Renaissance Essay: The Role Of Health In The Renaissance

Health In the Renaissance Back in the 16th century if a doctor or physician didn’t think a disease someone had was curable, they would use the shutting up policy, which originally was used by the Italians and not long after, adopted by the rest of Europe. This policy meant the infectee would be locked up inside their house with all of their family members who might’ve also been infected (Wear 100). This was one way of the many treatments that Europeans had used in the Renaissance, whether effective or not. Health during the Renaissance was threatened by death, manipulated by daily life, and supported by treatments. One way health was affected was by death. Death to people of the Renaissance was a very prevalent thing. The biggest killer in the Renaissance was the Bubonic Plague, also referred to as the Black Plague, and a virulent disease, Syphilis. The Bubonic Plague had infected people in virtually every country in Europe. By the end of the 14th century, the epidemic had wiped out 60 percent of the continent (Marcovitz 59). All of which perished to the Black Plague. Agnolo di Tura was a man during the time and had recorded his seeings of the sweeping plague in his journal. “Nor did the death bell sound… And as soon as those ditches were filled, more were dug” (Marcovitz

Surgical procedures during the Renaissance were completely different than modern day surgeries. Holes were drilled into the skulls of those with neurological disorders to, in theory, let the demons out (What is European 5). Of course, anaesthetics were not present in those times. During births, only midwives were in charge. Surgeons were only called to extract a dead fetus from the mother’s womb, which was very uncommon (Wear 98). A lot of mothers died from giving birth due to the lack of medical knowledge. Surgeons never thought infections were caused by germs, so many wounds became fatal due to poor hygiene (What is European