Margaret Sarah Hall, our second great grandmother, was born
in 1836 in Woodford, Henry County, Kentucky, USA, the second child of Albert H
Hall and Nancy Wilson Hall. They were rural farmers. When she was nineteen, she
married Martin V. Hardin (age twenty-one) on October 25, 1855 in Henry County,
Kentucky, USA. They were blessed with a
son William and a daughter Nancy.
Margaret died at the young age of twenty-two on May 20, 1858 from
Typhoid Fever.
Typhoid Fever is a common worldwide bacterial disease
transmitted by the ingestion of food or water contaminated with the feces from an infected person. The disease has received
various names, such as gastric fever, abdominal typhus, infantile remittent fever, slow fever, nervous fever and phytogenic fever.
The nineteenth century was plagued by bacterial diseases such
as Typhoid and Cholera. Lack of modern
sanitation played a big part in Typhoid epidemics.
Untreated typhoid fever is divided into four individual
stages, each lasting approximately one week. Over the course of these stages,
the patient becomes exhausted and emaciated.
In the first week, the temperature rises slowly, and fever
fluctuations are seen with relative bradycardia, malaise, headache, and
cough. A bloody nose is seen in a quarter of cases, and abdominal pain is also
possible.
In the second week of the infection,
the patient lies prostrate with high fever in plateau around 40 °C
(104 °F) and bradycardia, classically with a pulse wave. Delirium is frequent, often calm, but sometimes agitated. This
delirium gives to typhoid the nickname of "nervous fever". Rose
spots appear on the lower chest and
abdomen in around a third of patients.
The abdomen is distended and painful in the right
lower quadrant. Diarrhea can occur in stage two, however, constipation is also
frequent. The spleen and liver are enlarged and tender. The major symptom of
this fever is that the fever usually rises in the afternoon up to the first and
second week.
In the third week of typhoid fever, a number of
complications can occur: Intestinal hemorrhage and Intestinal perforation
(which can be fatal), delirium, and metastatic abscesses. The fever is still
very high and oscillates very little over 24 hours. Dehydration ensues, and the patient is delirious. One third
of affected individuals develop a macular rash on the trunk.
The platelet count goes down slowly and finally
when it becomes 0 bleeding starts.
Sanitation and hygiene are the critical measures
that can be taken to prevent typhoid. Typhoid does not affect animals, and
therefore, transmission is only from human to human. Typhoid can only spread in
environments where human feces or urine are able to come into contact with food
or drinking water. Careful food preparation and washing of hands are crucial to
prevent typhoid.
Excerpts from wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoid_fever
Margaret
Sarah Hall * (1836 - 1858)
is our 2nd great grandmother
Nancy Wilson Hardin * (1858 - 1933)
daughter of Margaret Sarah Hall *
Walter Scott Bramblett * (1882 -
1978)
son of Nancy Wilson Hardin *
Margaret May Belle Bramblett * (1911
- 1988)
daughter of Walter Scott Bramblett *
