Sanitation and Medicine Changes in the Nineteenth Century :: Essays Papers

Sanitation and Medicine Changes in the Nineteenth Century The vicissitude in sanitation and medicine in the nineteenth century was a huge step forward in the public health movement. It brought nigh a major shift in the ideas of how individuals fell ill with a particular disease. While nation used to think that diseases were sent by gods, they came to realize that illnesses were the result of germs, and could be controlled. There were smart ideas virtually disease, and new discoveries in medicine and surgery that were a benefit to all people. What resulted was a much healthier population overall, from the working class to the upper class. ordination used to think that people got sick because of religious reasons. They thought that people would become ill because they had somehow displeased the gods that ruled the earth. In put to restore health, people brought offerings to temples and prayed to the gods. Any medical procedures, or procedures that society lat er(prenominal) considered to be medical, were done not by any rational means, entirely done because they were parts of superstitious rituals. For example, when a person got a massage, or underwent bloodletting, a piece of music was said while the procedure was taking place, and the spell was what was considered to be the most essential part, and able to restore the persons health (Sigerist, pg.132). Although the practice of healing through rituals took place much preferably in history (it began in ancient times), most of society noneffervescent had not caught on to the idea that dirt and health were related by the beginning of the nineteenth century, and they certainly had not thought of germs yet. People bathed at a time a week, at most. If skin was covered by an article of clothing, in that location was no reason for it to be clean. Of this view, Henry E. Sigerist writes, A womans leg clad in silk was attractive, even if it was filthy underneath, (pg. 26). In additi on, doctors and early(a) early health professionals had not yet come to realize that their garments could be a transport for germs from one patient to another. Ann F. la Berge, who wrote about the public health movement in France, pointed out that society, once it began to course out how germs could be spread, failed to realize that germs could simply be airborne, causing anyone to pass water sick.