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Oregon Trail Research Paper

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Diseases on the Oregon Trail

“You have died of cholera.” Children growing up while playing the Oregon Trail video game are familiar with these words. The Oregon Trail was extremely dangerous, and difficult to survive. Although you have probably heard of the diseases travelers faced on the famous trail, do you really know what they are, their effects, and how doctors ‘treated’ them? Travelers expanding westward not only had to avoid harsh weather, injury, and Native American attacks, but they also had to regularly fear fatal diseases.
Cholera was the main killer on the Oregon Trail. “Spread through contaminated food or water, cholera released an enterotoxin that effectively flooded the intestines with excess water. This led to continual watery …show more content…
The anarchy of latrines in the camps festered overnight, becoming killers for the next arriving train.” Cholera quickly killed the majority of its victims from 1849 - 1852, and it still remains a global pandemic today, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Along with cholera, diphtheria was also common along the Oregon Trail. Turner Garrison writes, “Diphtheria usually showed up first in the nose and throat, but could also surface as skin lesions. A gray, fibrous material would grow over airways, causing difficulty breathing, and sometimes uncontrollable drooling, as well as a deep cough and chills. Diphtheria was most common on the trail during winter months.” However, diphtheria is not a problem today. Turner Garrison continues, “According to the United States National Library of Medicine, there are less than five cases a …show more content…
Doctors didn’t yet have enough information to cure, or even remotely treat, these diseases and viruses. “Military doctors frequently prescribed mercury and calomel (a laxative) in the hope of purging infectious matter,” writes American Eras through Encyclopedia.com. The Native Americans’ treatment of cholera was far more unsettling. In his autobiography, Andrew T. Still writes, “They dug two holes in the ground, about twenty inches apart. The patient lay stretched over the two,—vomit in one hole and purge in the other, and died stretched over the two, thus prepared, with a blanket thrown over him. Here I witnessed cramps which go with cholera dislocate hips and turn legs out from the body.” While expanding Westward, travelers had to fear various diseases, many of which are listed above. They faced cholera, diphtheria, dysentery, typhoid fever, measles, and many others. And the so called ‘treatments’ doctors dreamt up did nothing to ease the numerous symptoms and death tolls; However, many travelers did manage to survive the horrors of the Oregon Trail. Do you think that you could have

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