![]() Plague is among the earliest documented pandemics, with two great outbreaks bracketing the Middle Ages. The congested towns of late medieval Europe were typified by poor sanitation and hygiene in comparison to some contemporary civilizations elsewhere, such as the Aztec Empire, and thus became loci of epidemic disease.Ī physician wearing a 17th century plague preventive. As rival leaders fought for land and power (needing ever greater resources for these exploits), and merchants became interested in the riches and resources of faraway places, travel and commerce gradually increased, with microbes as companions. Other changes were afoot that would test sanitary localism and Europe’s backwardness. From about the 13th century on, secular hospitals were also founded in many larger European cities, though there was continued importance of the complementary role of the healing of the body and the healing of the soul. Bartholomew’s in London, founded in 1123, still function today, as does Santa Maria Nuova in Florence. It was during the Middle Ages that hospitals and religious orders dedicated to healing were established in Europe, partly to care for crusaders returning from Church-sanctioned military campaigns to recapture Palestine from Muslim control. ![]() European healing involved a combination of local wisdom (e.g., knowledge of medicinal herbs passed down from generation to generation and among lay practitioners, including midwives who apprenticed with other wise women) and a hierarchy of town-based practitioners, such as apothecaries, barber-surgeons, and university-trained physicians. For the most part, scientific ideas, technologies, and practices in medieval Europe trailed those of other societies, particularly in the Islamic world, where influential advances were made in such areas as astronomy, surgery, theories of disease-transmission, mind-body connections, and medical institutions.
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