Barns and sheds were jammed with smallpox victims, most unattended by medicos except, occasionally, to be bled. “Some dead, some dying, others at the point of death, some whistling, some singing & many cursing & swearing,” a New England physician, Lewis Beebe, noted in his diary. “Nothing to be heard from morning to night, but ‘Doctor, doctor, doctor,’ from every side.… Add to all this, we have nothing to eat.”
