What was health like in shakespeares time

As many people know, an alternative was to apply leeches to the skin. Most people today hate being sick, as they did in the past. But this innate urge to eject things was put to good use in early modern times, when emetic medicines that caused patients to be sick were a routine cure. Vomiting was also used to ward off ill health. He wrote that if everyone did the same then it would save 20, pounds of tobacco which was currently being used by people as a medicine.

Clarke described how to make a posset that would bring up a great quantity of phlegm and other corrupt humours, leaving you feeling clear headed and very well. A text published a few decades later in the s claimed that many medicaments are taken out of a Live Man, or from a dead man. Preserved human flesh mummy was found in several medicines including an unguent to staunch blood recommended in a medical text by Christoph Wirsung, a German physician.

It was thought to have healing properties. Plasters sometimes contained rather pungent components. Dung, usually from a cow, formed the main component of several plasters recommended to ease swelling. Shakespeare lived, worked and died during the Little Ice Age, but its coldest phase began three decades after his d… twitter.

September 9, pm. Tags History. Your browser is antiquated and no longer supported on this website. Please update your browser or switch to Chrome, Firefox or Safari. Reproduction is not to be "used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research. Worst Diseases in Shakespeare's London From Shakespeare Online, a website established in to provide free, original, and accurate information on Shakespeare to students, teachers, and Shakespeare enthusiasts.

Medicine in the time of Shakespeare An exhibit in the Yale Historical Library explored medical theory and practice in 16th-century London. Medical Heritage Library. Our goal is to provide the means by which readers and scholars across a multitude of disciplines can examine the interrelated nature of medicine and society, both to inform contemporary medicine and strengthen understanding of the world in which we live.

These are the four humours, a theory of disease and health that is among the most influential ideas aver conceived.

These recipes for remedies would often appear on the same page as recipes for food and drink. Here are a few examples, from the receipt book of Sarah Longe :. Interested in learning how to transcribe early modern manuscripts? Click here to cancel reply. Early Modern Life Shakespeare Unlimited.

Hyacum, et lues venerea. Stradanus inuent. Folger Shakespeare Library.