Margaret Sarah Hall (1836-1858)

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.

This continues into the fourth week. During the American Civil War, 81,360 Union soldiers died of typhoid or dysentery.

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 *