Diseases

[Gale_Snail]

thank you to the 3 who answered my question! your all stars xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx! also i was wondering if you would be able to help me out on this one too: name examples of 5 diseases that used to kill and why they no longer do. please have a go im sorry im use less at these kind of things! ta xx

[dot.hawkes]

Polio, Diptheria, Scarlett Fever, Tuberculosis, leprosy. mainly because there is an innoculation against them or anti-biotics. (But these are just a guess )

[Octavius]

......

http://www.medieval-life.net/diseases.htm

[Drusilla1S]

Dysentry was called the Flux and was like a never ending diarrhoea. It killed King Henry V at the age of 33.

Infantile Diarrhoea killed more children than any other illness.

Childbed Fever is an infection of the vagina and killed many women who had just given birth.

Plague was caused by the bites of fleas that were carried on the black rat. The infection led to lumps in the neck, armpits and groin and half the people infected would die. In some outbreaks, everyone infected would die.

Typhoid was caused by poo seeping into wellls and contaminating the water supply.

All of these illnesses would be cured by anti biotics today.

[dot.hawkes]

what about the sexually transmitted diseases? Weren't hundreds killed by The Pox or whatever it was? Or was that later?

[buggernuts]

The most obvious ones are: (unfortunately, TB & typhoid still do in some countries)

Smallpox

Typhus (jail fever, ship fever, remitting fever) killed more men in Napoleon's army during the retreat from Moscow than any other cause. Spread by mites.

Bubonic, Pneumonic & Septacaemic Plagues

Haemorrhagic Plague, its exact identity has not yet, as far as I know, been ascertained. Incedentally, this was the plague that caused the Black Death and the Great Plague of 1665. It was NOT bubonic Plague.

Tudor Sweating Sickness. Again this is a mystery disease which was invariably fatal.

Ague (Malaria) in the marshy areas of England.

Ergotism (St. Anthony's Fire) caused many deaths in the Middle Ages & Early Modern period. Caused by eating wheat infected with a fungus (Ergot).

Thats just a few more for you.