Page "Epidemic typhus" Paragraph 12

Typhus was also common in prisons ( and in crowded conditions where lice spread easily ), where it was known as Gaol fever or Jail fever.

Gaol fever often occurs when prisoners are frequently huddled together in dark, filthy rooms.

Imprisonment until the next term of court was often equivalent to a death sentence.

It was so infectious that prisoners brought before the court sometimes infected the court itself.

Following the Assize held at Oxford in 1577, later deemed the Black Assize, over 300 died from Epidemic typhus, including Sir Robert Bell Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer.

The outbreak that followed, between 1577 to 1579, killed about 10 % of the English population.

During the Lent Assize Court held at Taunton ( 1730 ) typhus caused the death of the Lord Chief Baron, as well as the High Sheriff, the sergeant, and hundreds of others.

During a time when there were 241 capital offences, more prisoners died from ' gaol fever ' than were put to death by all the public executioners in the realm.

In 1759 an English authority estimated that each year a quarter of the prisoners had died from gaol fever.

In London, typhus frequently broke out among the ill-kept prisoners of Newgate Gaol and then moved into the general city population.