It all started in 1613 when Spain had an Epidemic of Diphtheria. In Spain this epidemic was known as "el año de los Garotillos" (Strangulations) for the epidemic of Diphtheria.
In 1659 a Boston minister by the name of Cotton Mather, wrote:
"In December 1659 the (until then unknown) Malady of Bladders in the Windpipe, invaded and removed many Children; by Opening of one of them the Malady and Remedy (too late for very many) were discovered"
It is almost certain that Mather was describing the early signs of Diphtheria. In that same year, one of the families afflicted by Diphtheria was that of Reverend Samuel Danforth's. Reverend Danforth wrote:
“The Lord sent a general visitation of Children by coughs & colds, of which my 3 children Sarah, Mary & Elisabeth Danforth died, all of them with[in] the space of a fortnight.”
In 1735 The Plague Among Children became known in New England when the plague swept through the area, causing deaths to entire families. In a town by the name of New Hampshire, 32% of the children under the age of 10 died of Diphtheria and families lost most, if not all their children to the disease, and to confirm this, Noah Webster, an American Scholar (1758-1843) later wrote: “It was literally the plague among children. Many families lost three of four children—many lost all.”
In 1826 The Plague Among Children was given it's scientific name of Diphtheria by a French physician by the name of, Pierre Bretonneau (1778-1862). Bretonneau called the disease diphtéri (diphtheria) because it originated from the Greek word for “leather” or “hide,” which describes the coating that appears in the throat.
In 1856 Diphtheria reached California.
In 1883 a Swiss-German pathologist, Edwin Klebs (1834-1913), identified the Bacterium and was then at first known as Klebs-Loeffler bacterium. The club-shaped appearance of the bacterium helped Klebs differentiate it from other microbes. Later, the bacterium became known as Microsporon diphtheriticum, Bacillus diphtheriae, Mycobacterium diphtheriae, and is now known as, Corynebacterium diphtheria.
In 1885 American physician Joseph P. O’Dwyer (1841-1898) introduced intubation.
In 1888 two scientisits by the names of Émile Roux (1853-1933) and Alexandre Yersin (1863-1943), proved that a substance produced by C. diphtheriae had been causing symptoms of diphtheria in animals. HJ Parish (an author) later described Roux and Yersin's procedure of their discovery:
“Broth, in which the organisms had grown for several days, was filtered through unglazed porcelain; the sterile filtrate caused death following its injection into animals in the same manner as that of the living organisms themselves; moreover, the ‘membrane’ characteristic of human diphtheria, and the intense local inflammation, oedema and haemorrhage, could often be reproduced by the toxin.”
--HJ Parish, A History of Immunization
In 1890, Shibasaburo Kitasato (1852-1931), a Japanese physician and bacteriologist, and Emil von Behring (1854-1917), a German physiologist, immunized guinea pigs with heat-treated diphtheria toxins. They showed that they could cure diphtheria in an animal by injecting it with the serum of an immunized animal. They called the substance antitoxin and their treatment serum therapy.
12/25/1891 there was a Christmas story told of Emil von Behring curing a very ill girl of diphtheria, however this story is untrue, for proper forms of vaccination and antitoxins did not exist till a year later in 1892.
10/16/1894 was the early use of antitoxin in the US, in that same year on 12/14/1894, New York city regulated antitoxin and a year later in 1895 antitoxin production had started in the US.
Thirteen St. Louis children died from contaminated diphtheria antitoxin in 1901, due to physicians receiving antitoxins from a diseased horse, whom died of tetanus. This lead to tetanus outbreak, further contaminating smallpox vaccines. Thankfully the next year on 7/01/1902 biologists started a 'control the act' campaign which legislated the control of drugs and the sanitation of hospitals.
In 1919 there was the 'Dallas Disaster'
In 1921 Park's developed a campaign: 'The Park's Diphtheria Campaign'
In 1923 Gaston Ramon (1886–1963), a French veterinarian, developed diphtheria toxoid.
1928 there was the 'Queensland disaster' and in 1948 the 'Kyoto disaster'
In 1948, in the same year of the 'Kyoto disaster' whooping couch Vaccine combined with Tetanus and Diphtheria.
In 1954 Adult immunization changed.
In 1975 an outbreak of cutaneous diphtheria (diphtheria infection in the skin) occurred in Seattle, Washington. This form of Diphtheria usually only occurs in places with poor hygiene and living standards.
In 1994, the Russian Federation saw 39,703 diphtheria cases, due to the Russian Federation declining diphtheria immunization among children and decreased adult protection.
As of 2009, there has been no severe cases of Diphtheria recorded.