Diseases of the Past - Sweden

Swedish names of diseases in earlier times often ended with "sot" or "röta". For example, rödsot, bleksot, rötfeber and lungröta. However, the different diseases ending in ”-sot” or "-röta" were not necessarily the same type of disease. "Sot" in this context can be translated to "sickness". Below is an account of the major diseases that have struck Sweden over the centuries.

Diseases

The Plague

The plague or the Black Death is the disease that people have feared most. From the mid-14th to the early 18th century, the plague killed more people than all the wars in world history put together. The most famous epidemic was the Black Death (Swe: Digerdöden) in the 14th century, when 25% of Europe's population, about 25 million people, died. In Sweden, it is estimated that the Black Death claimed 200,000 lives. Sweden's population at the time was just over 500,000. Black Death came to Europe from Crimea in the Black Sea. Via an Italian ship, which had been in Crimea, the infection was brought to the city of Messina in Sicily in autumn 1347. Then, the disease migrated northwards and in spring 1348, Florence was hit. In the same year, the plague spread across most of Europe, with Paris, for example, being hit very hard. The plague arrived in Scandinavia in 1349 on a Hanseatic League ship, which drifted ashore at Bergen, Norway. Over the next 6 months, Norway lost about 30% of its population. The following year, 1350, Sweden was hit just as hard. The plague was called the Digerdöden in Sweden meaning the Great Death. The plague affected all social classes, but the poor were the worst affected. Poor hygiene, cramped, dirty housing, lack of food, etc. were major causes. Children were the worst affected. The contagious agent was transmitted from person to person, e.g. during a conversation or a visit to an infected person. The infection could even be spread by touching objects belonging to a plague-stricken person. The infectious agent is found in rats and is transmitted to humans by fleas. The incubation period is 3-7 days, and the disease begins with high fever, chills and headache. A local wound infection first develops at the site of a flea bite, after which the infectious agent spreads and causes a swelling of the lymph nodes (abscess); Those affected developed large abscesses under their arms, on their neck and groin, high fever, difficulty breathing, coughing up blood and foul breath. Depending on how the sick were affected, the plague was called bubonic plague, blood plague or pneumonic plague. Those with bubonic plague had about a 50% chance of survival, while the mortality rate for the other types of plague was almost 100%. Villages and areas could completely lay waste. In Sicily, quarantine regulations were introduced in 1465 for incoming ships suspected of carrying the disease. The word quarantine comes from the Italian word quaranta, meaning forty. The ships suspected of being infected had to anchor well outside the port and stay there for 40 days, waiting to see whether or not the plague would break out among the crew. For those traveling by land, special letters were issued guaranteeing that they came from a plague-free area. With these letters in hand, the traveler could pass through the city gates (passer par la porte in French). From this word we get passeport, i.e. passport. The bacterium that causes the plague, Yersinia pestis, was discovered in 1894. This bacterium is spread by the black rat, Rattus rattus. Actually, it is the bacterium's host, the plague flea (Xenopsylla cheopis), which is spread by the black rat. The plague also affected Sweden in the 15th and 16th centuries and the first half of the 17th century. In the 16th century alone, Sweden was hit by dozens of epidemics. Around 1640, regulations were introduced in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, that plague stricken had to report it in good time so that they could be taken to a special plague house. Failure to do so resulted in punishment and banishment from the city. The last major epidemic ravaged the years 1710- 1713, starting in Stockholm in the autumn of 1710 and spreading throughout the country. In Stockholm, an estimated 22,000 people died, almost a third of the city's population. This was the biggest disaster ever to hit the city. At its worst in October 1710, 1,600 people died in a single week. After this time, plague epidemics became rare in Europe. One of the reasons for this was that the spread of the brown rat displaced the black rat.

Dysentry

Another dreaded disease was dysentery (Swe: dysenteri). An old Swedish name for dysentery was “rödsot”. Dysentery is the inseparable companion of poor hygiene. Violent epidemics of dysentery raged in Sweden in the second half of the 18th century. Between 1773 and 1784, about 15,000 people died of dysentery each year. Another major epidemic raged in the years 1808 - 1813 with 50,000 deaths and in the ten-year period 1851 - 1860, 26,000 died. Only in 1898 was the dysentery bacillus discovered. The image to the right shows a hospital ward at the end of the 19th century. Photo Hans Högman. Dysentery is an intestinal inflammation that causes bleeding in the intestine. Dysentery can be caused by bacteria belonging to the genus Shigella (shigellosis) or by a single-celled parasite, Entamoeba histolytica (amoebic dysentery). The organisms are spread through food or water contaminated by faeces. Infection with shigella bacteria attacks the intestinal wall and is characterized by fever, severe abdominal stabbing pain, and often bloody or mucous stools. In most cases of field disease (camp fever) that struck soldiers, it was dysentery that was the real disease.

