassable due
Speaker 2: to ice. When the disease was active in neighboring parts
Speaker 2: of Canada on the opposite side of the continent. Vancouver
Speaker 2: Island established a quarantine and banned horses and mules from
Speaker 2: being brought onto the island. There were also no signs
Speaker 2: of the illness in Key West Flora. While the disease
Speaker 2: did reach some Caribbean islands, it missed others, including Hispaniola
Speaker 2: and Jamaica. Parts of Mexico also seem to have been
Speaker 2: protected mainly by their geography, especially the southern part of
Speaker 2: the Baja California Peninsula and much of the Yucatan Peninsula.
Speaker 2: The rapid onset and dramatic infection rate of this disease
Speaker 2: made it possible for people to see how it was spreading.
Speaker 2: As this was happening, sometimes it was even possible to
Speaker 2: trace which specific horses had been the likely carriers of
Speaker 2: the disease as they were moved from place to place.
Speaker 2: Here's a paragraph from a report that was prepared for
Speaker 2: the US Department of Agriculture.
Speaker 1: Quote. The first cases in Detroit were several sick horses
Speaker 1: brought from Canada about the tenth or eleventh of October.
Speaker 1: Others were attacked in less than two days, and the
Speaker 1: malady appears to have been confined for nearly a week
Speaker 1: to the two stables into which the Canadian beasts were brought.
Speaker 1: The first cases in Syria our accused were in newly
Speaker 1: arrived Canadian horses, and the malady spread promptly in city
Speaker 1: and country. The earliest cases which I have been able
Speaker 1: to trace in Ithaca were in the livery stables of
Speaker 1: mister Jackson, who had just returned from running a mayor
Speaker 1: in a more northern part of the state. In Pittsburgh,
Speaker 1: the disease first appeared in the stables of Messrs Moreland
Speaker 1: and Mitchell after the arrival of five or six horses
Speaker 1: from New York, when the epizootic was then at its height.
Speaker 1: In every instance, it spread rapidly in the new locality
Speaker 1: from Washington, the first note of alarm was sounded on
Speaker 1: October twenty eighth, to the effect that sick horses had
Speaker 1: been brought into the city from the north, and on
Speaker 1: November three it was reported to be generally prevalent. In
Speaker 1: Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, the malady appeared about November fourth and
Speaker 1: spread like fire along the canal and into the surrounding country.
Speaker 1: On November nineteenth, it prevailed at points in Giles Rutherford,
Speaker 1: Maury Davidson, and Sumner County's tennis which had been recently
Speaker 1: visited by a circus coming from an infected locality, and
Speaker 1: while the general district was free. At Newark, Delaware, the
Speaker 1: first case was in a horse just arrived from Baltimore,
Speaker 1: and others speedily followed. At Ellyria, Ohio, it was confined
Speaker 1: for five days, and for five days only to teams
Speaker 1: just back from Cleveland.
Speaker 2: In addition to tracing the spread like this, doctors, veterinarians,
Speaker 2: and health and sanitary officials also tried to study the
Speaker 2: disease itself, including culturing blood, urine and mucus from infected
Speaker 2: horses and the air and the bedding of their stables.
Speaker 2: Health officials in multiple cities did really systematic research into
Speaker 2: the animals, their illnesses, and their environments. At the same time,
Speaker 2: the nature of this disease made this tricky to do
Speaker 2: and a lot of places, including New York, by the
Speaker 2: time health officials ordered an investigation into what was happening,
Speaker 2: the epizootic had already peaked, so the time to do
Speaker 2: that research was really limited. Multiple papers and reports published
Speaker 2: at the time looked at the question of whether the
Speaker 2: epizootic was caused by some kind of atmospheric phenomenon or
Speaker 2: heat or cold or humidity or some other condition, and
Speaker 2: concluded that it was not it was communicable. It spread
Speaker 2: very rapidly through the eastern half of North America, where
Speaker 2: cities were bigger and more densely populated and more connected
Speaker 2: via railroads. As it moved west, the disease still spread
Speaker 2: along the Transatlantic Railroad, but without as many big cities
Speaker 2: or connected railroads, it slowed down. In more recent years,
Speaker 2: there have been projects to use geographic information system or
Speaker 2: GIS mapping to trace the spread of the epizootic along
Speaker 2: the rail lines, and those results are really dramatic. You're
Speaker 2: just watching blobs of disease move follow the tracks. Not
Speaker 2: really a number for the total horse population in the
Speaker 2: entire area that was affected by this episootic, but according
Speaker 2: to the US Census, there were more than seven million
Speaker 2: horses in the United States in eighteen seventy, so two
Speaker 2: years before the episootic, with the human population then more
Speaker 2: than thirty eight million. The epizootics mortality rate was estimated
Speaker 2: at about two percent, although it could be as high
Speaker 2: as ten percent in some places, especially if horses were
Speaker 2: kept in very overcrowded and unsanitary stables, or if they
Speaker 2: were forced to work while they were sick. So it's
Speaker 2: likely that in the United States alone, at least one
Speaker 2: hundred and forty thousand horses died in this episootic.
