Diseases severely impacted early immigrant settlers of colonial America, and native populations. 1 in 4 newly arrived able-bodied young men would die within five years of arriving. Mortality was especially high for infants and small children.

In Colonial America, local doctors, midwives, and healers would administer medical care to the residents in their village or town. There were generally families that would pass down knowledge of curative drugs or the “folk practice of medicine”.

One common treatment was blood letting. The method was crude due to a lack of knowledge about infection and disease among medical practitioners. There was little government control, regulation of medical care, or attention to public health.

The 17th century refers to the 1600s.

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PERSPECTIVE

Columbus sailed to the “New World” in 1492

Jamestown is the first English settlement in the Colony of Virginia in 1607.

The pilgrims settled on Plymouth rock in 1620.

Massachusetts law in 1647 mandated that every town of 50 or more families support an elementary school and every town of 100 or more families support a Latin, or grammar school.

First college created in the colonies was Harvard in Massachusetts in 1636.

The disease Malaria was deadly to many new arrivals in the colonies but was largely unknown to physicians. Physicians would attribute the disease to “miasma”, or “bad air”. In reality, the disease is caused by a parasite that is found in certain species of mosquito.

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