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What was public health like in the Middle Ages? - Coggle Diagram
What was public health like in the Middle Ages?
No knowledge of germs
Streets were used as dumping grounds
Rotting, discarded meat
Day-to-day rubbish
Excrement was dumped in streets as well as
There were no rubbish collectors
Attracted rats which inflitrated
Food supplies
Homes
Water supplies
All of these increased the rate of spreading disease
Towns would've been very dirty
Houses were badly built
Made from wood, wattle and daub
Wattle and daub were basically reads and straw mixed with a paste, usually clay or manure
Usually 1 room and were overcrowded
Animals also lived inside, increasing the chance of vermin
Town rivers were usually the main source of water
This is also where they disposed their rubbish/toilets, so the water was always contaminated
Wells usually suffered because they were usually placed near cesspits, which are piles of human excrement, which could leak into the water supply
While people didn't think they needed to change their lifestyle (because they blamed god or miasma) some later did make some changes
They started fining people caught littering in the street
St.Bartholomew's hospital was set up
Teams of rakers were employed to remove dirt and debris
Though they dumped this into the river
Started to clean privis
Made cesspits with stone bricks to make harder to leak
Many of these improvements were limited because the rich didn't see it as their duty to improve public health, they believed that it was God who would decide if you became sick or not