Speaker 1: While the rest recovered. The time they were unable to
Speaker 1: work caused some major issues in the places where they lived,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk more about that after a sponsor break
Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy two. Cities in North America were hugely
Speaker 1: reliant on horses. Steam engines had been developed in the
Speaker 1: eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and boats and trains were
Speaker 1: increasingly being run on steam power. The same was true
Speaker 1: of a lot of factories. It was increasingly common for
Speaker 1: factories that needed some kind of power to run off
Speaker 1: of steam engines rather than horses walking on treadmills or
Speaker 1: something similar. But the public still had some concerns about steam,
Speaker 1: specifically about the idea of steam boilers exploding in the
Speaker 1: middle of a crowded street. This was not really an
Speaker 1: unreasonable fear in the early days of steam technology, there
Speaker 1: were things that needed to work out in terms of
Speaker 1: state of safety. So consequently, a lot of cities banned
Speaker 1: the use of steam engines on city streets to do
Speaker 1: things like power cars and street cars, so horses were
Speaker 1: still doing a lot of that work. A lot of
Speaker 1: goods and people were being moved by train and ship,
Speaker 1: but the coal to fuel those trains and ships was
Speaker 1: being hauled by horses. The first practical automobiles were more
Speaker 1: than a decade away, as were the first practical bicycles.
Speaker 1: People traveled extensively on horseback or on horse drawn carriages.
Speaker 1: In a lot of places, horse drawn wagons had replaced
Speaker 1: hand carts for making deliveries and for carrying goods from
Speaker 1: the port or the train depot. Horses pulled street cars,
Speaker 1: fire engines, ambulances, and horses. Many of the canals of
Speaker 1: the Great Lakes region were filled with barges that were
Speaker 1: pulled by horses. In an era without effective refrigeration, a
Speaker 1: lot of people relied on daily deliveries of milk and ice,
Speaker 1: and those too were delivered thanks to horses. So when
Speaker 1: cities entire populations of working horses got sick all at once,
Speaker 1: it caused major problems. In New York City, for example,
Speaker 1: the human population was about a million people and there
Speaker 1: were about seventy thousand horses, and about fourteen thousand of
Speaker 1: those horses worked on streetcar and stagecoach lines. Fourteen thousand
Speaker 1: horses doing just that work for about three weeks, starting
Speaker 1: on October twenty first, the city basically came to a standstill.
Speaker 1: People and goods couldn't get where they needed to go,
Speaker 1: at least not easily. Fifty teams of oxen were brought
Speaker 1: in to try to help, but they were difficult to
Speaker 1: manage on the city streets. Teams of men were also
Speaker 1: hired to try to pull street cars and fire engines,
Speaker 1: which was a lot harder and a lot slower than
Speaker 1: using horses. The same thing happened in other cities besides
Speaker 1: New York, including the oxen and the teams of men
Speaker 1: trying to pull street cars. Newspaper coverage of some of
Speaker 1: this makes it sound almost a bit humorous, or like
Speaker 1: people valiantly trying to make the most of a bad situation,
Speaker 1: but that wasn't the case everywhere. In some places, prisoners
Speaker 1: were being forced to try to do the work of horses.
Speaker 2: On the West Coast, Asians, especially Chinese people, were being
Speaker 2: targeted by vehement and sometimes violent racism. That's something that
Speaker 2: we have talked about on the show recently. This was
Speaker 2: just ten years before the passage of the Chinese Exclusion
Speaker 2: Act in San Francisco. Chinese people were hired to pull
Speaker 2: wagons and carry cargo in place of horses, and then
Speaker 2: they were written about in newspapers as though they were animals.
