FIELD NOTEBOOKS SUGGEST DATE AND PLACE OF 1894 TYPHOID INFECTION

George Huntington Williams, first Professor of Geology at the Johns Hopkins University, died of typhoid fever in Utica, New York, on the morning of 12 July 1894 at the age of 38.5 years. His death was widely reported in newspapers and professional journals, but only the earliest report (12 July), in the Washington Star, mentioned that an assistant of Williams, "Prof Prindle", was then seriously ill with typhoid in Garfield Hospital [D.C.]. Pettijohn (1988) lists L.M.Prindle as a graduate student who studied under Williams without taking a degree. Much later, Mertie (1962) wrote the GSA Memorial of Louis Marcus Prindle (1865-1956) without mentioning this episode. Three contemporary memorialists suggest that Williams contracted the disease by drinking contaminated well water while working on the "Maryland Piedmont". A notebook of Williams shows that he was then studying the geology of the West Washington 15-minute quadrangle, which eventually contributed to the the Washington Folio (1901). His notebook refers five times to Prindle during the 1893-1894 school year in connection with the geology of the Montgomery County, Maryland, segment of the West Washington quad. Williams typically made three-day trips (Thu-Fri-Sat), arriving by train from Baltimore, and hiring a horsedrawn buggy or wagon to reach the outcrop. The entries in the Williams notebook end in April 1894. Prindle begins a separate notebook (of USGS issue) on 29 May, working six days a week. Prindle nowhere says what year it is, but the days and dates indicate 1894. There was no work on Wednesday, 6 June, because of rain. On 7 and 8 June, Williams inspected the work with Prindle in and near the Rock Creek drainage of Montgomery County, within 20km of the District of Columbia. Williams became sick in Utica about 21 June, and Prindle's notes end abruptly on 26 June. These dates are consistent with modern data on the incubation of typhoid, supposing both men were exposed on 7 or 8 June by drinking different doses of contaminated water, possibly contaminated further by the rain of 6 June. These results connecting Williams with Prindle and the Rock Creek drainage on 7 and 8 June depend on information in the Johns Hopkins University Archives.