The health of the country

by Conevery Bolton Valenčius

"The Health of the Country is the first book to show how settlers made sense of uncharted land. Their primary concern was to save themselves from the painful, fatal, disabling ailments that are as much a part of American history as cowboys and wagon trains." "Primary sources from this tumultuous period show settlers using science, intuition, observation and popular wisdom to evaluate whether a particular locale would sicken them."--BOOK JACKET.