The typhus fever epidemic was rose in the nineteenth century and easily struck fear into communities. There were several epidemics that happened in this century and vaccines were not often found until much later. The typhus fever epidemic lasted from 1847-48 and killed thousands of people in Scotland, Ireland, and England. This happened just before Craik published The Half-Caste and is referenced by Cassandra Pryor when the LePoer family contracts the sickness.

Craik, Dinah Mulock. The Half-Caste, edited by Melissa Edmundson. Broadview Editions, 2016.