(1609-10) the population dropped from 500 to 60 and in
the spring these 60 almost abandoned Virginia. A deadly combination of
new environment, famine, and epidemic disease, such as typhoid, played
a major part in determining the course of events during the first two
decades of the colony's life, and near death.

After Virginia became a Crown colony, famine and disease no longer
influenced affairs so greatly, not because of the wise administration
of the Crown, but because the colonists had better learned what was
necessary to cope with health conditions in the New World. No longer
did they consider disease and famine minor threats compared to those
from the Indians and Spaniards. They planned their ocean voyages so as
to arrive in the fall and thus avoid the dread summer sickness while
still too weak from the voyage to resist it; they located their outer
settlements on higher and drier land, at the end of the century even
moving their capital to Williamsburg, known for its temperate and
healthful climate.

The physicians and surgeons, however, who came later in the century
were not as distinguished as their earlier counterparts. As the century
passed, many men trained by apprenticing themselves in Virginia.
Whether immigrant or indigenous, the medical men used orthodox European
techniques: they bled and purged, sweated and dispensed drugs, to
obtain these ends. Some of the drugs were native to Virginia and the
colonists exported them for a profit, but the more expensive--and
efficacious--had to be imported. There is evidence that the level of
medical excellence in Virginia lowered during the century; many of the
planters avoided the expensive visits and drugs, even passing laws to
regulate fees and chastise lax and inadequate practitioners.

Women, clergymen, and laymen all treated the sick and wounded of the
period, with the women especially active as midwives; with the clergy
producing such an outstanding medical man as the Reverend John Clayton;
and with the laymen acquiring enough information, perhaps from a few
medical books, in order to practice, themselves, in case a doctor were
unavailable or undesired.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Dr. Wyndham B. Blanton kindly gave permission for the use, in the
preparation of this booklet, of his definitive and authoritative volume
on the history of seventeenth-century Virginia medicine. Dr. Blanton's
work--based on extensive research in the source