What kind of medical problems afflicted trail travelers?
“The most common medical problem was gastrointestinal illness, ranging from chronic bowel complaints to unspecified diarrheas and dysenteries, and diseases such as cholera and typhoid fever.” “The most terrifying disease was cholera. Its sudden onset, rapid course, and high mortality rate were fearsome. Cholera’s appearance on the trails coincided with its epidemic years in the United States. It was particularly prevalent on the Oregon-California Trail in 1849 and 1850 and on the first third of the trip from the Missouri River to Fort Laramie.” “Initially mountain fever was a ‘catch-all’ term applied to a variety of febrile diseases that happened to develop in the high altitude of the Rocky Mountain area. Eventually, however, a common pattern of symptoms began to be differentiated which separated mountain fever from other. . .cases. The disease occurred primarily in the spring and early summer with one to three episodes of fever lasting roughly forty-eight hours separated by two to eig
