Shirley, I really enjoyed your article. Thank you so much for sharing. Times were so hard. It was a real struggle just to stay alive...... Helen -------------- Original message -------------- From: [email protected] > > In a message dated 6/13/2008 8:54:22 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, > [email protected] writes: > > I found this listing, but nothing for that specific time period > > > I know that in the south the years and decades following the end of the > Civil War was devastating. The elderly and the children and the newborns had a > difficult time surviving. My great great grandfathers were not doctors or > pharmacists but they were educated and when they moved to the hills in > Arkansas, > they carried books with them that enabled them to doctor and prepare > medication. My grandmother gathered herbs and roots for them. > > The north had a growing immigrant population from the turmoil in Europe in > that period. Many immigrants carried the Old World diseases with them. > Sanitation in the larger cities was almost non-existent. The rural areas > depended > mainly on "natural" sanitation, bury the garbage or feed it to the hogs in > the back yard or the chickens close by, lime the outhouses, rain to wash away > waste. > We washed the jars in hot soapy water to preserve food, but we used the > boiling method, not the pressure method. Some women would "sample" the canned > food before trusting it to her family. Others didn't and some died from > botulism. > We mustn't forget that trains with their dirty smoke ran in Westmoreland Co. > at that time. My father had black lung disease, and I, a child who lived > next to the track in a coal mining town for 10 years have had lung problems, > probably black lung, the doctors say. > > My stepmother told of the time her mother deliberately sold a cow she knew > had TB before the symptoms were noticeable. That meat was sold to the public. > Along with the milk prior to butchering. Her daughter said she felt shame > for what her mother did to other people, but her mother, an immigrant, said > they did it in the Old Country. > > My grandmother in Indian Territory lost 3 of her 6 children to diphtheria > from the "sweetest water in the world." She sold that water to others without > wells.. > > I've read a dozen or more civil war pension applications and many of the > ailments may have been contracted in the south and carried north or may just as > likely have been fostered in the north. Parasites were in both places. > > I know for a fact some outhouses were built uphill from the homes. Lime was > used, but the ground water would have been contaminated. I can still see > the outdoor pump in line with the outhouse 30 or so feet above it. > > My father contracted malaria from a nephew who returned from the Asian > theater with raging fevers (to the point of losing his memory for several > months) > some years after he was supposedly cured of it. This nephew died within the > last 10 years complaining of "worms crawling out of the pores of his face." > He would awaken and find tiny white strings on his pillow. He carried > something back with him from the islands that incubated for decades. > > So it wouldn't have taken a world or even a local epidemic to have killed a > lot of people in a certain decade. > Well water contaminated in one neighborhood, not in another. > Doctors unable to diagnose the new symptoms or not have the right medicine. > Proximity of ill people and lack of sanitation. > Contamination from new places and new diseases, many without the immunity > that a lifetime exposure would have helped fight. > > We have to add air contamination now. The separate fires in the swamps in > North Carolina and in the Dismal Swamp in Virginia have activated my allergy > to wood fire smoke. Many have been warned to stay indoors under air > conditioners, the elderly, children, heart patients, and those with asthma. > > It's just in my lifetime that polio has been controlled. Our parents were > terrified of it for us. One of my friends did get it. My children were born > just as the vaccine was found (a second stepmother, a nurse, was a guinea pig > for Dr. Salk and did get a mild form of polio). > > But we do have increased environmental issues, poor sanitation in the foods > we import, proximity to people, ability to travel to other places and carry > our germs with us and pick up others' germs, acid rain, new viruses.. > > Don't particularly look for a large epidemic (other than the Spanish Flu) to > explain a several deaths in a family or neighborhood. It could have been > something as simple as a well gone bad or a woods on fire or eating spoiled > food. > Shirley Maynard > Hampton, VA > > > > > > > **************Vote for your city's best dining and nightlife. City's Best > 2008. 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