A Case for Syphilis? ...I hope not!

Syphilis - the bacteria, venereal disease you do not want to get if: a) you were born before penicillin; b) wanted or building a family; or c) do not have access to a sanitary environment or hygiene.  (Then again, even if you have penicillin, you still do not want this.)  Unfortunately for Eben William Osterndorff, he lived in a time with such conditions and may have had syphilis.  Since we do not have access to his remains nor a time machine, let us review the evidence.

The Father

The cause of death listed for Eben W. Osterndorff is paralysis with the date of death being 19 November 1891, aged 49 years, 10 months and 23 days.  Before the 20th (or even the 21st) Century, syphilis was rarely listed as a cause of death, usually due to the negative connotation associated with the disease and stigma to the family, but cannot be ruled out as a possible cause.  No other contributing causes are noted on the certificate of death.  Paralysis could have also resulted from botulism, multiple sclerosis, vitamin B12 deficiency, cervical spondylosis or motor neuron disease.  Without further historical medical records, oral or written family history, it is not possible to rule these others causes leading to paralysis either.  But what else do we know about the family?

For the majority of his adult life Eben was a coal dealer, a liquor dealer during the Civil War, a grocer and possibly a post master.  There have been no indications of poor health as would be noted on the US Federal Census (USFC): no blindness, deaf and dumbness, idiocy nor insanity.  There is also no notice of time being spent in a sanitarium or hospital but there is also no indication that he did not have a problem with alcohol, at least not one that was on public display.  Indeed, his life seems to be quite the opposite, being a member of a number of charity organizations and Episcopalian church groups.  His occupation allowed him to marry in his mid-twenties and almost immediately have two daughters, spaced two years apart.  In fact the coal and liquor businesses seem to do well enough to support three generations under one roof in a nice area of Manhattan just a stone's throw from Central Park. 

The Known Children

Unfortunately for us, Eben and his wife Margaret have their children in the early 1870s and the 1875 New York State Census for New York county is missing.  This means that when we catch up with Eben and his family in 1880, it is not possibly to ascertain whether they had more children who died young or were unable to have more children.  The only other option is to check if the baptismal records for the Episcopalian St. Michael's church still exist for the 1870s and whether they are accessible to the public, as this was the church in which Eben and Margaret married and where Eben had his funeral services.  Currently no record has been found, as of yet.  What we do know is that another daughter appears as a young adult with her unmarried sister in the 1900 USFC; the 1890 USFC being destroyed in a fire.  No New York State Census was taken in 1885, nor is there a microfilm copy of the 1892 OR the 1905 New York State Census for New York county, though there were taken originally.  The estimated year of birth for this third daughter is 1883, nearly 12 years after the second daughter!  If this third daughter is indeed a daughter of Eben and Margaret, why did they have more than a decade of hiatus between the daughters?  If we can rule out bad finances (see previous post on Eben W. Osterndorff), perhaps we can rule in a medical/biological cause.

The Mother
Let us consider Margaret Blohm Osterndorff, the mother, and her death.  Margaret's certificate of death reports that she died on 30 Jan 1898, at the age of 47 years, 11 months and 4 days, the chief cause being "asthenia - remittent malarial fever", with contributing cause being "malnutrition - extreme emaciation as result".  The fever is reported to have lasted 3-4 days and the asthenia to have lasted several weeks.  If Margaret had caught syphilis during her childbearing years, perhaps she passed it on through some of her pregnancies and survived when the infection went into its latent phase.  The latent phase may last up to decades and beyond the first years of this stage the illness is no longer transmissible, which means that healthy, non-infected children can be born.  Catching malaria may have prevented Margaret from progressing to the tertiary phase and possibly death, or maybe she was already in the final stage but the symptoms were not recorded when she contracted malaria.

Final resting place of Eben William Osterndorff,
Lot 14949, Green-Wood Cemetery.
Photo by Bob Collins,
published 31 Oct 2010 on FindAGrave.com

Possible Children
So here is an interesting bit!  Both certificates of death for Eben and Margaret list their final resting place as Green-Wood Cemetary, Brooklyn, NY.  This cemetery is large enough that one can perform an online burial search using variations of the surname: Ostendorff, Osterndorf, Osten, etc.  What we find with such a search is that Eben and his family are listed under Ostendorff, with family including Eben, Margaret, Emma, May/Mary, Eben's step-motherVeronica, his sister Dora and mother Maria (probably).  Thanks to the wonder of the internet and volunteer's with quirky interests, FindAGrave.com reports there are no headstones for the Osterndorffs buried in lot 14949, section 157.  What is important to note is that there are two unaccounted for Osterndorff women in this section: Maggie, buried 04 November 1875, and Henrietta, buried 26 July 1878.  Without headstones, it is not possible to immediately know how old any of these individuals were when they past; it remains to find the death certificates and/or orbituaries to determine more.  Could Maggie and Henrietta be syphilitic children born to Eben and Margaret?  Is the Dora listed in the burial list (buried 30 July 1883) actually Eben's sister or could she be a daughter with the same name?  Eben has been the only individual found with an obituary.

Conclusion
Given the evidence thus available, no resolution about the presence or absence of syphilis in Eben William Osterndorff's family can be made.  What has been found are more avenues of research to pursue and travel down.  A genealogical road map!  Then again, if The Doctor was available, we wouldn't have this or any other genealogical problems, brick walls, quandaries, concerns, etc.

But what is your take?  Did Eben contract syphilis and pass it on to his family?  Are there avenues (or even back streets/alleys) of research I have not considered?  Ones that a person with limited monetary resources could get to?  Feel free to leave a comment or questions below!

Happy Hunting!

Sources:

The Doctor, Time Lord, version 10

Green-Wood Cemetery Services.

Hall LA. ‘The Great Scourge’: Syphilis as a medical problem and moral metaphor, 1880-1916. Paper presented at the Courtaud Institute Symposium, 23 May 1998.

Mandal A. Syphilis Symptoms.

Osterndorff EW. State of New York Certificate of Death. 1891.

Osterndorff MB. State of New York Certificate of Death. 1898.

Paralysis Cause Possibilities

Rudy's List of Archaic Medical Terms

US Federal Census 1870-1880, 1900, All Manhattan