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Elizabethan England

Widespread diseases have been serious medical problems for a long time. From the very earliest plagues, there were simple bans on preventing movements of goods and people from one area to another. By the sixteenth century, however, there were systems of quarantine in many parts of Europe.

As many writers have stated, the first case of a water-borne disease was probably caused by an infected cave man polluting the water upstream of his neighbors. Entire clans were probably destroyed, or maybe the panicky survivors packed up their gourds and fled from the "evil spirits" inhabiting their camp to some other place.

As long as people lived in small groups, isolated from each other, there were not many incidents of widespread disease. But as civilization progressed, people began clustering into cities. They shared communal water, handled unwashed food, stepped in excrement from casual discharge of manure, and used urine for dyes, bleaches, and even treatment of wounds.

Several Christians of the 14th and 15th centuries earned status as saints by setting an example of helpful charity toward plague victims. They also were thought to preserve the healthy from the ravages of the plagues. The popularity of St. Roch of Montpelier grew steadily during the 15th century, especially in Italy and Germany.

Writers of this time described plague in great detail in their diaries and chronicles. One of the most common observations was the Italian writer Boccaccio's description of people being abandoned in the epidemic. His description was picked up by other writers. Images of abandonment because of plague can be traced from Italy to writers in France and Germany.

As cities grew and became crowded, they also became the nesting places of water-borne, insect-borne, and skin-to-skin infectious diseases. Typhus was most common, reported in the 17th century by Thomas Sydenham, England's first great physician. Next came relapsing fever, plague and other pestilential fever, smallpox and dysentery (a generic class of disease that includes what is commonly known as dysentery), as well as cholera.

Nonexistent or poor plumbing was merely one of many sanitation factors that gave rise to the Black Death of the Middle Ages. Other scourges are also directly related to human waste. Dysentery is one that has left an indelible mark on history. Characterized by painful diarrhea, dysentery is often called an army's "Fifth column." Dysentary was dentified as the time of the Hippocrates and before. It comes in various forms of infectious disorders and is said to have contributed to the defeat of the Crusaders.

Typhus fever is another disease born of bad sanitation. It has come under many headings, including "jail fever" or "ship fever," because it is so common among men in pent-up, putrid surroundings. Transmitted by lice that dwell in human feces, it is a highly contagious disease. Typhoid fever, a slightly different disease, involves a salmonella bacillus that is found in the feces and urine of infected people.

Another water-borne disease, cholera, has been one of history's most violent killers. However, through cholera epidemics, the link between sanitation and public health was discovered, which provided the impetus for modern water and sewage systems.

Cholera is caused by swallowing water, food or any other material contaminated by the feces of a cholera victim. Casual contact with an infected bathroom, clothing, or bedding might be all that is required. The disease is amazingly rapid-acting. Extreme diarrhea, sharp muscular cramps, vomiting and fever, and then death, can occur within 12-48 hours of infection.

In the 19th century cholera became the world's first truly global disease in a series of epidemics. Eventually these epidemics led to a better understanding of the causes of the disease, followed by improvements in sanitation and plumbing.

Man has a long history of battling epidemic or plague-like diseases. The treatments have advanced from hoping that a disease will cure itself (most of the time it never did) to administering modern preventive measures, medications and treatments.

See also "Plague"

Beckson, Karl and Arthur Ganz. A Readers Guide to Literary Terms. New York: Farrar Strauss and Gioux, 1960. vol 11.

"Plague and Public Health in Renaissance Europe." Web site. http:\\Jefferson.village.virgin. edu\osheimintro.html (2 Dec. 1997).

This web site is about the impact of the different types of plagues in the Renaissance from the first outbreak in 1348 to those of the mid-sixteenth century.

Cowie, Leonard W. Plague and Fire. London: WayLand.

This book gives a great explanation about all the plagues of the Elizabethan Age and how they affected the civilization and society. The book proved to be very helpful.