Gaol fever is epidemic typhus (not typhoid), and can be prevented by vaccination.<\/p>\n

Patients can be successfully treated with antibiotics, but it was once a major killer. The first scientifically reliable accounts of the disease come from 15th-century Europe, though it has probably been around much longer.<\/p>\n

Symptoms include severe headache and muscle pain, fever, delirium and a characteristic rash. Several major outbreaks described as \u2018plagues\u2019 by chroniclers were, in fact, typhus.<\/p>\n

More died of goal fever in the 1700s than were executed <\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>
It commonly occurred in the appalling conditions of Britain\u2019s prisons before Victorian reformers cleaned them up, hence the name \u2018gaol fever\u2019. Being held in prison before trial could be tantamount to a sentence of death, and more died of goal fever in the 1700s than were executed. In a particularly notorious case, prisoners from Ilchester gaol brought to Taunton assizes in 1730 caused an outbreak that killed the judge, several court officials and hundreds of others.<\/p>\n
Answered by Eugene Byrne, author and journalist<\/strong><\/p>\n
This Q&A was first published in the March 2013 issue of BBC History Magazine<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p><\/body><\/html>\n
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