Speaker 2: A big obnoxious irony here is that Chinese people had
Speaker 2: already been moving a lot of cargo around San Francisco
Speaker 2: without the use of horses. They were using poles or
Speaker 2: baskets hung from poles. San Francisco had passed a law
Speaker 2: banning this on public sidewalks in eighteen seven. That was
Speaker 2: a law that didn't mention Chinese people specifically, but was
Speaker 2: intentionally written to target them. Stevedores, deliverymen, and others who
Speaker 2: relied on horses were basically out of work for about
Speaker 2: three weeks when the episootics struck their city. The few
Speaker 2: whose horses had not gotten sick or who forced their
Speaker 2: horses to work anyway, often charged a premium for their services.
Speaker 2: This led to complaints of price gouging, but in some
Speaker 2: cases it was more that these workers still needed to
Speaker 2: make ends meet if their horse could only work for
Speaker 2: a couple hours instead of all day. That was all
Speaker 2: the time they had to earn a living. For cities
Speaker 2: where the street cars were being pulled by horses, the
Speaker 2: few remaining street cars became badly overcrowded, and that made
Speaker 2: them much more difficult and dangerous for those few remaining
Speaker 2: horses to pull. In New York City, Henry Berg, founder
Speaker 2: of the American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals,
Speaker 2: had been given police powers in cases of animal abuse.
Speaker 2: He and his deputies started patrolling the streets, inspecting working
Speaker 2: horses for signs of illness or signs of injury from
Speaker 2: pulling those overcrowded street cars, and they forced their handlers
Speaker 2: to take the horses back to the stables if necessary.
Speaker 2: A similar scene played out in Boston, with George Thorndike Angel,
Speaker 2: founder of the Massachusetts SPCA, who dispatched teams to negotiate
Speaker 2: with the street car drivers to let their sick horses rest.
Speaker 1: The effects of this shut down were wide reaching. The
Speaker 1: presidential election was held on November fifth, at which point
Speaker 1: horses were sick in much of the Northeast, and there
Speaker 1: were concerns about people being able to get to the poles.
Speaker 1: Loads of vegetables and fish rotted at ports because the
Speaker 1: stevedores just couldn't move them. All mail service to and
Speaker 1: through the western part of North America slowed to a crawl.
Speaker 1: Mail made part of the journey by rail, but from
Speaker 1: there horses and wagons often carried it hundreds of miles
Speaker 1: to its final destination. On November ninth, eighteen seventy two,
Speaker 1: a fire started in a basement and a warehouse in Boston,
Speaker 1: and as it burned, it was fueled by gas explosions.
Speaker 1: The fire departments horses were too sick to work, so
Speaker 1: teams of men tried to pull the fire engines to
Speaker 1: fight the blaze. This, of course, took a lot longer
Speaker 1: than horses would have. This was one of several factors
Speaker 1: that contributed to the spread of this fire. Others included
Speaker 1: a lack of water pressure at a lot of the
Speaker 1: fire hydrants, and the way the city itself had been built.
Speaker 1: A lot of the buildings were really close together, and
Speaker 1: many had wooden mansard roofs, so the fire spread really
Speaker 1: easily between them. Eventually, gunpowder was used to collapse a
Speaker 1: number of buildings to create a fire break. This fire
Speaker 1: was not fully extinguished until November eleventh, Fourteen people died
Speaker 1: and seven hundred and seventy six buildings were destroyed across
Speaker 1: sixty five acres of the city. In the spring of
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy three, the epizootics struck cavalry horses as the
Speaker 1: United States was at war with the Apache Nation in
Speaker 1: the Southwest and the Modoc Nation in what's now northern California,
Speaker 1: forcing soldiers to fight on foot instead. Sources used in
Speaker 1: this episode are contradictory regarding how much the epizootic impacted
Speaker 1: Indigenous people's horses. At the same time, written records would
Speaker 1: have come from reports from the Department of Indian Affairs,
Speaker 1: which don't mention the epizootics impact on Indigenous peoples at all.
Speaker 1: They may have been less affected. The disease spread extremely
Speaker 1: easily among horses that were stabled together, but many Indigenous
Speaker 1: people's horses were not stabled or were kept in individual
Speaker 1: family dwellings rather than stabled together.
Speaker 2: There's also some speculation that the epizootic was one of
Speaker 2: the contributing factors to the Panic of eighteen seventy three.
