“What did people really die of during past famines? The short answer to this question is that they mainly died of infectious diseases” (Mokyr and Ó Grádá 1).

They note early in their essay that connection between general malnutrition and immune system weakness tends to be overstated, but they clarify that “(d)uring major famines, however, there is a threshold effect whereby a switch occurs from a regime of subnutrition or even malnutrition to one of acute deprivation, in which the immune system is severely impaired” (3.) The famine would have opened doors to disease not only by weakenin the Irish population's natural defenses, but also by forcing the population into activity that would have made them more susceptible: widespread migration, crowded conditions (especially aboard ships), and the eating of contaminated or otherwise unsuitable food items.

Slide Show on Diseases of the Famine
Navigate the slideshow by clicking on the arrows at the bottom to move forward and back.

Information on individual diseases from the slide show has been derived from Mokyr and Ó Grádá’s paper, cross-referenced and enriched by information from the University of Maryland Medical Center’s online Medical Encyclopedia and from the Mayo Clinic’s online database of diseases and their symptoms.

Disease in Star of the Sea
Being, as it is, a novel of the Famine, and taking place, as it does, aboard a Famine ship (basically a petri dish for the spread of infectious disease), Star of the Sea is filled with depictions mentions of disease and death. The most obvious place in the novel to see mention of the varieties of disease aboard the Star is in the sections of Captain Lockwood's Captain's Log that make up several chapters of the book, which tend to begin with a tally of how many passengers had died in the ship's steerage the previous day. One such chapter begins the novel proper (after "The Monster," which is a prologue), and in it we are almost immediately haunted with the specter of infectious disease: "Suspected case of Typhus Fever moved to the hold for isolation," Lockwood notes (O'Connor 2).
Notable to these chapters is the change that occurs to the way Lockwood notes the deaths in each entry; toward the beginning of the Star's voyage he notes the name of every passenger, but as the days wear on and the death toll piles higher, his descriptions become terser: "Seven passengers died last night and were committed this morning to the mercies of the deep. Their names have been duly struck off the Manifest" (O'Connor 171). 

One of the most detailed descriptions of disease aboard the Star comes in Chapter XXXIV, "The Doctor," which is made up of the case notes of the ship's de facto surgeon, William Mangan:

"This morning and p.m., assisted by Mrs Derrington, attended a great number (67) of steerage passengers. Many reporting with scrofula, colds, diarrhoea, feverishness, coughs, severe nausea, poor digestion and stomach cramps; head lice, scurvy, rickets, chilblains, infections of eye, ear, throat, nose and chest, and a number of other minor ailments" (O'Connor 337).

On the following page, Mangan makes clear the connections between the Famine, the shipboard conditions, and the proliferation of illness and injury aboard the Star:

"Everyone I saw showing symptoms of gross malnutrition and badly underweight, some dangerously so. Diet of biscuit and water completely inadequate. Very poor supply of clean blankets. No safe, clean place to store or cook whatever food they have taken on themselves. No safe, clean place for personal cleanliness or necessary matters" (O'Connor 338).

Typhus, dysentery, and cholera are among the most commonly cited Famine-related illnesses in the novel. Disease is also prevalent in the chapters of Star that take place off the titular ship, in Ireland before and during the Famine, with Davd Merridith's mother succumbing to an unspecified fever during an earlier famine, and a pivotal traveling companion of Pius Mulvey's dying of tuberculosis. The emphasis Star of the Sea places on the spread of disease and the dire, neglectful conditions of the passengers and tenants both in Ireland and at sea serving as a corrective force to the idea that the Famine was merely a natural disaster, rather than a tragedy whose consequences could have been alleviated by more proactive and compassionate intervention from the day's authorities.

Works Cited
“Diseases and Conditions.” Mayo Clinic. Minnesota, Mayo Clinic. Web. 7 March 2016.

Medical Reference Guide. University of Maryland Medical Center. Web. 7 March 2016.

Mokyr, Joel, and Cormac Ó Grádá. “Famine Disease and Famine Mortality: Lessons from Ireland, 1845-1850.” PDF. 30 June 1999. Web. 7 March 2016. http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~jmokyr/mogbeag.pdf

O'Connor. Joseph. Star of the Sea. Orland: Harvest/Harcourt, 2002. Print.

Researcher/Writer: Austin Gerth
Technical Designers: Bailey Houle