Medieval health and hygiene. Health and medicine in medieval england. Medieval towns.Health. |
Medieval health and hygieneMedieval health and hygiene. Great Scholar, Humanist and Reformer Erasmus (1466-1536) wrote to friend describing the state of the Medieval floors during the Middle Ages:"The doors are, in general, laid with white clay, and are covered with rushes, occasionally renewed, but so imperfectly that the bottom layer is left undisturbed, sometimes for twenty years, harbouring expectoration, vomiting, the leakage of dogs and men, ale droppings, scraps of fish, and other abominations not fit to be mentioned. Whenever the weather changes a vapour is exhaled, which I consider very detrimental to health. I may add that England is not only everywhere surrounded by sea, but is, in many places, swampy and marshy, intersected by salt rivers, to say nothing of salt provisions, in which the common people take so much delight I am confident the island would be much more salubrious if the use of rushes were abandoned, and if the rooms were built in such a way as to be exposed to the sky on two or three sides, and all the windows so built as to be opened or closed at once, and so completely closed as not to admit the foul air through chinks; for as it is beneficial to health to admit the air, so it is equally beneficial at times to exclude it".Threat to Middle Ages Hygiene - Waste Disposal Following the devastating outbreak of the Black Death in England (1348-1350) a link appears to have been made between health and hygiene. In 1388 the English parliament issued the following statute in an effort to clean up England and improve Middle Ages Hygiene:"Item, that so much dung and filth of the garbage and entrails![]() |
Islam_medicine_health.htmlXt html Medieval Health Medieval Health Superstition and ignorance reigned during the Middle Ages, a time when characters we now consider to be simply from fairy tales; pixies, trolls, hobgoblins and so on, were thought to truly exist. Health was controlled by the stars, and affliction was a sign of impurity of the soul-a curse from God. Disease was a constant concern, as was infection from injuries. Hygiene was not always a priority and medieval diets were lacking in vital nutrition. Barbers doubled as surgeons, and a good bleeding was often the cure prescribed. Medieval science progressed slowly, and treatments for the sick were quite often out of reach, especially for the poor. But little by little, doctors were learning information that led to better cures, and understandings of how diseases were transmitted. Hospitals began to be constructed, and schools established for those wishing to practice medicine. Superstition remained, and medieval science certainly did not have all the answers. Information lost from the burning of the library at Alexandria by Christian zealots was slowly being rediscovered. |
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