Lindy Cummings, Tryon Palace Research Historian
I recently came across a First North Carolina Continental Line veteran’s pension application. In 1818, fifty-seven-year-old George Combs of Wilkes County petitioned for support for himself, his wife, a young son, and a disabled grandson. But it wasn’t the veteran’s disabilities that caught my eye: it was the line about his wife, Anne Combs, described as “very week and feeble from almost continual menstrual evacuations.”
The frank description of Anne’s malady is unusual. Researchers struggle to piece together histories of women’s health, often “reading between the lines” to understand to what a diarist or writer may be referring. Women used euphemisms to describe their health concerns and medical literature was in its infancy.This is especially true of conditions related to menstruation and pregnancy.
Even without recognizable terminology, women of the past suffered from the same diseases and disorders as we do today. Anne might have had fibroids, polyps, or uterine cancer. She was almost certainly anemic. There was no relief for her condition. If Anne had access to a physician, treatment was limited to dubious “cures,” ranging from things like a harmless glass of lemonade to concoctions of lead acetate—a poison.
Access to rudimentary medical care was also dependent on class, race, and geography. A middle or upper-class White woman received very different care from poor women—access alone was a privilege. Women’s care was paternalistic; diagnoses and treatment decisions might only be made and shared by the men who had legal authority over them. Black women’s care was in the hands of those men and women who claimed ownership of Black bodies.
George Combs received $8.00 monthly pension through his death in 1843. He was roughly 85 years old. The 1840 census listed George in a household of three people over the age of 80. Was Anne Combs still living? It’s hard to say. How Anne experienced or felt about her condition is lost to us. Like many women, she left a momentary mark on the known historical record and then faded into obscurity.