As I
already informed you, it was laid
down in the settler’s patent of
1782, that a hospital be built “as a
quickly as possible.” The principle
was applied also in Beschka for the
affairs of the rural people at the
time were cared for very well.
Already before the turn of the
century the physician Dr. Zacek was
active in Beschka. Katharina Balg (vgl.
Reg. No. 52A) worked as a midwife
and a healing practitioner and
Susanna Horning (vgl. Reg. No. 846)
as well as Susanna and Maria Wohl (vgl.
Reg. No. 2275A and 2274A) and others
worked as midwives. After Dr. Zacek
there were the physicians Dr. Locki,
Dr. Mathias Weber, Dr. Philipp
Oberländer, Dr. Eduard Reich and
from about 1937 on Dr. Hans Renner.
There were never more than two
doctors active in Beschka at the
same time. In addition there was
the pharmacist Nikolaus Grahor and
after him, about from 1934 on,
Heinrich Brücker resided. The
children of the area were also
vaccinated by the community doctor
in Beschka, since the vaccinations
were customary in medical science
for the condition at the time. The
children’s mortality rate in Beschka
corresponded with the average for
that time period.
As already reported in the Jarek
homeland book there were epidemics:
In 1836 and 1849 a cholera epidemic
raged. The number of cases of death
twice exceeded the number of
births. In the years from 1828 to
1898 there were 36 epidemics which
came on the average of one epidemic
every two years. But these were not
as devastating as the cholera
epidemics because the number of
births exceeded the cases of death
on the average of 52.4%.
Individually the following epidemics
came: scarlet fever came six times,
(Blattern?) came seven times (the
last in 1887), typhus came five
times (the last in 1898), (Rachenbraune)
(brown pharynx?) came six times, and
also whooping cough, German measles,
and fever (change fever?, malaria)
twice each. In the time from 1898
to 1936 scarlet fever only appeared
once and in 1918 the Spanish
influenza appeared. So we can see
an enormous medical progress.
Typhus could be battled through the
installation of toilets. When the
toilets were generally introduced in
Beschka is unknown to me. But it is
certain that after World War I in
villages with Serbs and Germans only
a few Germans still did not have a
toilet. In Beschka I don’t know of
a single German house that had not
been furnished with this
convenience. At the time of the
emigration it was also still not
introduced in Germany. The princes
at the time had portable chairs with
chamber pots underneath. Otherwise
there was usually a “hunters’ seat”
in more or less hidden places in the
yard.
In the time until the people fled
there were already some toilets in
Beschka with flush systems
installed. As a rule, however, only
(Plumpsaborte) “outhouses” existed.
The sitting board in these was kept
very clean and the opening was
covered up with a cover. Two heart
shaped cutouts in the door provided
ventilation. It was installed a
respectable distance from the living
quarters. According to the homeland
book of Jarek the mortality in the
pure German mother communities was
essentially smaller than in the
daughter communities which had a
mixed population. While in Jarek
the number of cases of deaths from
1828 to 1864 only twice exceeded the
number of births, in the daughter
communities there were eight times
the number of cases. From 1828 to
1864 there were 4083 births and 1951
cases of death in Jarek, so births
exceeded deaths by 52.4%. At the
same time there were 668 births and
510 cases of death in the daughter
communities with mixed populations,
births exceeded deaths by only 23%.
From this one can conclude that the
Germans lived more hygienically than
other people. But it may also mean
that the Germans had better
nutrition, especially better
nutrition for the infants, and
because the Germans ate more fruit
and drank more milk than the other
folks in Yugoslavia. From the
homeland books I examined I
determined that from the time
Yugoslavia was under Emperor Josef
at least until 1931 the number of
Protestants who emigrated increased
eightfold. Germany did not have
such a heavy population increase.
