HEALTH In The Elizabethan Era

                                                                           HEALTH

A different Era in time will have different Health Care when compared to today. We have so much more knowledge of Health and Medicine, that we take it for granted! In the Elizabethan Era, the priorities were so different when compared to ours today. These people lived their lives believing in God, and that most illnesses were His displeasure, or when someone fell ill, it was because they had sinned. Of course, the qualified doctors did try to understand the human body purely from a physical standpoint, but even their viewpoints are terrifying for us to read about today. There were very few highly qualified doctors, who had studied at the universities and gone on to achieve the medical degree --- the length and cost of the training meant that only the very rich could afford this --- and only men ! There were many other 'doctors' around, some "qualified", others just to make a quick penny.

 This meant that the housewife and mother had to learn "how" to treat certain common ailments. The use of herbs and having a herb garden, as well as other 'medicinal' items became the responsibility of the mistress of the house. Grandmother passed knowledge onto mother who passed knowledge onto daughter. Often these remedies worked, other times they would end in disaster. Old Wives Tales were (and still are) dangerous to listen to, but they didn't  know any different back then. Their knowledge was so limited but we had to pass through that ignorance to develop the knowledge we have today.

The history books talk of the bad smells, especially within the cities. There were no flush toilets as we know today, and the human waste was often thrown into the streets, especially by the poor. If you were rich, you could stay fairly clean.If you were poor, you washed in the river. During this Era, people rarely bathed, usually only for medicinal reasons. It was expensive to have clean water.

A form of "washing" was to use a cloth and rub it all over the body, to get rid of the sweat from the body. Cleaning the teeth with a cloth was encouraged, as was combing the hair. No doubt the poor did their best, but only the rich had the money to stay clean !