# Did people die in large numbers of dysentery on the Oregon trail?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-people-die-in-large-numbers-of-dysentery-on-the-oregon-trail/1015913
**Category:** The Game Room
**Created:** [March 21, 2025, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-people-die-in-large-numbers-of-dysentery-on-the-oregon-trail/1015913 "2025-03-21T15:17:24Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2025, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-people-die-in-large-numbers-of-dysentery-on-the-oregon-trail/1015913/1 "2025-03-21T15:17:24Z")
As made famous by the computer game
[ ](https://www.died-of-dysentery.com/images/ap1-meme-T-shirt.jpg)
But did people die of dysentery a lot on the Oregon Trail? I imagine they died of lots of other things but I thought dysentery was only a serious problem in cities where you have thousands upon thousands of people cramped into a small area with no proper sanitation. It wasn’t a big issue in earlier medieval societies where population density was much less (except among armies on campaign where you had thousands of soldiers crammed into small camps).
Would small numbers on the move have the same problems? (I guess one small parties water source was the latrine for the last party, but still)
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### Author:  [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2025, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-people-die-in-large-numbers-of-dysentery-on-the-oregon-trail/1015913/2 "2025-03-21T17:07:08Z")
> [@griffin1977](#):
>
> But did people die of dysentery a lot on the Oregon Trail?
It depends on how to define “a lot”. One estimate I found says that about 10% of emigrants on the Oregon Trail died from dysentery, but that’s obviously a rough estimate since nobody was keeping track at the time. If you calculate that about 400,000 people in total used the Oregon Trail then that’s 40,000 deaths from dysentery. That sounds like a lot to me.
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### Author:  [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2025, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-people-die-in-large-numbers-of-dysentery-on-the-oregon-trail/1015913/3 "2025-03-21T17:56:39Z")
> [@dolphinboy](#):
>
> That sounds like a lot to me.
Yeah that sounds like a hell of a lot. I don’t think a typical dysentery epidemic in a city would kill that percentage (even if it killed more in absolute numbers)
I guess as there were a lot of people using the same bodies of water as latrines/wells, even if they are spread out along hundreds of miles, makes dysentery bacteria just as happy as bunch of people crowed in same city block.
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### Author:  [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2025, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-people-die-in-large-numbers-of-dysentery-on-the-oregon-trail/1015913/4 "2025-03-21T18:50:43Z")
> [@griffin1977](#):
>
> Yeah that sounds like a hell of a lot. I don’t think a typical dysentery epidemic in a city would kill that percentage (even if it killed more in absolute numbers)
> **[Dysentery epidemic killed many in the 1700s-1800s](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121025095407.htm)**
>
> In the 1700s-1800s, dysentery was a disease causing many deaths. In fact, in some areas in Sweden 90 percent of all deaths were due to dysentery during the worst outbreaks. New research presents demographic and medical history of the disease.
Back in the bad old days nearly everybody in the area got it during an outbreak and if they had no access to clean water and salt prognosis was grim.
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### Author:  [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2025, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-people-die-in-large-numbers-of-dysentery-on-the-oregon-trail/1015913/5 "2025-03-21T18:59:22Z")
> [@dolphinboy](#):
>
> One estimate I found says that about 10% of emigrants on the Oregon Trail died from dysentery…
Most estimates I’ve seen are that 6-10% of emigrants died in total, not all from dysentery. Disease was by far the biggest killer, with cholera generally listed as #1.
I don’t know what confidence there is that cholera killed more than dysentery. Perhaps like in the research @Qadgop_the_Mercotan cited, cholera was unfairly blamed.
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### Author:  [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2025, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-people-die-in-large-numbers-of-dysentery-on-the-oregon-trail/1015913/6 "2025-03-21T19:05:06Z")
I imagine wagon trains, like armies, consolidated their food preparation. A single infected person could very easily personally touch the food that every person in the group consumes.
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### Author:  [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2025, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-people-die-in-large-numbers-of-dysentery-on-the-oregon-trail/1015913/7 "2025-03-21T23:14:59Z")
That, and if the groups followed a river course they could have polluted it, so that everyone coming after them would be exposed to any number of nasty diseases, and anyone coming after them, and so on.
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### Author:  [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2025, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-people-die-in-large-numbers-of-dysentery-on-the-oregon-trail/1015913/8 "2025-03-31T05:16:59Z")
If you go by Oregon Trail rules, in real life 50% of wagons had all their occupants die of dysentery and the other 50% drowning via failed river fording events.