Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Maps
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations Used in Notes
- MAP 1 The Lowcountry, Charleston, and the Caribbean region
- MAP 2 The South Carolina lowcountry, showing Anglican parishes and slave proportion of population, c. 1760s
- MAP 3 Charleston Harbor, based on a British map, c. 1780
- MAP 4 The Revolutionary War in the South
- PART I TALK ABOUT SUFFERING
- 1 Rhetoric and Reality
- 2 From Paradise to Hospital
- 3 “A Scene of Diseases”
- 4 Wooden Horse
- 5 Revolutionary Fever
- 6 Strangers' Disease
- 7 “A Merciful Provision of the Creator”
- PART II COMBATING PESTILENCE
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
2 - From Paradise to Hospital
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 May 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Maps
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations Used in Notes
- MAP 1 The Lowcountry, Charleston, and the Caribbean region
- MAP 2 The South Carolina lowcountry, showing Anglican parishes and slave proportion of population, c. 1760s
- MAP 3 Charleston Harbor, based on a British map, c. 1780
- MAP 4 The Revolutionary War in the South
- PART I TALK ABOUT SUFFERING
- 1 Rhetoric and Reality
- 2 From Paradise to Hospital
- 3 “A Scene of Diseases”
- 4 Wooden Horse
- 5 Revolutionary Fever
- 6 Strangers' Disease
- 7 “A Merciful Provision of the Creator”
- PART II COMBATING PESTILENCE
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
Summary
A person with 500 pounds … prudently managed in Carolina shall in a few years, live in as much plenty, yea more, than a man of 300 pounds a year in England; and if he continue careful … shall increase to great wealth … As to the air, it is serene and exceeding pleasant, and very healthy.
John Archdale, 1707Myrtle Grove a terrestrial paradise? Let me see what paradisial objects present themselves to your mere corporeal view…. charming walks but … they resemble the paths to the heavenly more than the walks to the earthly Garden of Eden.
George Ogilvie, 1774An opinion generally prevails that South Carolina is unhealthy. This is neither correctly true nor wholly false.
David Ramsay, 1809“THE SINK OF THE EARTH”
In the 1780s, German traveler Johan David Schoepf coined one of the most frequently quoted descriptions of South Carolina, when he wrote that “Carolina is in the spring a paradise, in the summer a hell, and in the autumn a hospital.” By “Carolina,” Schoepf essentially meant the lowcountry. Schoepf's emphasis on the unhealthiness of the region was not unusual. By the time of the Revolution, the lowcountry was reputed the unhealthiest place in British North America.
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011