Speaker 2: Other more widely cided factors in this panic are the
Speaker 2: eighteen seventy Sherman Silver Purchase Act, which required the government
Speaker 2: to buy silver every month that market prices, regardless of
Speaker 2: how those prices fluctuated.
Speaker 1: The price of.
Speaker 2: Gold was also legally linked to silver prices, and so
Speaker 2: this led to financial disaster when the supply of silver
Speaker 2: dramatically increased after the opening of several new silver mines
Speaker 2: that led the price of gold to also plummet along
Speaker 2: with the price of silver. Other issues included railroad failures,
Speaker 2: including the failure of the Philadelphia and Reading railroad. The
Speaker 2: stock market crashed in May of eighteen seventy three, leading
Speaker 2: to widespread unemployment and bank failures. In addition to equines,
Speaker 2: the Great Episootic of eighteen seventy two caused some illnesses
Speaker 2: in humans, typically humans who cared for or worked with animals.
Speaker 2: It may have also caused illnesses in some other animals,
Speaker 2: including pigs. There was an outbreak of.
Speaker 1: Influenza in humans in eighteen seventy three and eighteen seventy four,
Speaker 1: but it's not clear whether this was connected to the
Speaker 1: equine outbreak that started in eighteen seventy two. There was
Speaker 1: also a paper published in twenty ten that traced a
Speaker 1: connection between the equine epizootic and a massive fatal epizootic
Speaker 1: among domesticated birds in the last months of eighteen seventy two.
Speaker 1: The first such outbreak was reported in Poughkeepsie, New York,
Speaker 1: on November fifteenth, That was eighteen days after the equine
Speaker 1: flu was reported in that same city. In a number
Speaker 1: of cities, researchers found a pattern of outbreaks of avian
Speaker 1: disease that started between twenty and thirty days after the
Speaker 1: first report of horse disease. Most of them were in
Speaker 1: that twenty to thirty day range, although there were some
Speaker 1: intervals that were shorter or longer than that. Unlike in
Speaker 1: the equine outbreak, the mortality rate in this outbreak was
Speaker 1: close to one hundred percent. This paper speculates that this
Speaker 1: could be an early example of highly pathogenic avian influenza.
Speaker 1: There's not nearly as much research into this avian episootic
Speaker 1: as there is about the eighteen seventy two equine flu,
Speaker 1: and this may be because of differences in attitudes about
Speaker 1: birds and horses at the time and how these animals
Speaker 1: were used and cared for. In general, flocks of chickens, ducks,
Speaker 1: and similar birds were being kept on small farms, often
Speaker 1: raised by wives and daughters. There was no national Poultry Growers'
Speaker 1: Association or other national organization to take an interest in this, yet.
Speaker 1: People also didn't typically seek veterinary care for birds like
Speaker 1: they might have for a large animal like a horse.
Speaker 1: We talked about shifts in the poultry into in the
Speaker 1: US in our Chicken of Tomorrow episode in May of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: Other more recent research has looked at the genetic lineage
Speaker 2: of influenza viruses and found evidence of a shift in
Speaker 2: avian flu around the time that this episootic happened, with
Speaker 2: the equine virus closely paralleling the avian virus. Researchers who
Speaker 2: did this work did not conclude that the virus jumped
Speaker 2: from horses to birds or vice versa, but they did
Speaker 2: note that the avian and equine viruses seem to be
Speaker 2: closely related. Equine influenza still exists today. It's endemic in
Speaker 2: most of the world's horses, with the exception of horses
Speaker 2: in Iceland and New Zealand. Vaccines were developed in the
Speaker 2: nineteen seventies and have been refined since then. These are
Speaker 2: typically given annually like a seasonal flu vaccine in humans,
Speaker 2: although horses that are high risk in some way may
Speaker 2: be vaccinated every six months instead of annually. There's also
Speaker 2: more surveillance and monitoring of equine influenza today. This is
Speaker 2: handled country by country, but the World Health Organization and
Speaker 2: World Organization for Animal Health are also involved. Today, most
Speaker 2: of the world is not nearly as reliant on the
Speaker 2: labor of horses as North America was at the end
Speaker 2: of the nineteenth century, but major equine flu outbreaks can
Speaker 2: still cause a lot of issues and expense. In two
Speaker 2: thousand and seven, an outbreak of equine influenza virus struck Australia.
