9/16/2009 6:00:00 PM VICKERS/Long gone diseases and ailments
By OVID VICKERS
If you belong to my generation, and let me assure you I belong to an older generation, then you know there are many illnesses which, thank God, no longer exist or are controlled by immunization, vaccination, and education.
Here is a sampling of diseases or illnesses which we hear little about today, but which at one time plagued both children and adults: whooping cough, small pox, ground itch, body itch, sore eyes, measles, hook worm, chicken pox, polio, goiter, and malarial fever.
When I entered school in 1936, students in my class (and indeed students in almost all elementary grades) would miss days and sometimes weeks with whooping cough, sore eyes, measles, chicken pox, and malarial fever.
Whooping cough was contagious as were measles, chicken pox, small pox, and a host of other ailments. If a child came to school sick with an infection, other members of the class would almost certainly contract the disease.
People were certainly not as health conscious when I was growing up as they are today. Children were allowed to wade barefoot in stagnant or polluted water, and within a few days the ground itch would be noticeable between their toes.
Because gnats and flies were so prevalent (effective insecticide which are available today had not come about) in the South, and many homes were without window screens. Gnats and flies carried infections from one child to another.
The lack of running water and proper hygiene helped to spread diseases. People did not bathe each day, and sometimes only once a week. There is an old saying that Saturday night was set aside for bathing. The ironic thing is that there is a great deal of truth in this old adage.
Outdoor toilets were quite common. This was another reason why diseases spread. Children often went barefoot, and hookworms entered the body through bare feet. I remember when county health departments tested children for hookworm. If a child was found to be infected, he or she was sent to the county seat to the health department for instructions on how to ride themselves of hookworm.
Malarial fever, caused by the female anopheles mosquito, was quite common. A child with malaria would become listless, and his or her skin would take on a yellow cast or jaundiced look. A drug called Atabrine was dispensed by doctors to cure the disease. Atabrine was very, very bitter, and parents would put the pills in a crust of bread or a banana to make it easier to swallow.
The great fear was polio. Until Dr. Jonas Salk developed a vaccine which became available in 1952, parents lived with the great fear that their son or daughter would become the victim of this crippling disease.
The scars left by chicken pox or the much more severe small pox were often seen on the faces of individuals in the 1920s and 1930s. Since the vaccination of school children has become mandatory, one seldom hears of someone having chicken pox or small pox. In fact, a case of small pox has not been reported in many years.
When I was in elementary school, an infection or inflammation called "the itch" was found from time to time between the fingers of a child. When I was in the third grade, about once a month, our teacher would ask us to place our hands on top of the desk and spread our fingers apart. She then came around the room and looked at all our hands. At other times, she looked in our heads for lice. One wonders if this would be permissible in schools today, privacy laws being what they are.
I can remember being frightened when I first saw a lady with a goiter. The goiter , a mass of tissue caused by a lack of iodine, protruded from her neck and was the size of a large orange. Thankfully, goiters no longer are seen because iodine is now put into ordinary table salt. During the Great Depression, individuals were seen with goiters because there was little money to pay for the surgery, and thus people just lived with these unsightly growths.
Children continue to have measles, but cases are rare. Vaccinations are responsible for children today being protected from many of the ailments that were common when I was a child. If as many medical advances are made during the next 65 years as have been made in the past 65, most of the diseases which currently plague mankind will be curtailed or eliminated completely.
Medicine has come a long way during my lifetime. Just imagine what a bright day it will be if much of the research now underway turns out to be as effective as the vaccine developed by Jonas Salk in 1952.
