Lecture on smallpox, cholera and Spanish flu

Sint-Oedenrode – Corona is the virus of our time but there have been many more in the past. Heemkundekring “De Oude Vrijheid” is organizing a lecture tonight about epidemics in North Brabant from 1800-1945. The lecture starts at 20.00 in the Odendael service center.

In the village of Goirle, eleven people died of smallpox in 1872; in two families they had to bury four of their children in two weeks. In 1918, no fewer than 340 people died of the Spanish Flu in Tilburg, mainly young adults. In 2020 we thought everything was in control. Beautiful not so.

Ancestors
Jan van Eijck, former GGD employee and curator of Museum de Dorpsdokter in Hilvarenbeek will give a lecture about this tonight. He has just returned from the corona vaccination halls in Veghel, Waalwijk and Tilburg and in just over an hour he outlines the many epidemics that our ancestors all saw raging by. He tells you what didn’t help.

Admission is free for members, for interested parties it is € 2.00 pp