Transcript Health PowerPoint Long Version

Health in Europe
Throughout history
By David Petrushka, Steve Masline, Tyler Paratte, and Cole Segreti
Diet in middle ages

Nobles ate few
vegetables
◦ Unprepared food viewed
as suspicious



Only the poor ate fruits
and vegetables
Dairy considered to be
a poor persons food
These lack of proper
nutrition led to illness
16th and 17th century diet

Poor
◦ Unvaried diet
◦ Bread, fish, cheese, vegetables
◦ Barley or rye bread

Rich
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦
Variety of meats
Sea food
Imported spices
Occasional fancy fruit but rarely
White bread
New foods
 Ice cream
 Bananas
18th Century Diet
◦ Poor
 Early 18th c. ordinary men and
women depended on grain.
 Bread was the staff of life.
 In years of poor harvests and soaring
prices, food riots broke out.
 VEGETABLES
 Rural and urban poor ate a large quantity.
 Peas and beans were most common.
 Fruit was uncommon and eaten in
the summer months only
◦ Rich
 Consumption of meat was lower in
1700 than it was in 1500.
 Meat became more expensive
 Only eaten on holidays or special
occasion

Food supply 16th century

Trade and industry
flourished
◦ Caused influx of people
Not enough food for
poor
 Series of bad harvests in
1590

◦ People were starving
Food supply 18th Century
Population steadily
increasing
 New foods introduced
because of trade
 Poor still having trouble
scraping by
 Only people benefiting
from greater food supply
was bourgeoisie and rich
 Population fell

18-19th Century Food Supply

Food easier to get by all
◦ Prices dropped

New agricultural innovations led to more
food
◦ Seed drill
◦ No more fallow land
◦ Plow

People didn’t need to work all day for
food
◦ Key to industrial revolution

New crops helped sustain people
◦ Potato and corn

Only 10% of people starved to death
◦ Big improvement!
◦ Longer life expectancy
 (in the country)
DISEASES: THE BLACK DEATH



The most devastating disaster in
European history.
1348-1350
1/3 of Europe’s population died
DISEASES: THE BLACK DEATH

What led up to the Black Death?
◦ The Little Ice Age
 A small decrease in temperature shortened the growing
seasons.
 The shortened harvest brought in less food, which caused for
malnourishment, which made them susceptible to the plague.
◦ The Population
 The population increased during the time leading up to the
Black Plague.
 The amount of paupers greatly increased, and were not able
to support themselves.
DISEASES: THE BLACK DEATH

Where did the plague come from?
◦ Originated from Asia
◦ The Mongols arrived in China in the mid 13th
century, and brought flea infested rats.
◦ These rats went through Central Asia, and
from there brought the plague to Caffa on
the Black Sea.
DISEASES: THE BLACK DEATH

Reactions:
◦ Some people stayed secluded from everyone in hope to get
through the tough times
◦ Others partied all day by drinking and having sex.

Art:
◦ The 14th century produced an artistic outburst in new
directions of art.
 Post plague art focused on pain and death
 Ars Moriendi: The Art of Dying
FRANCESCO TRAINI, TRIUMPH OF DEATH
DISEASES: SMALLPOX

In 1519, Cortés landed at Veracruz on the
Gulf of Mexico.
◦ The Europeans brought with them bacteria in
which they were immune to, but the Aztecs
were not, and faced the disaster of smallpox.

In 1530, Pizzaro invaded the Inca empire.
◦ Pizzaro was also lucky because like the Aztecs,
the Incas had no immunities, and succumbed
to smallpox.
DISEASES: COLUMBIAN
EXCHANGE

Old World  New World:
Smallpox, Measles, Chicken Pox, Malaria,Yellow
Fever, Influenza, The Common Cold

New World  Old World:
Syphilis
DISEASES: TREATMENT

Galen’s idea of the four bodily humors strongly
influenced the treatment of diseases, by correcting
diseases by fixing chemical imbalances in the body.

