We’ve all read about or watched news on TV about the H1N1 pandemic spreading around the world. While researching my family tree I came across an article about Scourges of the 19^th Century.

In 1869 a family immigrated from Ireland to New York City. Joseph and Bridget had three young children: Mary, age 4; Jane, age 3 and baby Agnes, an infant who died at five months of age. The cause of death was marasmus, a form of malnutrition, caused or made worse by contaminated milk.

Back in the 1800s contaminated milk was not unusual. Cows were fed distillery waste—called swill—which was widely distributed. “Swill milk” was neither healthy nor safe for the cow or the baby. Conditions for handling of milk back then were anything but sanitary. Containers for the milk were often reused by customers and milkmen without cleaning. The milk was carted around uncovered through filthy city streets. The milk was often watered down providing inadequate nutrition. Before pasteurization became mandatory bovine tuberculosis could be transmitted to humans through milk.

Infant mortality was high in the latter half of the 19^th century. Twenty percent of infants never reached their first birthday. In 1900 eighteen percent of children died before age five of pneumonia, gastroenteritis, diphtheria and malnutrition.

Modern medicine had not yet developed. Most diseases were not understood. Doctors made housecalls to the wealthy, but not the poor. Hospitals became places the sick went to die.

Patent medicines called “soothing syrups” contained morphine, heroin, opium or laudanum and quieted the crying of the babies at the cost of their addiction. Treatment of symptoms, but not the cause.

The 19^th century endured epidemics of typhoid, typhus, smallpox, influenza and bubonic plague along with others. Lack of means of prevention allowed cholera and yellow fever.

Cholera arrived in the United States as steamship travel and immigration increased. Cholera was thought to have been caused by God to punish sinners and target people who were considered morally reprehensible. Yet, in fact cholera is a bacterial disease spread through contaminated water. Half those stricken died within hours.

Yellow fever is a virus carried by mosquitoes. Coming from the Carribean it killed over 8,000 people in New Orleans in 1853. It spread up along the Mississippi River killed 20,000 people. Half the population of Memphis left the city costing it $15 million and leaving it bankrupt.

In1855 the yellow fever epidemic in Norfolk, Virginia resulted in other towns trying to prevent residents of Norfolk from entering their towns.

When the bubonic plague hit San Francisco in March 1900 the residents of Chinatown denied it for years as did business leaders and California’s governor, while people died.

Epidemics cause parentless children giving rise to an increase in orphanages. Deaths in childbirth usually resulted from postpartum infections leading to sepsis—blood poisoning.

In 1843 Oliver Wendell Holmes suggested the deaths following childbirth in maternity wards were the result of doctors failing to disinfect their hands and clothing. However, Dr. Charles Meigs of Philadelphia dismissed Holmes’ criticism. Meigs argued that doctors were gentlemen and the hands of gentlemen are clean.

These public health crises were the product of germs, but recognition of that fact took time for the public to accept. German scientist Robert Koch identified the microbe that caused tuberculosis in 1882. Convinced by Koch’s findings Dr. Hermann Biggs of New York in 1889 that tuberculosis was preventable wrote that tuberculosis could be prevented by disinfection, disposal of sputum, reporting of all pulmonary cases and educating the public. Biggs’ report met with resistance.

Governmental health agencies began to spring up creating divisions of pathology, bacteriology, and disinfection and imposing a quarantine. Crews were disbursed to scrub and clean public areas, disinfect water pipes and campaigns to educate the public on prevention and treatment.

This somewhat brief historical view of healthcare in the past caused me think about the current health care reform effort and the vehement resistance to it. Do we really want freedom from quality healthcare?  Do we really want to return to life of the 19^th century? I don’t personally feel like the government is taking away my freedom. Some apparently do.