Disease in colonial America that afflicted the early immigrant settlers was a dangerous threat to life. Some of the diseases were new and treatments were ineffective. Malaria was deadly to many new arrivals, especially in the Southern colonies. Of newly arrived able-bodied young men, over one-fourth of the Anglican missionaries died within five years of their arrival in the Carolinas. Mortality was high for infants and small children, especially for diphtheria, smallpox, yellow fever, and malaria. Most sick people turned to local healers, and used folk remedies. Others relied upon the minister-physicians, barber-surgeons, apothecaries, midwives, and ministers; a few used colonial physicians trained either in Britain, or an apprenticeship in the colonies. 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. By the 18th century, Colonial physicians, following the models in England and Scotland, introduced modern medicine to the cities in the 18th century, and made some advances in vaccination, pathology, anatomy and pharmacology.
Physicians
In Colonial America, local doctors, midwives, healers and even officials administered medical care to the residents in their village or town. There was no distinction between physicians and surgeons; when an emergency occurred the person who was responsible for administering medical care was expected to handle all aspects of the problem. In most places, there were families in which the folk practice of medicine and knowledge of curative drugs was passed down through the generations. There were several noted physicians in Colonial America; The practice of the larger cities, especially Philadelphia, New York, Boston and Charleston. The first medical schools were founded late in the colonial era in Philadelphia and New York.
Thomas Thacher
Thomas Thacher was an outstanding Puritan preacher and physician of his time. After coming to America at fifteen, Thacher received his early education under pastor Charles Chauncy. Thacher's education was liberal; he learned elements of medicine. Thacher committed much of his time to the practice of medicine and was a prominent physician in Boston. Shortly before Thomas Thatcher's death in 1677, he wrote a short article on smallpox and measles. It was the first medical paper written that was published in America.
Giles Firmin
Giles Firmin was a deacon in Boston, who came to America from England in 1632. While practicing medicine in Ipswich, Massachusetts, Firmin became the first anatomical lecturer in America. Firmin gave detailed lectures about dried bones stimulating an interest of the General Court in 1647, which recommended that his anatomical lectures be given at least once every four years. Nevertheless, it was not followed and anatomy went untaught.
John Winthrop Jr.
John Winthrop Jr. was a physician who was in constant communication with England asking for advice on various medical topics and diseases. Winthrop realized the Colony needed trained doctors and received from a physician in England eight pages of notes on herbs and their uses in curing diseases in 1643. Through these notes, Winthrop used the knowledge to advise the people in the Colony. He was untrained in medicine and had little experience in making a diagnosis relying a great deal on the notes from England. Winthrop's recommendations were for various ointments, nauseous remedies, cupping, bandages and baths. His practice was later taken over by his son .
Epidemics
Epidemics of many zoonotic diseases were reported during the colonial times - particularly smallpox. Malaria was endemic, and especially in the southern colonies everyone could be expected to become infected.
Yellow fever
Yellow fever was a disease that caused thousands of deaths, and many people to flee the afflicted areas. It begins with a headache, backache, and fever making the patient extremely sick from the start, and gets its name from the yellow color of the skin, which develops in the third day of the illness. At the end of one week, the affected person is either dead or recovering. Yellow Fever is transmitted by mosquitoes, when it bites an infected person it carries several thousand infective doses of the disease making it a carrier for life passing it from human to human.