Why was health one of the major concerns of nineteenth-century Americans?

What will be an ideal response?


One of the major concerns of nineteenth-century Americans was health. Health was the subject of books, lectures, articles, and pamphlets, all of which extolled the virtues, and pitfalls, of an endless variety of health enhancement techniques. Health was considered so important to Americans in the early half of that century when we consider the routine occurrence of disease. American cities were ravaged by epidemics of cholera, typhus, typhoid, scarlet fever, influenza, diphtheria, smallpox, measles, and whooping cough. Illnesses such as tuberculosis, or consumption, were common. The state of medical knowledge during the nineteenth century was poor. As a result, physicians and other "healers" were not very effective in treating disease.

Health & Biomechanics

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