Colonial+Diseases

=Leeches and Spiders and Toads, Oh, My!= =The Emergence of Modern Medicine=


 * Introduction:**

When Abigail and John Adams were raising their four children, many children were expected to die before age 5 or 6, usually of infectious disease. Soldiers, too, during the Revolution, had a good chance of dying of wounds incurred in battle. Indeed, medicine as a science in the 18th and 19th century was in its infancy, and most medical practice depended on folk wisdom and herbal remedies. As time passed into the 19th and 20th centuries, basic discoveries about the human body and about the nature of disease increased medical knowledge, until today, we have conquered most contagious diseases and the mortality rate of babies and children is much lower.

After participating in this activity, students will be familiar with basic ideas and beliefs about medicine in the 18th and 19th centuries, understand the development of medical science over that time, be able to see how poverty and disease were linked, be able to debunk many myths about health that arose in that time period, and have some empathy for families who struggled with illness in those days.
 * Objectives:**


 * Materials Required:**
 * Access to the Internet
 * Access to computer word processing

1. Using the web resources listed below students should explore the history of medicine in the 18th and 19th centuries. Then, each student should select a particular aspect of that history and do more research on that topic. 2. Having researched the topic further, each student will write a news account to be published in a “medical journal” developed by the class. Each “article” in the journal should be dated appropriately, and placed in chronological order. The Journal becomes a record of their collective research. Sources & Resources:
 * Procedures:**

[|Medicine in 1800's]
 * Websites:**

[|History of Medicine - The Settlers]

Extending the Lesson: This lesson can be extended in a variety of ways:
 * Students can make an annotated timeline of medical beliefs and developments.
 * Students can write “advertisements” for popular medicines and “cures”.
 * Students can make PowerPoint presentations, complete with illustrations, that could be shown to other classes.
 * Students could interview doctors, nurses, or other health professionals to compare treatments today with those of the 18th and 19th centuries, or, in some cases, to see how early medicine actually was on the right track.