Tuberculosis and Typhus Fever: Diseases of Class in 19th-Century England

In the late 1800’s to 1900’s a white plague broke out in the United States called tuberculosis (TB), the need for medical attention was both high and demanding.“El Paso 's climate, characterized by mild winters, low rainfall and humidity and abundant

More issues such as sickness, and death arose due to the overcrowding of people and the unsanitary conditions they lived in. Thomas B. Macaulay, a social historian, states people live longer because they are better fed, better lodged, better clothed, and better attended in sickness. (Doc 3) This without a doubt means that if people had better conditions in living, and not as much overcrowding, they would live longer. One big issue that was an ongoing problem during this time was disease and infection. Disease would take a lot of lives, and people could not do anything about it because, because they did not know how to fight it. Edwin Chadwick stated that the annual loss of life from filth and bad ventilation is greater than the loss from death or wounds in modern wars. (Doc 6) With foods being contaminated, it was obvious that people would have died from infection and disease. In Manchester during this time, people were dying rapidly due to many reasons. The Lancer, a British medical journal, published a work stating the average death in certain places. More of the working class would be likely to die faster than a regular artisan or trader. (Doc 8) The main reason this happened is obvious. It was because the working class would live in poor conditions, and would be overcrowded. With this being said, the workings’ class condition was not any better than how they

In Elizabethan times many deadly diseases had spread such as the plague, smallpox and typhoid, but the causes and cures had yet to be discovered. Due to bad hygiene because of open sewers and rubbish dumped in the river, this caused disease to easily spread as it was a natural habitat for rats, fleas and lice. The plague was carried by the fleas living in the fur of rats. As a result of this one third of the population died. Elizabethan physicians believed that medicine was basic, they had no idea why and how people were getting so sick, treatments were based from superstitions and guesses so they used a mixture of herbs for cures and also believed leeches would ‘suck

This surgery helped prolong the life of some people. Other treatments included bedrest, special diets, and fresh air through pneumothorax which means they would collapse a person’s lung. In 1921, Calmette and Guérin developed a weakened strain of Mycobacterium bovis, which many countries have used as a vaccine. Another major method to prevent tuberculosis was to treat people with a tuberculous infection without the disease. Many patients in the 1950s did not receive appropriate treatment because their conditions were never properly diagnosed as tuberculosis. While there was effective chemotherapy for tuberculosis, patients were diagnosed with untreated tuberculosis. At the turn of the century, it was estimated that 450 Americans died of tuberculosis every day, most between the ages of 15 and 44. Tuberculosis was usually compared to death itself.

During the 1800s, there was several diseases affecting people left and right. “Diseases such as tuberculosis, smallpox, measles, chickenpox, cholera, whooping cough and influenza, among others” (“1800s: My Place, Diseases”) were some of the known diseases that would cripple or cause death to multiple people. Often Plantation owners and their slaves would have the same diseases, but plantation owners had a higher chance at surviving than slaves did. Doctors would prescribe the same treatment to anyone with a disease, usually natural herbs or bleeding out. Doctors from England that lived in America could no longer visit England for medical advice after the Revolutionary War, so several doctors started to improvise with many different remedies

During the era of the Industrial Revolution, there was an abundance of these problems, which meant diseases were able to permeate rapidly. In a lecture on the Industrial Revolution, the speaker discussed how the water management system was incompetent. In other words, the water was extremely contaminated. This contributed to the spread of disease because contaminated water meant the water was infested with dangerous viruses or bacteria that can cause fatal diseases, and people bathed and drank this polluted water. Water is essential to human life, and because the contaminated water was their only resource, they must drink or use it; hence the entire population was at risk of contracting a disease. Additionally, in an article called “Population Growth and Movement in the Industrial Revolution”, the author states, “This might be surprising given that the newly crowded cities were rife for disease and illness, with an urban death rate higher than the rural areas…”(Wilde). Since the cities were so crowded, if a person was sick then he or she would probably come into contact with countless people. He or she may bump into other individuals, shake hands with others, or even hug other people. As a result, numerous people have been exposed to the illness and they will presumably come into contact with more people in the busy streets of the city. Sanitation problems and

Summary: The site explains what diseases were common during the Elizabethan era. It also explains why they were affected by said diseases so much. It also says why people didn't live very long because all of the diseases were common.

