bad fishing analogy

[worcmik]

ya'll,
       I spent nearly two hours at American Antiquerian Society today. I wanted to read the yankee girls 2nd hand acct. of a Catholic wedding in the 1830s. When I was transcribing marriage info, I often thought about what the wedding was like, and when I learned about this little girl's letter (@ the Blackstone Valley symposium), I knew I would have to read it. I felt it would give me some info and a few quotes for any text I write about the marriage database I have created.
       I did not find what I was looking for, as I was quickly captivated by this little girl's journal. As I read her perfect handwriting, I was unable to scan the pages for the word "Irish," or skim through the diary to find what I wanted. Her account of her 4 1/2 year-old brother's death was touching. He'd died of "canker rash," which, she taught me, was a horrible way to go. I think she said Dr. Green would rather have smallpox.  She mentioned new babies in the homes of the people she knew (a virtual who's who of 19th century Worcester). More often she mentioned deaths, smallpox vaccines, injury, illness, scarlet fever, "a cancer," an "ulceration of the leg," and other various and sundry medical ailments. I read the few entries she made as a 7 & 8 y/o (my Ellen's age) and the several entries she made as a 9 & 10 y/o (my Katie's age)...so far. The place was closing before I could get any further. There is lots more to go, and she has already seen so much.
       So far I have gathered more for the deaths database's accompanying text than the marriage one. This stuff will be joined sometime soon wiith whatever I can learn about the accidental deaths that I have found. A double drownding, "a caving-in of the earth...," railroad accidents and other untimely deaths ought to have made it into the newspapers of the day. (They loved that kind of thing back then.)
       Last year my 13 y/o son, Tom, did a science project about the top four bacterial killers of Worcester's Catholics in the years 1845 through 1851. Togrther we learned what the modern names and causes (as we now understand them) of the "cause of death" for hundreds of deaths. Then he selected just the top four bacterial killers to expand upon, including when they ceased to be a major cause of death in America. The point he made was: It was improvements in sanitation, rather than the advent of antibiotics, that brought about the decline in deaths from tuberculosis, dysentery, typhus, and streptococcal diseases (scarlet fever, rheumatic fever & others). I mention this because I realized that even the information I had was not enough to understand the subject of 19th century death. And to think I went there to get a deeper understanding of 19th c. marriage.
       Just goes to show you: To catch fish you have to put your pole in the water, and a keeper trout is kept even when you're fishing for bass, or some such thing.
       Two hours is not too short of a period of time to do a little fishing, so get out there and do a little research.                                                                  J
       

[traveler]

Thank you for a great post. I love the research, not only finding more about my family, but also learning about the world in which they lived.
Marion

[worcmik]

A friend wrote to piont out that TB was quite ranpant in Ireland in his youth. I think the line about the "decline" in deaths caught his eye. Since I spent the time to reply here it is for the list.
    "The budding Dr. or scientist actually did a bit more research than I mentioned. He is aware that it is a contagious disease that never really went away. He wrote "The disease is treatable today, but third world countries lack the resources to combat it. Worldwide, 1/2 billion people have died of TB in the last 100 years." He knows too that there are antibiotic resistant strains now that are very difficult to treat.
    One of my mother's best friends had TB after the birth of her first child.[This would be about the early 1960s in Worcester.] She missed quite a bit of his "babyhood," as she was in a Sanitarium. Though this woman is like an aunt to me and her kids are like my cousins, Tom is not as familiar with her as I am. So, he did not feel comfortable interviewing her to gain more insight into the disease. I don't know if there was a stigma attached at that time and place, but asking her questions that would bring-up such painful memories sounded like a bad idea to both of us... when I suggested it to him.
    Here is the line that from the project that says what I ment to sum-up in my last: "...the improvements in sanitation, health care, and other public health issues that followed Louis Pasteur's germ theory, led to a greater reduction in death from contagious disease than antibiotics."
   Thanks for sharing, I shared your letter with my son, he hasn't lost interest in this stuff. "