Life in Colonial America Was Plagued by Pain, Sickness, and Itch

Trade the tricorn hats, bonnets and homespun shirts for flip flops, sneakers and soccer jerseys, and the intrepid revolutionaries of 1776 would have looked a lot like the people of 2026. But their sense of embodiment and experience of health was markedly different from Americans today.

It goes deeper than not having aspirin, toothpaste or air conditioning, or not knowing about germs and penicillin. What was happening in their gut and mouth and on their skin was a world away from today. Chronic bodily states of indigestion, itchy skin, flatulence and slow-healing wounds were common and accommodated.

The American colonists were friends with affliction and shared their suffering socially, in writing and conversation. Ben Franklin, no stranger to suffering, wrote that “We are first mov’d by Pain, and the whole succeeding Course of our Lives is but one continu’d Series of Action with a view to be freed from it.”

Acute illnesses like smallpox, typhoid, dysentery, yellow fever and diptheria shadowed every ache and cough. But the everyday diminishment of vitality, mobility and equanimity defined life in 1776. Illness was pervasive. Rich or poor, free or enslaved, everyone was at risk.