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From: Jack Smith <>
Subject: re: Summer Sickness
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 19:40:10 -0600

I asked my mother, who remembers this happening. She also adds that
they called it "Summer Complaint" and the main symptom was diarhea.

> You are right, summer sickness had various other names, but it was caused by
> flies carrying germs on their bodies from outdoor toilets, and the fertilizer
> piles from farm animals and depositing them in leftover foods or meals
> actually being served, etc. That was the day when most Americans farmed for a
> living,. and were constantly exposed to fly or mosquito carried bugs of one
> kind or another. My oldest brother, Carl, died of it, because it was so taken
> for granted that everybody got it in the summer. Some houses had no window
> screens, although most had screen doors--with flies going in with the kids and
> dogs, etc. There was no refrigeration in the country because there was no
> access to electricity for most farmers until after World War !!, when
> President Franklin D. Roosevelt got the rural-electrification bill passed,
> that provided cheap electricity. In cities, ice was cut in winter, and stored
> in icehouses in sawdust during the summer to be used in ice boxes. But
> farmers used small stone buildings around their water pumps, or lowered milk
> cans (for the dairy pick-up) down into the cool water. My mother always
> covered leftover foods with cheese cloth to keep flies off, and pie safes,
> were exactly that--cupboards with perforated tin doors. Carls' death was
> mostly caused by the doctor's giving Mother the wrong advice--all he needed
> was lots of water, and salt, and he didn't get it. He was just a few years
> old.

Jack Smith

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• re: Summer Sickness by Jack Smith <>