Tag: American West
-
The climate cure: Treating tuberculosis in the nineteenth century
Brendan Pulsifer Atlanta, Georgia “California, Cornucopia of the World,” 1876. Western states encouraged migration by advertising the region’s “climate for health.” Granger Collection. Via Wikimedia. Tuberculosis pervaded nineteenth-century American life like no other disease. More commonly known as consumption at the time, it was responsible for one in five deaths, making it the deadliest…
-
Dr. Avery, Medicine Woman
Edward McSweegan Kingston, Rhode, Island, United States Doctor Alida C. Avery, Photo courtesy of Archives and Specials Collections/Vassar College Library. Source In July 1878, astronomers headed into the American West to observe a total eclipse of the sun. Among them was America’s only woman astronomer, Maria Mitchell of Vassar College, and four of her…