malaria (yikes! not more!!!)

[John Schilke]

Points very well taken, Mike!
John F. Schilke, MD

>
> 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"?)
>