What would colonists do if they were sick?

Most sick people turned to local healers, and used folk remedies. Others relied upon the minister-physicians, barber-surgeons, apothecaries, midwives, and ministers; a few used colonial physicians trained either in Britain, or an apprenticeship in the colonies. One common treatment was blood letting.

What happens if you were sick in colonial times?

Throughout the colonial period, care of the sick was delivered in the home. However, many citizens, particularly the poor and infirm, did not have family to care for them. Almshouses were established to house, feed, and care for the poor.

What was used to cure diseases in colonial times?

Treatment included such "depletion" measures as purging, sweating, bleeding, blistering and vomiting. Purgatives, emetics, opium, cinchona bark, camphor, potassium nitrate and mercury were among the most widely used drugs.

What did colonists use for medicine?

Some medicinal substances were imported from other countries. Others had to be gathered, either from the wild or the garden. Most colonists with a kitchen garden grew medicinal herbs such as hyssop, lavender, comfrey and fennel interspersed with the vegetables and flowers.

How did disease affect the colonies?

Measles, typhus, mumps, and other contagious diseases brought by the Europeans took their toll and devastated civilizations in the New World. North America, the Pacific Islands, Australia, and New Zealand suffered similar population declines following European colonization in the 18th and 19th centuries.

If you were Sick in 1810 - slices of time

What disease killed most natives?

It is estimated that some tribes lost 50% of their populations due to smallpox. There is also unfortunate evidence that smallpox was used as biological warfare, with infected blankets and other items given to tribes with the purpose of spreading disease.

Did colonists spread disease on purpose?

While not every smallpox outbreak was deliberately caused by white settlers, enough evidence exists to clearly demonstrate that more than once actions were taken to intentionally facilitate its spread.

How did they treat illness in the 1700s?

Even in the 18th century the search for a simple way of healing the sick continued. In Edinburgh the writer and lecturer John Brown expounded his view that there were only two diseases, sthenic (strong) and asthenic (weak), and two treatments, stimulant and sedative; his chief remedies were alcohol and opium.

Did the colonists have doctors?

An estimated 3,500 doctors practiced in the colonies in 1775. Some were trained at The Pennsylvania Hospital, which became America's first medical college when it opened in Philadelphia in 1768. Two years later, a second, Kings College, opened in New York.

What did it take to be a doctor in the 1700s?

However, medicine in the 1700s was drastically different than it is today, from the understanding of medicine to how someone trained to become a doctor, to how patients were treated. Most physicians in colonial North America were trained through apprenticeships, not by attending medical school.

What was a cause of death in the colonies?

The European colonists who settled New England and other areas in the Americas both carried and experienced a wide variety of diseases: smallpox, malaria, dysentery, yellow fever, diphtheria, scarlet fever, influenza, pleurisy, colds, whooping cough, mumps, measles, typhus, typhoid fever, hookworms, parasites, ...

How were sick people treated in the 1800s?

Traditional medical practices during most of the 19th century relied on symptomatic treatment, consisting primarily of bloodletting, blistering, and high doses of mineral poisons. These medical regimens resulted in high rates of death in patients unfortunate enough to undergo treatment.

What were doctors like in colonial times?

Colonial physicians were often trained by being apprenticed to an experienced physician. They did not go to medical school. What effect do you think this had on medical care? Colonial Americans did not yet know about germs.

What disease killed many colonists?

Dysentery was the number two killer of colonists. The next most fatal illnesses were the respiratory complaints: influenza, pneumonia, pleurisy, and colds. After that, the ranking would be small pox, yellow fever, diphtheria and scarlet fever, measles, whooping cough, mumps, typhus, and typhoid fever.

What was the most common punishment in colonial times?

People were punished for blasphemy, stealing, adultery, and even idleness. Some of the punishments included branding (often done in the case of adultery), dunking, or ear cropping. People were also placed in pillories, and whipping posts were used as well.

What disease is killing dozens of colonists?

Because few American colonists had contracted the disease before, the colonies experienced sporadic and deadly outbreaks of smallpox.

What was a doctor called in colonial times?

A colonial apothecary practiced as doctor. Records kept by 18th-century Williamsburg's apothecaries show that they made house calls to treat patients, made and prescribed medicines, and trained apprentices. Some apothecaries were also trained as surgeons and man-midwives.

What drugs were used in the 1700s?

Commonly prescribed drugs included highly toxic compounds of mercury and arsenic, while naturally-occurring poisons such as hemlock and deadly nightshade were also staples of the medicine cabinet.

What were doctors called in the 1600?

The practice of medicine in the United States dates back to the early 1600s. At the beginning of the 17th century, medical practice in England was divided into three groups: the physicians, the surgeons, and the apothecaries. Physicians were seen as elite. They most often held a university degree.

What disease killed most people in the 1700s?

During the 18th century, over 400,000 people died annually in Europe from smallpox. Overall fatality rates were around 30%; however, rates were much higher in infants (80-98%), and one-third of all survivors went blind. One thing was obvious among survivors of the disease - they never caught it again.

What was the most common cause of death in the 1700s?

In the 1700s, worldwide eruptions of smallpox threatened the lives of multitudes, although other epidemics such as cholera, yellow fever, plague, and influenza played havoc as well. Boston was in the crosshairs of smallpox on several occasions, but also became a place that helped leading the way out of the darkness.

How did medieval people treat the sick?

Doctors tried every possible cure and prevention. Physicians relied on crude and unsophisticated techniques such as bloodletting and boil-lancing (practices that were dangerous as well as unsanitary) and superstitious practices such as burning aromatic herbs and bathing in rosewater or vinegar.

Did Europeans know they were bringing diseases?

The Europeans infected with such diseases typically carried them in a dormant state, were actively infected but asymptomatic, or had only mild symptoms, because Europe had been subject for centuries to a selective process by these diseases. The explorers and colonists often unknowingly passed the diseases to natives.

What disease did the British bring to America?

Europeans brought deadly viruses and bacteria, such as smallpox, measles, typhus, and cholera, for which Native Americans had no immunity (Denevan, 1976).

How many Native Americans were killed by disease?

It is estimated that the total Native American population of the Americas to be 90- 114 million people. About 90% died due to disease with the lowest Native American populations recorded in 1900. The initial 50 years after Columbus' arrival devastated the populations of the Caribbean and Meso America.