COMMUNICABLE DISEASES

Very old drawing from France is out of copyright.

In Europe during the middle ages millions of people died from contageous diseases. As emigrants entered America many later died from the illnesses they brought with them. People in early Iowa were not safe from old country illnesses either, nor from new ones found here. People, even whole families, died of malaria, disinteria, cholera, or yellow feaver. Some say 3/4 of the Indians died from small pox or other diseases they had no natural resistance to.  Here are resources if you want to know more about what diseases may have killed your ancestors. Written by donkelly 2008 Original transcribed to html version below

Illnesses in Colonial America

 

 

Many of our ancestors died of communical diseases:

 

1. Many emigrants were not educated in how to protect themselves. 

2. The main causes of diseases was poor sanitation.

3. Emigrants rarely bathed. Many wiped themselves down with a wet cloth, but that preactice only spread germs.

4. Doctors were rare and they only knew how to fix broken bones, but a few better educated doctors took care of the emigrants with chronic diseases. Liquor and herbs were the preferred medical treatments.

5. Since doctors were rare, most family illnesses were treated at home.

6. The average life expectantcy in colonial times was 25 years of age. Among the diseases that they suffered:

·        Small pox

·        Pneumonia

·        Scarlet Fever

·        Cholera 

·        Diphtheria

      Colonists were injured, infection would set in, and with no antibiotics, would turn to gangreen and eventual  death.

      Colonists, living in unsanitary conditions, suffering diseases from Europe, had a hard time just staying alive.

7. As colonists moved west to settle new land, they brought their unsanitary lifestyles with the. Indians died from european diseases, like small pox, by the thousands, in part because they had no protective anti-bodies in their bodies. But on the other hand, the Indians had special protections against mosquito born diseases like yellow feaver. Colonists who lived close to swamps, like in Spafford New York, were particulary succeptible to yellow feaver that didn't seem to affect the natives at all.

8. Early settlers in Des Moines County and the rest of Iowa counties brought with the same diseases, and thousands died of same. But in time doctors learned, wrote effective treatments in ledgers, and with institutional training new medical treatments, most of the air bourn and water bourn diseases have been all but eliminated.

9.  In 1832 and 1848 an outbreak of Cholora killed former President James K. Polk. But it got worse in 1849 as Cholera hit both sides of the Mississippi River systems killing 4,500 people in St. Louis, over 3,000 people in New Orleans, and thousands to the east in Ohio and New York. Even 5 years later Cholera ravished soldiers on both sides of the Civil War.

In 1849 Cholora spread along the Oregon and California trail to the gold fields. It is believed that between 1832 and 1849 Cholera killed 150,000 people in America.

10. The American Medical Association provided a list of diseases that hit North America between 1500 and 1900.

 

·                     1592 – 1596: measles – Seneca Indians

·                     1617 – 1619: smallpox – Massachusetts Bay area

·                     1630: smallpox – Hurons of Ontario

·                     1634: smallpox – Indians living along the Connecticut River

·                     1633: smallpox – Plymouth Colony

·                     1657: measles – Boston, Massachusetts

·                     1687: measles – Boston, Massachusetts

·                     1690: yellow fever – New York, New York

·                     1713: measles – Boston, Massachusetts

·                     1713 – 1715: measles – Indians of New England and the Great Lakes

·                     1721 – 1722: smallpox – Boston, Massachusetts

·                     1729: measles – Boston, Massachusetts

·                     1738: smallpox – South Carolina

·                     1739 – 1740: measles – Boston, Massachusetts

·                     1747: measles – Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina

·                     1755 – 1756: smallpox – North America

·                     1759: measles – North America

·                     1761: influenza – North America and West Indies

·                     1770s: smallpox – Northwest Coast Indians

·                     1772: measles – North America

·                     1775: unknown cause – North America, particularly in the northeast

·                     1780 – 1782: smallpox – Plains Indians

·                     1783: bilious disorder – Dover, Delaware

·                     1788: measles – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and New York

·                     1788: smallpox – Pueblo Indians

·                     1793: influenza and "putrid fever" – Vermont

·                     1793: influenza – Virginia

·                     1793: yellow fever – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793)

·                     1793: unknown – Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

·                     1793: unknown – Middletown, Pennsylvania

·                     1794: yellow fever – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

·                     1796 – 1797: yellow fever – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

·                     1798: yellow fever – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

·                     1803: yellow fever – New York

·                     1820 – 1823: fever – United States spreading from the Schuylkill River

·                     1831 – 1832: Asiatic cholera – United States (brought by English immigrants)

·                     1831 – 1834: smallpox – Plains Indians

·                     1832: cholera – New York City and other major cities

·                     1833: cholera – Columbus, Ohio

·                     1834: cholera – New York City

·                     1837: typhus – Philadelphia

·                     1837 – 1838: smallpox – Great Plains (1837-38 smallpox epidemic)

·                     1841: yellow fever – United States (especially severe in the South)

·                     1847: yellow fever New Orleans

·                     1848 – 1849: cholera – North America

·                     1849: cholera New York

·                     1850: yellow fever – United States

·                     1850 – 1851: influenza – North America

·                     1851: cholera Coles County, Illinois, The Great Plains, and Missouri

·                     1852: yellow fever – United States (New Orleans-8,000 die in summer)

·                     1855: yellow fever – United States

·                     1860 – 1861: smallpox – Pennsylvania

·                     1862, smallpox - Pacific Northwest, particularly the British Columbia Coast and Interior

·                     1865 – 1873: smallpox – Philadelphia, New York City, Boston, New Orleans

·                     1865 – 1873: cholera – Baltimore, Maryland, Memphis, Washington, DC

·                     1865 – 1873: recurring epidemics of typhus, typhoid, scarlet fever, and yellow fever

·                     1873 – 1875: influenza – North America and Europe

·                     1876: smallpox – Deadwood, South Dakota

·                     1876: smallpox - District of Keewatin, Canada

·                     1878: yellow fever – Memphis, New Orleans

·                     1885: typhoid – Plymouth, Pennsylvania

·                     1886: yellow fever – Jacksonville, Florida

·                     1900 – 1904: "Third Pandemic" – San Francisco