Author: Rachel Harvey

Key Question 2: Attempts to prevent illness and disease c.500-present day

Medieval / (Up to 1500)	Early Modern / 1500-1800 ish!	Modern / 1800 to the present day
Hippocrates (and his ideas were followed by Galen and into Medieval times) believed keeping your humours balanced prevented disease (exercise, rest, diet) / Romans believed in clean water (aqueducts) and cleanliness but these abilities and ideas were lost when Romans left. / The Church: Prevent illness and disease by living a Christian life and pray hard for forgiveness of sins (flagellants during Black Death) / Black Death: other attempts to prevent: Fast, Far, Late (actually spread it), avoid bathing as it opened the pores to the disease, avoid sex! Drinking vinegar and wine, bathing in urine. More realistic: King Edward III ordered the streets to be cleared of filth believing smells spread disease, avoiding the sick (boarding up houses, red cross on door) / Alchemy, soothsayers, doctors: Alchemists distilled vinegar thinking the ‘medicine’ they created would prevent disease (“Elixir of Life”). Medicines containing poisons were used to make you sick, believed this prevented disease. Wise women: collect plants, herbs, make and sell charms to prevent the spread of disease. Apothecaries made medicines too.	“Prevention is better than cure”: From late 18th century-early 19th century, a time for ‘fads’ like vegetarianism, giving up alcohol, fresh air and exercise became fashionable. / Cold Water treatments: ‘Taking the waters’ at spa towns like Bath and Harrogate, visiting the seaside. Drinking cold water to flush out impurities. / Many deaths from ‘child bed fever’. Alexander Gordon 1795 recommended hand washing and clean clothes between delivering babies but was criticised by other doctors (until Germ Theory proved him right…) / Cause of scurvy (lack of Vit C) amongst sailors found in 1753. Prevented by drinking lime juice. / Inoculation: Mary Wortley Montagu 1721 / Edward Jenner, 1796: The first vaccination to prevent smallpox. Vaccination made compulsory by government in 1852.	Dr John Snow proved cholera was water-borne in 1854 (and stopped an epidemic by taking the handle off the Broad Street water pump...you know this!!) / 19th century vaccines (2, 3 and 4): 1880 Chicken cholera, 1881 Anthrax, 1885 Rabies (Pasteur) / More vaccines introduced since WW2. / Polio 1955 / Measles 1963 / MMR 1988 / Hepatitis 1994 / Anti-malaria tablets if travelling abroad etc / Infant Mortality Rate has fallen from 170 per 1000 in 1900 to 4 or 5 per 1000 today. Due to improvements in immunisation but also reducing poverty, school dinners, trained midwives and school nurses, etc / Debate over MMR, 1998: Dr Andrew Wakefield suggested it might cause autism and there has been less uptake by concerned parents. Must vaccinate 95% of the population or an epidemic can break out.