Episodes tagged "Health/Death": 11 through 20 of 322
- Charles Knowlton and The Fruits of Philosophy
1832
NEW YORK, New York
sex, contraception, Health/DeathCharles Knowlton was one nineteenth century doctor who was not afraid to talk about sex. Despite prosecution and jail time he stood behind the ideas of his 1832 work Fruits of Philosophy. The book was deemed obscene for its discussion of sex for pleasure and birth control methods. Knowlton saw sexual desire as a passion that started in the nerves of the genital organs and extended to the brain. He...
- Mrs. Robert E. Lee Recalls Her Husband's Last Days
September 28, 1870 to October 12, 1870
ROCKBRIDGE, Virginia
Health/Death, Civil WarOn the morning of Wednesday, October 12, 1870, General Robert E. Lee passed away from pneumonia while surrounded by his family at home in Lexington, Virginia. General Lee gained celebrity from his service as a general in the Confederacy during the Civil War. The pneumonia followed a stroke that had occurred two weeks earlier. Despite death looming, Lee maintained composure that he accumulated over...
- Union Private Describes Raiders at Andersonville Prison
April 8, 1864 to April 20, 1864
SUMTER, Georgia
Crime/Violence, Civil War, Health/DeathIn 1864, Robert Knox Sneden, a Union private and mapmaker, lived as a prisoner in the notorious Andersonville Prison. During his stay, Sneden kept a diary of the conditions and daily monotony of the captives. Occasionally he gave up trying to write a daily account and would lump his entries together by the week as he did from April 8 to 20, in 1864. This particular week, Sneden talked about a group...
- Vietnam Veteran's PTSD Leads to Suicide
December 2, 1983
Westchester, New York
War, Health/DeathKarl Lerchenmuller suffered from nightmares and flashbacks and would often disappear into the woods with his firearm for days at a time. Prior to his psychiatric ward suicide, Lerchenmuller had attempted to take his life four times. It was believed that the effects of the war could alter brain chemistry and allow for the onset of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Lerchenmuller resided in a Veteran’s...
- General Hood Attempts to Restore Order in the Army of Tennessee
August 12, 1864
FRANKLIN, Tennessee
Crime/Violence, Law, Health/DeathAfter Atlanta had been taken, General John Bell Hood commanded his Army of Tennessee to attempt to cut off William Tecumseh Sherman’s railroad supply lines to Atlanta. This resulted in Hood launching several attacks in Tennessee and destruction of the railroad which weakened his army greatly. Hood had hoped that this would lure Sherman and his troops to pursue them towards Tennessee,...
- An assistant surgeon reports on gangrene
January 1, 1865 to December 31, 1865
SUMTER, Georgia
Civil War, prison, Health/DeathAndersonville's prison had a hospital crowded with patients, due to the bad living conditions in the cells. The prison was overcrowded with prisoners crammed in rooms, inactive and secluded from society, lacking food, exercise and fresh air. The atmosphere was so polluted that people could hardly breathe. The promiscuity made sickness spread in a heartbeat, and in the winter of 1865, the prison witnessed...
- Whitman mourns for the fallen star of the Union
1885
COLUMBIA, New York
Politics, Health/Death, assassination, MurderWalt Whitman, one of the major American writers of the Civil War, wrote When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd after the assassination of the very charismatic leader of the Union during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln. This poem mourned the death of the powerful, western fallen star which was now hidden by blackness, leaving only desperation and bitterness behind. The poem followed the coffin throughout...
- The New York Milk Committee Preaches Pure Milk by Moving Pictures
March 24, 1913
New York, New York
Health/Death, Women, Progressive Reformers, Urban Society, Food RegulationUrban infants in the 1840s had only a 50 percent chance of living to the age of five. Progressive reformers believed that high infant mortality was linked to adulterated and infectious milk, a concern that remained even after New York passed regulation laws. On March 25, 1913, the Committee of Women's Organizations of the New York Milk Committee held a meeting to educate mothers living in the tenements...
- Fire Destroys Wall Street
December 16, 1835 to December 17, 1835
NEW YORK, New York
Urban Society, Urban-Life/Boosterism, Health/DeathIn the evening hours of Wednesday, December 16, 1835, smoke billowed above the downtown Manhattan skyline. At the time, no one knew exactly where the sparks had ignited and the fire begun, but by Thursday afternoon, the flames had engulfed approximately seventeen square blocks on and surrounding Wall Street. An article in the magazine The Albion indicated that by Thursday evening between 700 and 1000...
- Yellow Fever Responsible for Christian Miltenberger's Success in 19th Century New Orleans
1838
ORLEANS, Louisiana
Health/Death, Migration/Transportation, Urban-Life/BoosterismSituated at the intersection of Royal and Dumaine Street in the heart of the New Orleans, the Miltenberger House still stands as a testimony to one immigrant's accumulation of wealth and to medical advancements in the South during the 19th century. Little was known about yellow fever, especially ways to prevent or treat this disease. Almost annually, it seemed, the Gulf Coast and in particular, New...
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