Carol C Taylor Blog

Normally I write about Texas, or at least the South. This time I want to share about a trip I took a few years ago to Canada.

It is so pretty, so cool in the summer, and so peaceful. At least it was until three events occurred.

On Sept. 11, 2001, the most tragic events occurred in New York City and other American cities. We all remember the horror and fear we faced. While Americans were the targets, the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia, played an important part in safety of our citizens who were on airliners.

If you remember, airports were immediately closed. But many passenger planes carrying those heading to the east coast of America were directed to Halifax. The airport there is very small, out in a rural area, and not prepared for the influx of passengers with no place to go. The good citizens of Halifax welcomed the surprised guests, shared homes, food and other comforts as the U. S. airports gradually opened.

That was just an example of the generosity of the Canadian city that had survived two disastrous occurrences in the 20th century.

The first happened on April 10, 1912, when a luxurious ocean liner rammed into an ice floe. We know about the wealthy passengers aboard the Titanic who took all the safety rafts, but what about the band members, the crew who steered the ship, who cooked and presented food, and those who clean the suites every morning? And the poor who saved money for a trip to America by staying in the lower part of the ship? Few, if any, survived.

When rescuers arrived, they found bodies of those people floating in the icy waters. No one survived. But this was 1912. No fancy funeral parlors, no place to embalm the deceased or even anywhere to bury the bodies.

But Halifax had such facilities, albeit miles away. Bodies were taken there to be prepared for burial. Many had identification on them that helped when the city began creating new cemeteries. One graveyard is particularly interesting. Those from the Titanic were buried together in a shape of tombstones arranged in the shape of a ship.

A few years later the Halifax Explosion was the largest man-made explosion prior to the atomic age. On the morning of Dec. 6, 1917, two ships collided in the harbor of Halifax resulting in a massive explosion that ultimately killed 2,000 people and injured thousands more.

This was at the critical point of World War I. Ships loaded with troops, munitions and supplies sailed in and out of Halifax harbor to support Allied war efforts. (Remember Canada was a British Colony fighting with the Allies and the United States had not yet entered the fight.) That morning the French freighter Mont Blanc prepared to join a military convoy that would escort it across the Atlantic. The ship was filled with tons of highly explosive materials including TNT, gasoline, picric acid and gun cotton.

Another ship, the Norwegian SS IMO, its mooring headed for open sea, and eventually New York. In a narrow channel the two ships collided, sparking a fire on the Mont Blanc. Realizing the danger, the crew of the Mont Blancevacuated into lifeboats and began to row to shore.

Their burning ship drifted until it brushed against a pier, setting the pier on fire. Curious onlookers attracted to the scene were there, when, at 9:04 that morning, the flames ignited the Mont Blanc, resulting in a massive explosion. Quickly the ship disappeared, leaving a shock wave that flattened 300 acres. The detonation caused a tsunami to roll over the waterfront.

The horror was unbelievable. During a cold winter, citizens of Halifax survived. Investigations to the cause determined that both ships were to blame. Urban planners replaced the ruins with a design consisting of homes, businesses and green space.

Today, Halifax is a lovely, clean city.

Around the middle of March this year, Americans and other residents of our planet Earth were told to “shutter down.” Something known as the Coronavirus or more commonly called COVID-19 had invaded. Soon the disease became a pandemic. The only times Americans used that word were in 1918 at the peak of the Spanish Influence and the Polio pandemic that is still killing people in a few countries today.

Polio peaked in 1952 when Dr. Jonas Salk concocted a cure for Polio. There were 21,000 cases of paralytic polio, a small number in comparison of the coronavirus people in the world today face. Yet, when an epidemic like these attacks a population, what do people do? Interestingly, during previous contagious diseases patients were told to eat outdoors and spend more time outside. Wash hands frequently. Isolation was encouraged and eventually regulated. Sound familiar? Even masks were worn for safety. Doctors and scientists quickly realized the same contagious effects spreading the disease and advised the use of previous methods.

In the 19th century and earlier, contagious diseases were recognized but not properly treated. In fact, earlier doctors generally knew what to do about 25% of the time, relied on old myths and cures another 25%, but the real reason patients recovered was the bedside manners of most doctors. Not surprisingly here in the United States there were four major causes of deaths. Consumption, the original name for tuberculosis, was the leading cause of deaths. The symptoms were very obvious, but the cure was ages in being found.

Most of the time the patient was sent to an asylum, often in the desert or mountains. The bacterial diseases affect mainly the lungs. Like COVID-19, some infected persons did not have symptoms but recovered on their own. Consumption or tuberculosis is an airborne disease that is now usually treatable and preventable with vaccine.

Diphtheria was the second worse disease. Also, a bacterial carried disease, it starts with a serious infection in the nasal passages and throat. Today it can be treated with antibiotics and vaccine.

Typhoid fever was often rampant in the fall in most of the south. It was spread through contaminated food and water, causing high fever, abdominal pain and diarrhea. Small, green vegetation developed on the top of the water barrel. When the patient began to show symptoms, the caregiver would withhold water and the patient would die of dehydration. Today it too is treated with antibiotics and vaccination.

The fourth major cause of death in the United States was accidents. What can be said since accidents are still prevalent?

In 1880 the United State Census Bureau included a statistical profile of causes of death.
Physicians were sent a register to keep a record, although it was not always done. There were 309 deaths recorded in Hunt County that year. Seventy-six infants under the age of one year died from whooping cough and croup. Pneumonia, consumption, typhoid fever, malaria, heart disease, and diphtheria caused most deaths. Childbirth and still birth were also common. Ironically, no deaths were reported from old age.