Home » Kids Zone » Ask Jack

Question:

Did kids get sick a lot back in Village times?

Answer:

Dear Katelyn,

That's a very good question, with some very hard answers. In early 19th-century New England, children faced a variety of infectious diseases, including diphtheria, measles, whooping cough, scarlet fever, typhoid, typhus, and cholera - all of which were highly contagious and quite often fatal. Almost every New England family expected to lose at least one child to disease or accident, and the first year of a child's life was the most dangerous. One of every seven infants died before the age of one, and about one in seven of those survivors died before reaching adulthood.

Kids also faced such hazards as open-hearth cooking (burning and scalding were real dangers) and heavy wagon and horse traffic in busy center villages. Their parents, meanwhile, also had it tougher than today's adults. Tuberculosis (then called consumption), typhoid, and cholera killed many people. Infections related to childbirth posed a major risk for women ages 18-45, and infections resulting from work-related accidents put men at serious risk. About three mothers in 100 died as a result of childbirth, and men ran significant risks of injury and death from mishaps with tools, machinery, horses and vehicles, and failing trees.

All of which meant that 1830s children, in addition to being at the greatest risk for disease or death, were also more likely than today's kids to experience the death of a parent or parents while they were still young and dependent.

Nevertheless, the rural communities of New England were still among the healthiest places on earth! Life expectancy in the American countryside was several years longer than in the city, and almost anywhere in America was healthier than most places in Europe, where sometimes nearly one in two children might expect to get sick or die.

With the advent of antiseptics, antibiotics, anesthetics, and the discovery of the connection between germs and disease, many of the most deadly diseases of the 19th century no longer pose a serious threat to modern families. As of 1996, life expectancy in Massachusetts was about 30 years greater at birth than during the first half of the 19th century and 15-20 years greater for those reaching the age of 10.