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You know nothing, John Snow...
Extra Credits has just wrapped up an excellent series on cholera, Dr. John Snow, epidemiology, and life in Victorian England.
I highly recommend you watch it all, including the Epilogue and “Lies” episodes, for bonus fascinating history and current stuff.
A portion of Charles Guiteau’s brain
"The doctors killed Garfield, I just shot him"
This is a specimen of the brain tissue of Charles Guiteau. He is best known as the assassin of President James A. Garfield of the USA.
While James Garfield was shot on July 2, 1881, he did not die until eleven weeks later. Most of his care was considered competent for the day, but his physicians rejected antiseptic technique, and if they hadn’t, it’s widely believed that Garfield would have survived. The exact cause of death was overwhelming infection, leading to rupture of the splenic artery.
His assassin was executed less than a year after his death, by hanging.
From the National Museum of Health and Medicine, via Flickr
1939 WPA Posters for the Improvement of Public Health
While the flies were a visible and tangible problem when one did not have an outhouse or latrine installed, the real danger, as I stated before, was from hookworm infection, and the subsequent destruction of the productivity of those afflicted. To be sure, dysentery and cholera spread by flies were serious dangers. However, they presented themselves in a most obvious fashion, and medical care could then be given. Hookworm? Well, if you don't know you have something, you probably aren't going to go to the doctor just cause you're feeling tired and run down, especially if that's the only way you've felt your entire life.
Posters from Library of Congress Archives: For the People, By the People WPA Project.
1863. Private Milton E. Wallen, Co. C, 1st Kentucky Cavalry.
Private Wallen was wounded by a Minie ball while in prison. His arm was amputated and was beginning to heal well, but after a week he began to develop hospital gangrene in the amputated stump.
Hospital gangrene was very common back in the days before antiseptic practices. As opposed to the conditions considered to be forms of gangrene today (gas, dry, wet), "hospital gangrene" was largely caused by Clostridium spp., and was quickly fatal. As Clostridium are bacteria that thrive in the lower GI tract, hospitals with poor sanitation (and consequently widespread fecal contamination) have far higher rates of hospital gangrene death.
What I'm reading right now.
Dr. Lister's spirit would cry.
More on the book when I finish it. Yes, it is about what it looks like. The benefits of putting dirt on surgical wounds.
Japanese Chinese public health poster on the spreading of cholera and how to stop it.
