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

Sanitation and Medicine Changes in the Nineteenth Century The revolution in sanitation and medicine in the nineteenth century was a huge step forward in the public health movement. It brought about a major shift in the ideas of how individuals fell ill with a particular disease. While people 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 new ideas about 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. Society 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 order to restore health, people brought offerings to temples and prayed to the gods. Any "medical" procedures, or procedures that society later considered to be medical, were done not by any rational means, but done because they were parts of superstitious rituals. For example, when a person got a massage, or underwent bloodletting, a spell 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 person’s health (Sigerist, pg.132). Although the practice of healing through rituals took place much earlier in history (it began in ancient times), most of society still 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 once a week, at most. If skin was covered by an article of clothing, there was no reason for it to be clean. Of this view, Henry E. Sigerist writes, "A woman’s leg clad in silk was attractive, even if it was filthy underneath," (pg. 26). In addition, doctors and other early health professionals had not yet come to realize that their clothes 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 figure out how germs could be spread, failed to realize that germs could simply be airborne, causing anyone to get sick.