malaria (yikes! not more!!!)

[Mike Cleven]

At 10:09 PM 2/7/99 -0800, Liland Brajant ROS' wrote:
>>
>>Perhaps what we have here is either a clash between common usage and
>>technical usage:
>>
<snip>>

Historical epidemiology is problematic at best; there are still arguments
over what the real nature of the plague that afflicted Athens during the
Peleponnesian War _really_ was (being a mythologist, I tend to favour
divine retribution by Apollo's arrows against Athenian hybris, but aside
from that....).  In the case of the Northwest, it appears that there may
have been other diseases active here than the smallpox-and-measles
combination that is traditionally cited.  Surely a region with such
direct/close shipping-route contact with the tropics (and especially with
Southeast Asia and Central America) must have suffered from the
introduction of unknown and then-undiagnosed diseases.  Even today there
are bacterial and yeast infections in the tropics that remained
unclassified, to say nothing of strange fevers and mysterious parasites.
The humidity and relatively warm climate of the Northwest must have been
amenable to at least _some_ of these exotica.

But Liland's point is well-taken.  Perhaps the nineteenth-century term
malaria was NOT "modern malaria", despite the CDC's interpretation of the
historical record (without tissue samples, there is in fact no empirical
way to prove it either way).  Similarly, "dropsy" could have meant either
gout or cancer; "consumption" generally meant tuberculosis, but could just
as easily have been anorexia nervosa or any other "wasting" disease.

So this gets down to historical English usage concerning disease-names.
When I started this reply I thought maybe the thing to do would be to refer
the issue over to alt.usage.english, but I don't know how productive that
would be; same with sci.lang.  As an (armchair) historian, the issues
surrounding historical epidemiology in the Northwest are kind of central to
the region's history; how could they not be?  If I get a chance, I'll
consult with the archives locally here as to the name "Malaria Flats" (an
area of Vancouver's Kitsilano district bounded by Arbutus Blvd., Alma
Street, Broadway, and King Edward Avenue) and see if the medical chronicles
here make any conclusions.......

As far as the Jargon goes, we must accept that "waum sick" could have been
any one of a wide range of diseases.  For accuracy, measles might be "tzum
sick" or "pil sick", but I doubt those terms were ever used (most of those
afflicted not living long enough to coin the term); "tzum sick" could also
be smallpox, of course, and TB could be "pil sick".  Malaria might be
"pelton sick" or "hullel sick" (shaking sickness), but again I doubt these
terms were ever used, or if they were their meaning is not specific (pelton
sick could be derangement, hullel sick could be mercury poisoning).

And out of this shadows rises another interesting speculation.  What WAS
the nature of Mr. Pelton's problem?  Befuddlement and alienation ("bushed"
in BC backwoods slang)?  Or some debilitating infection or other
communicable disease that affected his nervous functions?  Are there any
specific date-mentions of his arrival at Astoria (was it Astoria or Ft.
Vancouver?), and were there any epidemics in the wake of his arrival?  I'd
prefer the notion of poetic confusion (being a mythologist), which could
make for a wonderful work of insanity-poetry-fiction......(anybody here
familiar with Seamus Heaney's "Sweeney Astray"?)