The Most Common Medical Treatments In The Elizabethan Era

Leeches, possets, bloodletting, and smoke were all common medical treatments in the Elizabethan era. Deadly diseases, such as the bubonic plague, typhus, and smallpox, were circulating during this time. Hospitals offer some of the best medical treatments of the time. Apothecaries were a cheaper and more available alternative, while asylums offered housing and medication for the mentally ill. There were multiple medical treatment facilities for patients and families of the sick to choose from in the 16th century. These patients could have experienced diseases ranging from the bubonic plague to malaria. Despite the nearly 20,000 deaths due to disease, medicine was extremely basic (Alchin par. 1). The adage of the adage. Medical personnel before

Then, the sand is sanded. These doctors simply didn’t know enough about anatomy and medicine, or the scientific advancements, to figure out the causes of these diseases. Diseased and injured people of any social class previously didn’t have a communal location to visit to receive treatment. Hospitals have become a common treatment for the sick. The authorities, church officials, and outside sources began funding public hospitals in large cities (Retief and Cilliers 225). The hospital system was later credited for eliminating the worst factors of poverty by providing some amount of medical care to anyone who needed it (Daly 144). Its effectiveness as a whole is linked to the institutions, including organizations, churches, and private donors, who sponsored and directed it (Daly 113). These hospitals also suggested a way for people in more remote areas to receive treatments. Towns would have a person, called an apothecary, that they could visit for medical attention. Apothecaries were the most common option for poor people, as they were usually much cheaper to visit. Most towns had a local apothecary who would use more natural resources as treatments, which made it less expensive for the lower-class

Asylums, sometimes a form of natural treatment, can be visited by mentally ill patients and their families seeking housing and protection. Hysteria and madness, types of mental illnesses, were becoming more widely spoken about, resulting in the formation of asylums to house and medicate the mentally ill. The Elizabethan era was the first to put widespread public attention to the problems posed by the mentally disabled (Rushton 34). New books about mental disabilities and how the mind works, such as The Anatomy of the Mind and The Passions of the Mind, were published, promoting new ideas, which led to a period of fascination relating to the human mind, and what causes these types of mental illnesses (Hackett 62). Psychiatric patients, referred to as the pauper insane, were even harder to treat than someone with a physical illness because the insane person didn’t want the treatment (Szasz 103-104). There were many medical facilities for ill patients to visit during the Elizabethan era. Hospitals, apothecaries, and asylums are all treatment options for