During this period of history, new forms of science and scientific discovery were in their infant stages on the world stage. However, the ideas of Magic and Sorcery were still established in the minds of the people. Because of this, the ideas and theories of new scientific discoveries were often compared to or mistaken as witchcraft (Lace, 1995). Lace (1995) cites Historian Lacey Baldwin Smith, who elegantly explained this relationship as " A strange composite of the old and new, chemistry and alchemy, astronomy and astrology, mathematics and numerology, medicine and magic, observation and sorcery" (p. 69). Many well-respected men of the time would often meld science and magic to try and answer their questions about the world and how it

Malnutrition has always been shouted to be a very important predisposing factor for all infectious diseases including the great white scourge, tuberculosis.

The medieval times had no education or knowledge of ways to prevent such a disease from overtaking them. Doctors of the time were completely unable to prevent or cure it. They were, in a ways, stuck with this dreadful killer and their only choices were to wait it all off. Nowadays, doctors and researchers have studied so much into the plagues capabilities, they know of treatments that can either sustain, if not, cure Yersinia pestis from overtaking another era. At home treatments were found to be somewhat reliable to the plague and one includes using vinegar and rose water to drench over an infected body to help cleanse of the bacterias toxins. Cures such as cooked onions, arsenic, sitting in sewers, and fumigating homes with herbs were tried. Apparently the black swellings were also thought

The cramped conditions, meager food rations and general lack of cleanliness caused rampant disease throughout the ghettos. Persistent hunger, intense labor, and constant fear of deportation caused an inflated number of heart and circulatory system diseases among the ghetto Jews. The ghettos lacked adequate amounts of medicine to treat the thousands of Jews suffering from typhus, dysentery, tuberculosis, diphtheria, scarlet fever, trachoma, meningitis, and other diseases, and many of them perished as a result. In the Lodz ghetto alone, 7,269 people died from tuberculosis (Dobroszycki). In the Warsaw ghetto, it was estimated that 100,000 Jews contracted typhus in the first 18 months of the ghetto's existence.

Everyone can relate to getting sick and having to go to the doctors and going to pick up medicine at a pharmacist.But what you might not know is how people with illnesses or some sick symptoms were treated in the Medieval days.Receiving medication is something a bit different.People in Medieval times would go to the doctors. However the doctors had extremely limited knowledge and really did not know what caused illnesses.It was hard enough for ordinary poorer people or people who did not live in big main towns to get medical help.They had a difficult time for access doctors Those who were in need of medical assistance in those situations may have and ask local people who had medical knowledge.Most people when they had minor symptoms and nothing to serious hat required medical assistance,Such as upset stomachs,headaches,eye problems,exd.They Would go to the apothecary and there they would be given mixtures of

While others, were only effected by direct contact. It was thought to have been sustainable by even touching clothing or other such items of the infected. Conditions of the fourteenth century were also a contributing factor. Famine had been an arising issue due to the number of overpopulation. Because of this, their immune systems began to weaken. “Europeans were susceptible to disease because many people lived in crowded surroundings in an era when personal hygiene was not considered important” (Dowling). The cities were unsanitary and littered with germs, making it easier to sustain such diseases. Unhealthy habits were conducted and medical advances had not yet been made. Doctors themselves had not known what to advise. No prescriptions had worked. There was no cure to what was happening. Most were not even aware of what was impending upon them. Anything that could would be tried, in hopes of living. People were becoming desperate.

As for diseases in general, “in the late 1800’s and early 1900's, infectious diseases were the most serious threat to health and well being”. The most common causes of death were the respiratory diseases, much like pneumonia, and in this case, tuberculosis. They cause symptoms like loss of breath and frequent coughing fits, as seen in the story. As for setting, “During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, tuberculosis (TB) was the leading cause of death in the United States” (“University of Virginia” 1). With over four hundred citizens dying per day, people were terrified of the ailment. To add on, with such a large number of infected individuals, there is no wonder why at least one member of the Tyrone family had contracted it. This was the problem that the youngest brother Edmund had to face, and what is worse is that “There was no reliable treatment for tuberculosis… most often, doctors simply advised their patients to rest, eat well, and exercise outdoors” (“University of Virginia” 1). Tuberculosis was a major part of everyone’s life, and with no cure for it very few people actually survived. In addition, the first valid cure for the disease wouldn’t come around for another decade, this in turn caused the final aspect of the setting during the Progressive Era. Illnesses plagued the cities of

The Middle Ages were tough times when it came to disease and medicine. There were numerous types of sickness and disease that flooded Europe during the Middle Ages. Not helping the situation, the medicinal knowledge of the people of Europe of the time was not up to par. Some of the diseases and illness that were running rampant during these times were pneumonia, leprosy, and the plague. The middle ages were a time of great suffering and death because of the abundant disease and lack of knowledge of the spread and treatments.