I write to you today from the fog of fever, not because it enhances my writing, but because I find my submission deadline looming before me. In my defense, I had put off this task until my son recovered from his week and a half of misery on the couch, after his return from school camp sicker than a dog. Unfortunately this contagion was passed to my husband, the most generous soul in the world, who shares everything with me. This has inspired my topic, however.

To distract myself today, I was skimming through some old newspapers from 1905 and thereabouts. A fabulous source is Google News; this is not the regular news archives search but a list of newspapers by title that you can search by date. As I was investigating the mysterious demise of a distant relative, hoping for a clue to cause of death, my eye was caught by the numerous ads for ‘snake oil remedies,’ which promised cures for everything from colds and flus, to hangnails, indigestion, and even diphtheria, sometimes all at once.

This brings me to my topic: the ‘good old days’ were not really so good. When reading through the history book for the region where my relatives lived, I was saddened by the frequent tragic tales of death from disease and infection. What desperate and uneducated parent would pass up the chance to cure a fatal disease like diphtheria, for example? Those ads were surely tempting. Sadly, they offered no real cure; most were composed of high doses of alcohol or morphine combined with even more toxic and inedible substances.

We had to await the modern era and the invention of vaccines for any hope of prevention or cure of infectious disease. I suspect that modern parents, hesitant to vaccinate their children, would change their minds if they only examined the historic record instead of talk shows and conspiracy driven internet sites. It turns out the mysterious death of my relative was a mystery, not because there was no possible cause, but because there were so many. A neighbouring family upon their arrival in the area had suffered from whooping cough, measles, mumps and chicken pox in a space of two or three months; these were all possible causes of death for my relative and today children can be vaccinated against all of them. This excludes the small pox that ran through the area a few years previously and which was effectively eradicated in my generation due to a comprehensive vaccination program. The typhoid epidemic that afflicted the region was combated with educated advice to remove sources of contamination from the water supply; good advice for today as well.

So, history buffs, rejoice in the modern age. We may look fondly at past days and pine for a less materialistic and friendlier time, but there are a lot of benefits to living in our present period – even if you are stuck on the couch with a fever.

This article was originally printed in the Bergen News and is being reprinted with permission.