Word: fishman
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Dates: during 1880-1889
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...Cambridge Tribune accounts for the rumor of small-pox as follows: "The small-pox excitement originated on Wendell street, by the hanging out of a scarlet cloth to call in a fishman. This act was sufficient to start the rumor that a student had been taken from the house to a hospital where he was down with the small-pox, and that a young lady in another house on the same street was sick with the same disease. There has not been a case in the city so far as we can learn. Imagination sometimes is very vivid in anticipation...