Speaker 2: This was the first known incidents of the disease there,
Speaker 2: so the horses had not been vaccinated. This was probably
Speaker 2: introduced to Australia by Japanese race horses that had been
Speaker 2: quarantined on arrival, but the illness spread at and then
Speaker 2: beyond the quarantine site. The biggest impact with this was
Speaker 2: on race horses, but later cost analysis showed that governments
Speaker 2: in Australia had spent five hundred and seventy one million
Speaker 2: dollars eradicating the disease. Ease including three hundred and seventy
Speaker 2: million dollars in compensation to offset the disruption to the
Speaker 2: horse industry.
Speaker 1: Not the most chipper story, but still super interesting. Do
Speaker 1: you have listener mail to go along with it? I
Speaker 1: do kind of.
Speaker 2: So we had a number of people comments on our
Speaker 2: social media in some way about whether we could post
Speaker 2: the recipe for the sugar cookies that we talked about
Speaker 2: in our nutmeg episode. That's months ago now, and I
Speaker 2: did not answer any of the comments and they are
Speaker 2: now lost to time. So everyone get a pen and paper.
Speaker 2: Two and a half cups sifted flour. It is written
Speaker 2: that way, but in my experience, you need to measure
Speaker 2: first then sift, not try to sift then measure with
Speaker 2: this recipe. So two and a half cups sifted flour,
Speaker 2: two teaspoons baking powder, one half teaspoon nutmeg, one half
Speaker 2: cup butter, one cup sugar, two eggs well beaten, one
Speaker 2: teaspoon vanilla, one tablespoon cream. Great thing about this is
Speaker 2: that then you have a whole thing of cream to
Speaker 2: do whatever you want with after you've used that one
Speaker 2: tablespoons super delicious coffee. Uh yeah, that's one of the
Speaker 2: things that I do after making these. Okay, so those
Speaker 2: are the ingredients. Now, Sift flour, baking powder, and nutmeg
Speaker 2: together twice, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Speaker 2: Add eggs, vanilla and cream. Beat well. Add flour mixture, gradually,
Speaker 2: beating after each addition until smooth. Form dough into a
Speaker 2: brick shape. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm.
Speaker 2: Roll out on a floured surface. Cut into desired shape
Speaker 2: with cookie cutter. Sprinkle with granulated or color sugar. Placed
Speaker 2: on greased baking sheet. Make at three hundred and seventy
Speaker 2: five degrees for about seven minutes. Yields two and a
Speaker 2: half dozen cookies. Some things from my experience making this recipe,
Speaker 2: I usually do them on parchment instead of a greased
Speaker 2: cookie sheet. There is definitely a sweet spot in how
Speaker 2: firm you want the dough to be to roll it out,
Speaker 2: and this recipe can be very tricky to make in
Speaker 2: a very warm kitchen because the dough gets too soft
Speaker 2: if you just leave it on the counter between matches
Speaker 2: in the oven to roll things out, and putting it
Speaker 2: in the fridge for that whole time can make it
Speaker 2: cross into the slightly too firm side so you just
Speaker 2: got to kind of find that sweet spot and how
Speaker 2: soft the dough is and try to like maintain it
Speaker 2: at that temperature.
Speaker 1: So that is the recipe.
Speaker 2: This is from a little booklet that my mom made
Speaker 2: about the holiday traditions and our family, and I pulled
Speaker 2: it out that I used this booklet basically for the
Speaker 2: sugar cookies recipe at this point. But I pulled it
Speaker 2: out and was flipping through it before we recorded today,
Speaker 2: and it made me a little teary looking at all
Speaker 2: these things that my mom wrote up about our family traditions.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it was very sweet.
Speaker 2: So yeah, if anybody makes these sugar cookies, let me
Speaker 2: know how they turned out. My mom would be totally
Speaker 2: fine with me sharing this recipe with people.
Speaker 1: She literally put.
Speaker 2: It in a little booklet that she gave away. If
Speaker 2: you would like to send us the notes, we are
Speaker 2: at History podcast at iHeartRadio dot com and you can
Speaker 2: subscribe to our show on the iHeartRadio app and wherever
Speaker 2: else you like to get your podcasts. Stuff you missed
Speaker 2: in History Classes, a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
Speaker 2: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 2: you listen to your favorite shows,