History of medical practice in Illinois - Bushnell Historical Society

The Hardy Pioneer 31social circles supposedly far superior to the backwoods regions of Indianaand Illinois, observed: "In private houses, baths are a rarity. In steam-boats,the accommodations for washing are limited in the extreme; and in all butfirst-rate hotels, the philosophy of personal cleanliness is certainly notunderstood." 19Vermin, naturally, were common. Unwashed bodies and heads meantlice; dirty bed linen meant bed bugs. The house fly was a pest second onlyto the mosquito. In the summer, with doors and windows unprotected byany kind of screening, flies descended on the dining tables in bla< k swarms.James S. Buckingham was not relating an isolated instance when he describedhis experience at Ottawa, Illinois, in 1840: "When the supper wasannounced at five o'clock, and we sat down to the dirty and ill-furnishedtable of the principal inn here, we could not perceive the contents of anysingle dish on it, from the myriads of flies, which presented only oneconfused and tremulous mass of black moving matter on the surface; andwhen these were disturbed by the fiyfiops and fans set in motion, the noiseof their buzzing, and the stings they inflicted on the face and hands wherethey alighted, was sufficient to destroy all appetite." 20At about the same time William Oliver found the pests even thicker insouthern Illinois. "The house is no sooner entered," he wrote, "than youhear one continued hum, and the room is almost darkened by myriads ofhouse-flies, which . . . , when there are sick people in bed, require the constantattention of some assistant to drive them off, otherwise, if the patientwere a child, or very weak, I believe they would soon suffocate him.Molasses, sugar, preserved fruit, bread, everything on the table, is loadedwith them, and the very operation of fanning them off drives numbers ofthem into the molasses and other things of an adhesive nature. It is notsafe to open your mouth. It is evident, too, on examining the molasses, thatthe small red ant has been purloining it, and has left a number of his unfortunatecompanions enveloped in its mass; whilst ever and anon acockroach makes a dash at the table, and in nine cases out of ten, succeedsin scampering across over meat dishes and everything that comes in the way,and that too in spite of the bitter blows aimed at him with knife and spoon,he is 'so t'nation spry.' " 21An almost universal practice that also contributed in a way to the prevailingsqualor was the chewing of tobacco. Men spit everywhere, in thedirection of receptacles if there were any, if not, on the floors and streets.In Cincinnati, even at an evening party, Mrs. Trollope noted: "The gentle-*• Society in America, III, 151-52.30Eastern and Western States, III, 233.n Eight Months in Illinois with Information to Emigrants (Newcastle-upon-Tyne,«843). 77-