The Brooklyn Bridge: The Caisson Disease

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The Brooklyn Bridge is a famous structure that was first called The New York and Brooklyn Bridge then it was called the East River Bridge and finally was crowned The Brooklyn Bridge later on. The bridge was first designed by a man named John Augustus Roebling, a German Immigrant who has made other bridges, like the Lackawaxen bridge in Pennsylvania. He was a victim of something called the Caisson Disease.The construction of the bridge started on the 3rd of January on the year of 1870 and had lasted for 13 years. There was 600 workers, 27 of which died during the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. Mr Roebling and a number of the workers caught something called the Caisson Disease during the construction of the bridge. Some people who’ve caught this were paralyzed, others have died. Mr Roebling however, didn’t die from the Caisson Disease, instead he caught a disease called Tetanus and died from that disease. The workers had an obstacle, the Decompression Sickness, otherwise known as the bends or the Caisson Disease. The Caisson Disease was a disease that is basically a bubble in your body, but the symptoms for this disease is different depending on the place of the bubble. For example, if the bubble was in the brain, some symptoms are: Seizures, unconsciousness, or even unexplained behavior changes. …show more content…

The bridge is also a suspension bridge which is a deck held up by suspension cables which is on vertical suspenders. A example of an advantage is that it can withstand earthquakes more than any other type of bridge, and since people travel on said bridge it’s a very positive