What diseases did sailors contract?
A ship, being small and confined, was a breeding ground for disease. Many sailors arrived onboard with a disease and, in the close quarters, it would quickly spread throughout the ship. Other diseases they could contract in ports of call. Such was the case with the Black Plague. Historians now believe that sailors who had contracted the plague in an infected port city, sailed to another, safer port and transmitted the disease to the new population. Hence, the Black Plague spread faster by sea that it would have on land. There were also a variety of diseases that developed aboard ship. Scurvy, a vitamin C deficiency, was the most common one until the late 1790s. Sailors would also develop cholera from poor sanitation aboard many ships. Sailors also transmitted diseases to the native populations they encountered. In the Americas alone, millions of Native Americans died of European disease. Some of the most common diseases were: Bubonic (Black) Plague, Cholera, the Common Cold, Diphtheria
