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Timeline of European Diseases
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Disease and Statistics: John Graunt's Observations on the Bills of Mortality
Bills of Mortality were initially created in late 16h century London and were used as a way to record weekly casualties of the plague based on information given by parishes about burials. John Graunt's culmination and observations of these Bills in his work "Natural and Political Observations Made upon the Bills of Mortality", published in 1662 is considered to be the first statistically based estimation of the population of London or any city being able to relay information such as longevity. -
Beginning of Smallpox Prevention: Variolation and the Letters of Lady Mary Montagu
In this anthology of the letters of Lady Montagu, English writer and aristocrat, one dating from 1717 while in Turkey relays one of the first European encounters with the process of innoculation: variolation, where a needle containing scabs of smallpox victims is inserted into veins, the individual would contract the disease in hopes of soon being immune. This method soon led to the safer method of the vaccine by Edward Jenner in 1796 and to the eventual eradtification of smallpox entirely. -
A night with Venus; a lifetime with Mercury: Syphillis and sexual diseases in Europe
This image (author unknown) is of a prostehtic nose used during the mid-18th century to hide the deformities caused by syphillis. By the late 19th century, the disease affected a large number of Europeans and stigmatization of the disease was rampant. Those afflicted by it were accused of being morally void and sexual deviants, so they used prosthetics to avoid such stigmata. This image also speaks of the ineffectivness of medical technology of the time letting disease eat at the body. -
Tuberculosis: The Romantic Disease
Tuberculosis had a large effect on art during the Romantic movement of the 19th century and can be seen in John Keats' 1819 poem, Ode on Melancholy where he makes frequent references to himself having TB as well as his mother who died of it as well. Many well-known artists of the period suffered from TB because of this it was thought to be "the disease of the artists" and to give the sufferer a heightened sense of spirtual purity and was seen as a "good death" by such authors as Hugo and Dumas. -
The Cholera Pandemics
This wood engraving, Death as Assassin by German artist, Alfred Rethel from 1851 shows Death at a ball with Cholera in fancy dress in the background in Paris, killing everyone it passes in allusion to an event which occured in Paris in 1831. In the 19th century, cholera was greatly feared, sailing from port to port progressing with contaminated water and infected feces of victims. The lack of sewage systems in crowded cities aided in the deaths of hundereds of thousands in Europe due to cholera. -
Spanish Influenza Pandemic
This photo belonging to the Kansas Historical Society was taken during the end of the war; it shows soldiers ill with the flu in Fort Riley, Kansas at a hospitcal ward. The Spanish Flu was responsible for the deaths of millions killing about 3 to 5 percent of the world's population adding to the already massive casualties of from the Great War.