Smallpox

The 18th century was the century of smallpox (Swe: smittkoppor) in Sweden. Between 1749 and 1800, 270,000 people died from the disease. Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by the Variola virus. Children were the main victims. In Europe, it is estimated that around 60 million people died of smallpox during the 18th century. Smallpox was an extremely contagious disease. In terms of contagiousness, it was only equaled by measles, with which it was often mistaken for well into the 18th century. Because smallpox was so contagious, the virus literally swirled around the sick person, it was enough to be in the same room as the sick person to become infected, though not necessarily sick. The incubation period is 10 - 14 days and then begins with flu-like symptoms such as headache, fever, backache, vomiting and diarrhea. On the second day after infection, patients developed redness of the skin and on the third day a rash. These rashes developed into fluid-filled blisters, later filled with pus. If the patient survived the first two weeks, he usually survived, though often blind, deaf or bald and for the rest of his life tormented by the prominent scaring of the skin. If black pox (internal bleeding) developed, virtually all patients died. The virus was quite environmentally sensitive, which made it very difficult to stop. Authorities and politicians saw smallpox as the great threat to prosperity and searched desperately for a cure. The first step was to combat the disease by inoculation or variolation. Variolation was an early method of inducing immunological protection against smallpox. This was done by introducing smallpox pus through the skin or nasal mucosa of a healthy person, seeking to induce a mild form of the disease. Variolation originated in oriental folk medicine and became known and partly accepted in Europe in the early 18th century by the Englishwoman Lady Montagu. Smallpox inoculation was introduced in Sweden in 1756 and inoculation against smallpox began in 1769, and on a larger scale from 1799. Smallpox inoculation was a risky craft requiring great skill and extreme caution. The first inoculation was carried out in England. The English "doctor" Edward Jenner produced a smallpox vaccine that could be used as a preventive treatment (though it is unclear how he got his medical title). Milkmaids infected by cowpox escaped becoming ill with smallpox. From the lymph of a cowpox-infected milkmaid, he made a liquid that he called vaccine (from the Latin vacca = cow). Jenner made the first vaccination on 14 May 1796. As vaccination was much less risky than smallpox inoculation, it quickly became accepted. The first smallpox vaccination in Sweden was carried out on 23 October 1801. The Swedish authorities were early to take advantage of Jenner's discovery. In 1816, Sweden became the first country in the world to legislate that all children under the age of two should be vaccinated against smallpox. Vaccinations were initially carried out by priests and parish clerks (klockare), but later by special vaccinators. The parish ministers were also obliged to record who in the congregation had been vaccinated and who had not. This was done in a separate column in the household examination roll. Furthermore, this was also noted in the moving certificates. However, it turned out that vaccination, unlike inoculation, did not provide lifelong immunity. In 1839, the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare issued regulations on periodic vaccinations. Today, smallpox is considered an eradicated disease.

Cholera

Cholera (Swe: kolera) was the "plague" of the 19th century. Cholera is a stomach disease with diarrhea and vomiting, caused by a small bent bacterium, Vibrio cholerae. It is spread by water and food. During the period 1834-1873, Sweden was hit by nine epidemics. In the largest of these, in 1834, more than 25,000 people fell ill, of which more than half died. The symptoms of cholera are very frequent bowel movements with diarrhea but no or low-grade fever and usually no vomiting. The diarrhea is caused by a toxin secreted by the bacteria, which affects the cells of the intestine, increasing the flow of fluid into the intestine. If left untreated, the dehydration of the body that results from diarrhea can lead to death. As a result of the severe dehydration, the sick person could shrink into a distorted picture of himself. People were affected virtually without warning. After a few hours, they could be dead. The normal incubation period is 2 - 3 days, but sometimes only a few hours. It is highly contagious but is sensitive to dehydration and hardly spreads at all through the air. The first time Sweden was hit by a cholera epidemic was in 1834. That year, 3,500 people died of cholera in Stockholm. In the 1860s, cholera also ravaged Norrland (northern half of Sweden). In the 1850s, cholera was rampant. Before 1817, it was completely unknown on our continent. When cholera came to Sweden in 1834, it was in Gothenburg that it first arrived. The first case involved a 52-year-old sailor, Anders Rydberg, and occurred on 30 July. Then cholera spread northwards. One of the Swedish cities worst affected was Jönköping. One in three of the city's 3,300 inhabitants fell ill and one in six died. As usual, it was the poorest and most run-down parts of the city that were worst affected, in Jönköping it was Båtsmansbacken. On 19 August 1834, Stockholm was hit by cholera. On that day, Emanuel Malmberg, a customs officer, fell ill with cholera. In Stockholm, it was the poor Katarina parish in the South district (Södermalm) that was particularly hard hit. Special cholera cemeteries were set up to take care of all those who died of cholera. No one knew how the disease spread. The cholera bacillus was not discovered until 1884 by Robert Koch. If the bacillus gets into a water source, cholera can spread explosively. Special cholera hospitals were opened in major cities. However, there was great distrust of the hospitals, and people preferred to stay at home and wait for death rather than be admitted to a hospital. This mistrust was well justified as the doctors themselves did not know what the disease was caused by or how to cure it. Many people guessed that cholera was related to poor hygiene, but it was thought that bad air was the culprit rather than contaminated water. The last major outbreak was in 1873, but then only Skåne in the South of Sweden was affected. The image to the right shows the interior of a pharmacy at the beginning of the 20th century in Linköping. Photo Hans Högman, 2004.

