Colonial Health and Medicine

1
Colonial Health and Medicine
2
Diet

• About 4,748 calories/day
• Consisting of (per week)
• Grains/Vegetables 7 lb. bread,1 qt. peas,1 pt.
  rice, 21 pt. beer
• Meat 3 lb. beef, 4lb. Pork
• Dairy/Liquor 7 gal. beer
• Wild game, fish, chicken, and cheese provided
  protein during the summer.
• Stocks of salted meat, flour or dried corn,
  uncured cheese and dried peas during the winter
  (depending on their summer).

3
Diseases and Epidemics

• Typhoid, dysentery, and salt poisoning
  (contaminated water) - killed 1/2 of original
  colonists.
• Malaria (mosquitoes - parasite) -killed 10 - 20
  of colonial population/year.
• Smallpox, Influenza, Whooping cough measles.
• Amoebic dysentery and new strain of malaria (west
  Africa slave ships).
• Yellow and Scarlet fevers, and scurvy.

4
Reasons for high rates of disease

• Spread-out communities rather than isolated
  communities (epidemics)
• New strains of diseases (susceptibility)
• Immunity (Europeans)
• Contaminated water
• Parasites
• Diet, climate , daily habits (not washing hands,
  hair, or clothes), and unsanitary conditions.
• Lack of awareness of spreading germs and they
  believed in curing the symptoms only.
• Un-sterilized and unsharpened surgery tools.

5
Causes Remedies

• Home remedies - poultices and curative teas
  (medicine books).
• Ague remedy
• Night air caused illness
• Imbalance in the body
• Rid body of poisons
• Opium and tonics
• Bleeding and leeches
• Alcohol (only anesthetic)

6
Native and African Healing

• Medicinal plants (drunk, boiled, dried) combined
  with magic.
• Sweat baths and lodges (cleansing spirits and
  body).
• Shamans and medicine men

7
Life Expectancy and Mortality

• 1600s Men 49 Women 40
• 1700s Men 69 Women 62
• Today Men 75 Women 78
• IMR Today 1 16/1700s 10
• Depending on where you lived
• Northern colonies (countryside) 1 of
  residents/year
• Southern colonies (or urban centers) 3.2 - 4.7
  of residents/year