As has been noted, the seasoning caused great distress and a high
mortality among the new arrivals to the colony throughout the
seventeenth century. These Virginians--authorities on medicine or
not--had, for the origins of this malady, their own explanations which
furnish clues for more recent analysis. The general term "seasoning" is
of little assistance to the medical historian attempting to understand
three hundred year-old illnesses in twentieth-century terms.
According to seventeenth-century contemporaries, the pathology of
seasoning might be described as follows. The immigrants disembarked
from their ships tired and underfed--generally in poor health. From
their ships they took up residence in a Jamestown without adequate food
supplies of its own, and without shelter for the new arrivals. Many of
the new settlers had to sleep outside, regardless of the weather, for a
number of days after arrival. Then they exposed themselves to the
burning rays of the sun, the "gross and vaporous aire and soyle" of
Jamestown, and drank its foul and brackish water.
The foul and brackish drinking water would seem to be the most probable
casual agent in the opinion of more recent medical authority. In this
water, Dr. Blanton believes, lurked the deadly typhoid bacillus--the
killer behind the mask of the seasoning. Typhoid is not the only
possibility, but burning fever, the flux (diarrhea), and the
bellyache--symptoms listed in the early accounts--indicate typhoid.
Other diseases that may have caused the seasoning were dysentery,
influenza, and malaria; and these may have been the seasoning during
some of the later summers of the century.
Whatever diseases may have caused the seasoning, it plagued the colony
summer after summer. A Dutch ship captain wrote of it as it was in
Virginia in the summer of 1633:
There is an objection which the English make. They say that during
the months of June, July, and August it is very unhealthy; that
their people, who have then lately arrived from England, die during
these months like cats and dogs, ... when they have the sickness,
they want to sleep all the time, but they must be prevented from
sleeping by force, as they die if they get asleep.
Sir Francis Wyatt, twice governor of Virginia wrote, "but certaine
it is new comers seldome passe July and August without a burning
fever--this requires a skilful phisitian, convenient diett and lodging
with diligent attendance." The skillful physician could not limit
himself, however, to the curing of the seasoning; he had many other
maladies in Virginia with which to contend: dietary disorders, malaria,
plague, yellow fever, smallpox, respiratory disorders, and a host of
other diseases.
Beriberi and scurvy, both dietary diseases, handicapped the colony
throughout the century, and probably had acute manifestations during
the Starving Time of 1609-10. The colonists during the early years at
Jamestown often boiled their limited rations in a common kettle, thus
destroying what little valuable vitamin content the food may have had;
eggs, vegetables, and fruits which would have countered the disease
were not available. The swellings and the deaths without obvious cause
described by the early commentators may have resulted from beriberi
(the disease did not have a name until the eighteenth century).
Another dietary disease troubling the colonists but, unlike beriberi,
known by name and at times properly treated, was scurvy. Mention has
been made of the outbreak of this disease aboard the ships, and of the
stops made in the West Indies to eat the health-restoring citrus
fruits, but in the case of the colonists at Jamestown the fruit was
non-existent. A belief, also held, that idleness caused the disease did
little to bring about measures to promote proper treatment. Because the
incapacitating aspects of the disease could produce the appearance of
idleness, numerous ill persons must have been innocently stigmatized.
Their situation became hopeless when denied rations because the
authorities wished to discipline the apparently lazy.
Insomuch as the ague (or malaria) exacted a high toll in
seventeenth-century Europe--especially in England--it would be
reasonable to assume that, with typhoid and dietary disorders, this
disease caused most of the illness in Virginia. When emphasis has been
placed, by authorities, upon the location of Jamestown as a
disease-producing factor, the implication has often been that the
swampy area was a mosquito and malaria breeding place. A number of
historians have asserted that malaria produced the highest mortality
figures at Jamestown. Much is also made of the tragic circumstance that
the arresting agent for the disease, cinchona bark or quinine, was
known on the European continent by mid-seventeenth century but that
little use was made of it.
Dr. Blanton, the authority on seventeenth-century Virginia medicine, in
contrast argues that "there is not evidence ... that malaria was
responsible for a preponderating part of the great mortalities of the
Seventeenth Century in Virginia." He bases this conclusion on a number
of facts: he has been able to find only five or six references to the
ague (malaria) in the records of the century; because the ague was
well-known he does not believe its symptoms, such as the racking chill,
would have escaped notice. On the other hand, he does not doubt the
presence of the ague in Virginia throughout the century even though it
did not cause the most distress.