Tuberculosis, TB

Tuberculosis or TB (Swe: tuberkulos, TBC) was another troublesome disease. It affected the respiratory tract. TB is an infectious disease and is caused by mycobacteria. It was discovered in 1882 by Robert Koch and can be transmitted from cattle to humans, including through contaminated milk. In Swedish, the disease was also called lungsot, tvinsot eller vita pesten. In English, it is also known as the great white plague and consumption. In the mid-19th century, 4 million people a year in Europe died of tuberculosis. Tuberculosis is the most deadly disease in history, including the plague. The infection is usually spread by coughing and mainly affects elderly people and people with poor nutritional status. The infection mainly affects the lungs and pleural sack. It can spread through the blood to other organs, which can become covered with small infectious lesions, a life-threatening condition known as miliary tuberculosis. As the initial symptoms are mild, the sick person can spread the infection without being aware of it. Pulmonary tuberculosis peaked as a cause of death in Sweden around 1875 and was then, as long before, most prevalent in the provinces around Lake Mälaren. Tuberculosis was then, with more than one in ten deaths, still the most common cause of death in Sweden, second only to the diseases of old age. As late as the 1930s, nearly 10,000 people died each year from pulmonary tuberculosis. Early treatment methods include the Italian Carlo Forlanini's pneumothorax treatment ("gas treatment", "collapsed lung"), which he proposed as early as 1882 and which was applied well into the future as a method to speed up healing. At the end of the 19th century, the first TB sanatorium in Sweden was built, in 1896 in Mörsil, Jämtland province. Subsequently, a large number of sanatoriums were established, including Österåsen, north of Sollefteå (Y). The sanatoriums were always located in a beautiful natural environment with a healthy climate, preferably in mountainous areas near forests and lakes. Finally, in the 1920s, a vaccine against the tuberculosis bacterium, the BCG vaccine, was developed. Live but weakened bacteria, BCG (Bacille Calmette-Guérin), are injected. It was also called the Calmette vaccine. Vaccination provides some protection, but not completely. In Sweden, all newborn babies were vaccinated from the 1940s to 1975. Many people will remember the annual tuberculin test at school. The pupil received a shot in the arm, which was then expected to produce a blush as a sign that the pupil had adequate protection against TB. If the result was negative, vaccination, Calmette vaccine, was given.

Spanish Flu

Spanish flu (Swe: Spanska sjukan) is the name given to the severe influenza epidemic that swept the world in 1918-1919 and is estimated to have caused the deaths of around 20 million people. The cause was a variant of influenza virus type A. The epidemic got its name from the fact that it was first reported in Spain. That was at the end of May 1918. At the end of World War I, this severe influenza epidemic spread throughout the world. In less than 12 months, more people died from Spanish flu than had died on the battlefields of World War I. Symptoms were high fever, cough, pain in the eyes, ears, and lower back, soreness of the head and throat, coating of the tongue, nausea, and a weak and irregular pulse. It arrived in Sweden at the turn of June and July 1918. The first cases occurred in Hyllinge parish outside the city of Helsingborg in Skåne province. In Sweden, about 35,000 people died during the actual epidemic of 1918-1919 and another 3,000 in 1920. Here, as in the rest of the world, mortality was highest among people aged between 20 and 40. The new influenza variant often led to pneumonia with a violent and dangerous course. In the second half of 1918 alone, 516,013 cases were reported in Sweden. The number of deaths among these was 27,379. The population of Sweden at this time was 5,700,000. In 1919, 200,000 people fell ill, but the death rate dropped to 9,000. In the United States, an estimated 500,000 people have died from the Spanish flu. In Sweden's northernmost sparsely populated areas, Spanish flu hit particularly hard. In Arjeplog, nearly 3% of the parish's inhabitants died in a few weeks in February and March 1920.

Related Links

• Health Care in the past • Swedish names of diseases in earlier times • History of the Swedish Hospitals • Churching

Source References

• "Svenska sjukdomsnamn i gångna tider" av Gunnar Lagerkrantz, tredje upplagan 1988, utgiven av Sveriges släktforskarförbund. • "Vår Svenska Historia" av Alf Åberg, fjärde upplagan, 1978 (sid 319-321). • "Hembygdsforska! steg för steg" av Per Clemensson och Per Andersson, 1990, (sid 123). • "Allt var inte bättre förr .....", Om hälsovård och sjukvård i Medelpad efter 1700 av Gösta Sundqvist, 1994 • Skriften "Sundsvallsbygden" nr 15, årgång 14/97, artikel "Historiska fakta och berättad familjehistoria i Sundsvallsområdet" sid 21 av Barbro Andersson. • Skräckens tid, farsoternas historia av Berndt Tallerud, Prisma 1999. • Gamla tiders sjukdomsnamn, Olof Cronberg, 2018. • Wikipedia • NE, uppslagsverk Top of Page