The Horrors of the Endemic Bloody Flux: Dysentery in the 1800s
During the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries, freshwater sailors used the ship’s head (toilet) or dumped chamber pots of human excrement off the bow of the ships, and simultaneously hauled up drinking and bathing water off the stern. As we know today, this is a recipe for gastrointestinal disaster, so to speak. Back in those days, potty humor was not explosively funny, especially if diarrhea intensified and lead to a slow demise, which was all too common.
Dysentery, also known as “camp fever” or “the bloody flux,” was endemic throughout the colonial period. Symptoms of the disease include bloody or mucusy diarrhea, stomach cramps, pain, nausea, vomiting, and fever. Not only was dysentery a bacterial infection, but toxins can also be secreted by another type of Shigella bacteria, which damages blood vessels in the gut, kidneys, and lungs. This can produce hemorrhaging, bloody diarrhea, kidney failure, or even pulmonary edema.
Since the bloody flux was so common, people had no idea of the causes and it raged right up through the Civil War. No we know it is caused by the Shigella bacteria and spreads rapidly in unsanitary conditions where food and water are contaminated by human waste. Crowded ships and soldier camps, poor personal hygiene, and lack of hand-washing conspired to create ideal breeding grounds for Shigella. This made dysentery a recurring, debilitating, and often fatal disease.
The treatments were imperfect. There were no antibiotics or sterile intravenous fluids available, as there are today. The treatments for dysentery followed the standard fever treatments of bloodletting, blistering, ingesting lead salts, and emetics (to cause vomiting) if necessary. But that was not the full plate of options as we will see in the following harrowing passage.
Here is an account of a patient that was transcribed by Dr. Hunt in September 1814, several months after the commencement of the disease. The patient, Major Bebee, reported his treatment for dysentery at his stay in the General Hospital in Burlington, Vermont.
“About the middle of November last, Colonel Johnson and myself were attacked with diarrhea, and consulted at Malone a surgeon, (then belonging to the Army,) who gave us a box of astringent pills about the size of large peas (afterwards discovered to be the acetite of lead) with directions to take them frequently, until our disease was checked. On an average we took five to sis a day. Much relief was procured by them, and by the last of the month we returned to duty at French Mills, apparently cured. We were so much pleased with these pills that each of us took a large box on our departure, and frequently afterwards had recourse to them, whenever our disease shewed a disposition to return.”
On the 5th of December, Colonel Johnson was attacked with a violent pain in his stomach and bowels, attended with frequent disposition to puke, and a powerful tenesmus. Medical aid was immediately procured, and the most prompt and active remedies were applied without relief. The symptoms daily increased in violence, and he lingered for seven days, tortured with excruciating pain, and retained his senses until he died.” (Mann)
Major Bebee goes on to describe his ensuing unrelenting, unbearable pain throughout his stomach, bowels, joints, and sphincter. He was administered blisters, bloodletting, mercury calomel pills, Dovers Powder (ipecac and opium), wine, bark, and large quantities of opium, ether, and laudanum (opium mixture) to no avail. His appetite had vanished and he developed lesions on his legs.
Dr. Hunt wrote Major Bebee suffered months and slipped in and out of sensibility with waves of excruciating pain, not only in his thorax and abdomen, but throughout his arms, legs, and entire body. Finally, after a year after his initial deposition to Dr. Hunt, Major Bebee passed away.
Unfortunately, with or without treatment, dysentery often left its survivors sufficiently weakened to be susceptible to other diseases. Major Bebee’s symptoms might have been in part due to his consumption of lead, as we know now that lead is a hazardous heavy metal.
Eventually many physicians came around to realize that some of the remedies were imperfect and patients simply had to allow the disease to run its course. Many died from severe dehydration before the infection was cleared from their systems. Those who did survive were left weak and susceptible to future infection.
Some people suffered for long periods before dying while others suffered for short amounts of time; there was no timeline of infection and recovery with dysentery like with smallpox.
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Mann, James, Medical Sketches of the Campaigns of 1812, 13, 14: To Which Are Added, Surgical Cases, Observations on Military Hospitals, And Flying Hospitals Attached to a Moving Army, Mann & Co., 1816.
Benenson, Abram S., “Immunization and Military Medicine”, Reviews of Infectious Diseases, Vol. 6 №1 (January — February 1984)
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- Glenn Fay is the author of Ambition: The Remarkable Family of Ethan Allen available online and in bookstores.
