Page 36 - 2015_Cabin Days curriculum booklet

(Eight Months in Illinois, 1843, pp. 76-77)

In this dirty and pest-ridden environment, the Indiana pioneer invited further afflictions by poor
eating habits. Most foreign observers felt Americans were great gluttons who tended to eat "huge
quantities of poorly prepared food with the manners and charm of certain barnyard animals"
(Pessen, Jacksonian America, pp. 20-21). Dr. Daniel Drake of Cincinnati believed that people of
the interior valley at too many foods prepared through "vicious modes of cooking" (Diseases of
the Interior Valley, 1850, 1:654). In the American Democrat (1838), James Fenimore Cooper
remarked that

Americans are the grossest feeders of any civilized nation known . . . food is heavy, coarse, ill-
prepared and indigestible . . . The predominance of grease in the American kitchen coupled with
the habits of hasty eating and of constant expectoration, are the cause of the diseases of the
stomach so common in America. (p. 208)

Americans also consumed an inordinate amount of tobacco and alcohol. Whiskey, brandy, and
rum were standard drinks at militia musters, election days, most celebrations, and the daily meal
table. In fact, the average per capita consumption of distilled liquors during the 1830-1836 period
was nearly 5 gallons (Rorabaugh, Alcoholic Republic, p. 238).

Personal hygiene was careless at best. Linens were rarely changed at inns and taverns, meaning
that bed vermin were common. Travelers often found little water for bathing. Some doctors, like
William Buchan, warned men to take care of their health by bathing frequently, avoiding strong
drink, and regulating their diets. Daniel Drake even felt that cholera was linked to poor personal
hygiene.

The lack of concern about public health and sanitation resulted in much sickness. Summer
through fall months, aptly known as the "sickly season," saw outbreaks of malarial fevers or
"ague," typhoid (then called typhus), dysentery, milk sickness (trembles or slows), as well as
cholera and smallpox which caused added panic and dread. Winter and spring months brought
measles, pneumonia, colds, tuberculosis (called consumption), pleurisy, scarlet fever, erysipelas,
and whooping cough. Calvin Fletcher reported in his diary that his entire family was sick with
the measles in January 1836 (Diary, 1:300-303). Besides the cholera epidemics that hit Indiana in
1833 and again in 1849, fevers were probably the worst and the most frequent afflictions. In the
town of Vevay in 1820, one in six died of bilious fevers; in Indianapolis in 1821, one in twelve
residents died of fevers, though nearly nine-tenths of the population was afflicted! In addition to
illnesses, accidents and assorted mishaps--burns, bites, injuries-- endangered the health of the
settlers and often proved to be fatal if the injured was far from the doctor's care.

MEDICAL PRACTICE
The Philadelphia Sentinel says that New York has a greater variety of physicians than any other
city in the world. The Sentinel enumerates them thus: Regulars, Irregulars, Broussaisans,
Sangradoarians, Morissonians, Brandrethians, Beechitarians, Botanics, Regular Botanics,
Thomsonians, reformed Thomsonians, theoretical, practical, experimental, dogmatical,
emblematical, magnetists, eclectical, electrical, diplomatical, homeopathians, rootists, herbists,
florists, and quacks!!

Medicine of Jacksonian America Page 2 of 8