As in the case of the ague, a reasonable assumption would be that the
plague existed in seventeenth-century Virginia. The Great Plague of
London (1665) carried away 69,000 persons, and other cities of Europe
had even more disastrous epidemics. During the two years before the
first settlers arrived at Jamestown, over 2000 victims were buried in
London. The accounts of the ocean voyage indicate rat-infested ships.
Ships of the London Company reported plague and death aboard.
Virginians took pains to describe their illnesses, and there would have
been little difficulty in recognizing this well-known killer. Yet
little evidence of the presence of the plague appears in the
seventeenth-century Virginia record; cases are reported but the number
is small. Why Virginia should have been spared--especially in view of
the known rat-infestation aboard ship--remains a question.
The evidence relative to yellow fever, or calenture, during this period
in Virginia is contradictory. Early sources do make reference to
numerous deaths from it at sea and even to an epidemic of it at
Jamestown before 1610, but subsequent notices are infrequent and of
questionable validity. Prevalence of the disease in the earlier years
and its comparative infrequency in later is not a likely circumstance
because with the increase of commerce, especially from tropical ports,
an increase of the disease should have followed.
Smallpox, the mark of which is seen in early portraits, emerges from
the colonial record with a more reasonable history. Its incidence in
Virginia during the first half of the seventeenth century was small,
and this might be expected in view of the fact that there were few
children in the colony and that most of the adults had been infected
before they left the Old World. The number of smallpox epidemics in
Virginia did increase--again, as might be expected--later in the
century as the number of children and of native-born unimmunized adults
multiplied.
Smallpox caused such a scare in 1696 that the assembly, in session at
Jamestown, asked for a recess--another example of the influence of
disease upon political history. Earlier, in 1667, a sailor with
smallpox, if the contemporary account can be accepted, landed at
Accomack and was solely responsible for the outbreak of a terrible
epidemic on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. A measles epidemic during
the last decade of the century may actually have been smallpox as the
two diseases were often confused by contemporaries.
Respiratory disorders, as has been noted, caused much distress for
great numbers of early Virginians during the winter months. Influenza,
pneumonia, and pleurisy must have reached epidemic proportions on
numerous occasions in Virginia as elsewhere in America (influenza
epidemics are recorded for New England in 1647 and in 1697-99). One
note from a Virginia source for the year 1688 describes "a fast for the
great mortality (the first time the winter distemper was soe very
fatal... the people dyed, 1688, as in a plague... bleeding the remedy,
Ld Howard had 80 ounces taken from him...)." (If "Ld Howard" gave
eighty ounces, it means that he lost five pints of blood from a body
that contained approximately ten--perhaps the "letting" was over an
extended period.)
In a century in which numerous diseases had not been identified, many,
known today, must have occurred that were diagnosed in general terms.
Appendicitis, unrecognized until later, must have been common, and
heart disease probably went undiagnosed. Distemper, a general term,
often was used when the physician could not be more specific ("curing
Eliza Mayberry and her daughter of the distemper").
Other prevalent disorders were over-eating ("hee died of a surfeit");
epilepsy ("desperately afflicted with the falling sicknesse soe that he
requires continuall attendance"); and the winter cold ("our little boy
& Molly have been both sicke with fever & colds, but are I thanke God
now somewhat better").
The continued presence of deadly disease throughout the century shows
itself in the population figures for the period. Over 100,000 persons
migrated to Virginia before 1700 and numerous children were born, but
only 75,000 people lived in Virginia in 1700. Many returned to Europe,
many emigrated to other parts of America, and Indians accounted for
some deaths, but the chief reason for the decline in population was the
high mortality prevailing throughout the century.
Health conditions, however, did not deteriorate as the century passed.
By 1671 Governor Berkeley could report generally improved health
conditions; for example, newcomers rarely failed to survive the first
few months, or seasoning period, which had formerly exacted such an
awful toll. How much these improved conditions were due to better
provisioned ships, to a better diet in Virginia, and to the movement of
the settlers out from Jamestown is open to question, but in any
consideration of the explanations for the promotion of health,
prevention of illness, the restoration of health, and the
rehabilitation of the sick, the seventeenth-century Virginia physician
or surgeon must be considered.