Paracelsus also experimented with treating diseases by
curing them with what caused the disease in the first
place.
DISEASES: THE INDUSTRIAL
REVOLUTION
Population increased due to the
major decrease in breakouts of
disease.
 The workhouses often housed many
people sick with a fever, and due to
the close encounters, it was inevitable
to get sick.
 Working in the coal mines resulted in
deformed bodies, and ruined lungs.
 Children were forced to work in
contorted positions, which left their
bodies severely deformed

Little Ice Age

Heavy rains in northern Europe destroyed harvests
◦ Caused: food shortage  serious food shortage

Historians estimated the famine killed 10% of European population
◦ First half of 14th century

1288-1340: Broughton England
◦ Inhabiters of village migrated to find better economic opportunities in urban areas

1330: Florentine chronicler estimated the population of his city was 100,000
◦ Predicted 17,000 were paupers

Pauper: an extremely poor person, especially one who lives on charity
◦ Evidence led historians to believe that since there was an increase in population



Peasants who owned land in 1300 had to give up land because they could no longer support their family
Europe reached the limit of its population growth
The famine caused by the Little Ice Age could have lead to
◦
◦
◦
◦
chronic malnutrition
Increased infant mortality
Lowered birthrates
Higher susceptibility to disease


Malnourished people are less able to resist infection
Spielvogel states that this aids the explanation of the high mortality of the Black Death
IRISH POTATO FAMINE


The Great Hunger
The potato was the only nutrition that the Irish consumed that
sustained them
◦ Grew three times as much food per acre as grain
◦ Gave them the nutrition to survive and cultivate
◦ 1781-1845: Irish population doubled from 4 million to 8 million
 Estimated half of Population depended on potatoes for survival

Summer of 1845: Potato crop in Ireland was struck by blight due to
a fungus that turned the potatoes black
◦ Blight: a plant disease especially one caused by fungus such as mildews,
rusts, and smuts

1845-1851: The Famine decimated Irish population
◦ More than one million died of starvation and disease
◦ About two million emigrated to the United States and Britain
◦ Only country to have its population decline in the nineteenth century
SANITATION IN THE FORM OF
PROSTITUTION

Post-Black Plague
◦ People began living in the moment Joined in sexual orgies

Middle Ages
◦ During the Renaissance, courtiers were important in upper-class society
◦ Royal couples lead separate lives
 Marriage between royal families were only to secure bloodlines and political
alliance
◦ Prostitution was only tolerated to prevent the greater “evils” of:
 Rape
 Sodomy
 Masturbation

High Middle Ages
◦ France and Germany set specific streets aside for prostitutes to stand
on
 This was a form of regulation
◦ Civic Brothels
 Form of regulation
 Outside of brothels prostitution was illegal
SANITATION IN THE FORM OF
PROSTITUTION PART 2

16th-17th Century
◦ Attitudes hardened against prostitution
◦ Naples 1494: an outbreak of syphilis Later
spread throughout Europe
 Syphilis outbreak in Naples could have been due to
the Columbian Exchange or STDs
 STDs could have originated from the sixteenth century
could have caused the hate in prostitution
SANITATION IN THE FORM OF
WASTE

Industrial Revolution
◦ Sanitary conditions were appalling
 Streets were regularly used as sewers and drains
◦ Cities could not deal with human feces ergo cities
were very unhealthy and extremely smelled foul
◦ Edwin Chadwick’s Report on the Conditions of the
Laboring Population of Great Britain 1842
 Various epidemics, and other diseases were caused by the
impurities of the cities atmosphere such as: decomposing
animals and vegetables, by the damp and filthy feces, and
the over crowed dwellings in each city
 Chadwick wanted sanitary reform that had efficient sewers and a
pipeline water supply
Medicine
 4 humors (Blood= from the heart, phlegm= from the
brain, yellow bile= from the liver, black bile= from the
spleen
 Corresponds to the four elements- Earth, air, fire, water
 They have to be kept in balance for the body to function
properly
 `Practiced by a hierarchy of practitioners
 The top level was physicians and the next level was surgeons
Medicine
 New methods emphasized more clinical
experience and training
 Surgeons practiced bleeding patients out,
performing surgery, and setting broken bones
(often done crudely with out painkillers)
 Apothecaries, midwives, and faith healers
served the common people, they prescribed
herbs and potions
3 Main Figures in Medicine
 Paracelsus- Traveled widely and many call him





the father of medicine
Rejected the works of Aristotle and Galen
New methods derived from fresh observations
Diseases treated with chemical remedies
Versalius- Understanding human anatomy
On the Fabric of the Human Body”- Carefully
examined the organs and the human body
3 Main Figures In Medicine
ｷ
William Harvey- “On the Motion of
the Heart and Blood”
ｷ
The heart, not the liver, is the beginning
point of blood circulation
ｷ
Same blood flows in both veins and
arteries