Public Health In The 18th Century

Have you ever wondered what our Healthcare system was like in the 1800’s? Have you never wondered what they did to cure disease, treat broken bones, how society back then as a culture acted, and among other things why woman had been the main pioneer of this field? This is what my research topic consists of and below you’ll find my opinions and sources that I have used to come to the conclusion I have to illuminate the Healthcare system in the 1800’s.

The improvement of medicine over the course of the human successes gave great convenience to the people of today. Science has cured and prevented many illnesses from occurring and is on its way to cure some of the most dreadful and harmful illnesses. As the world modernizes due to the industrialization, so does the ways of medicine. Some cures are approached by chance, some, through intense, scientific measures.

The medieval times had no education or knowledge of ways to prevent such a disease from overtaking them. Doctors of the time were completely unable to prevent or cure it. They were, in a ways, stuck with this dreadful killer and their only choices were to wait it all off. Nowadays, doctors and researchers have studied so much into the plagues capabilities, they know of treatments that can either sustain, if not, cure Yersinia pestis from overtaking another era. At home treatments were found to be somewhat reliable to the plague and one includes using vinegar and rose water to drench over an infected body to help cleanse of the bacterias toxins. Cures such as cooked onions, arsenic, sitting in sewers, and fumigating homes with herbs were tried. Apparently the black swellings were also thought

In the eighteenth century, Europeans experienced horrible human conditions due to the rapid spread of diseases. However, many Europeans became interested in medical science to treat the sick  and improve the health of many europeans. Despite this the enlightenment led to the questionings of unknown diseases, discoveries of cures and equipment, experiments on the sick to find cures to eliminate the disease, research was used to look back at the ancient Greek and Roman philosophers ideas and beliefs to influence the way they think. The rising of those ideas were inspired by Europeans who seek the answers to nature and human problems.

The Greeks went even further, introducing the concepts of medical diagnosis, prognosis, and advanced medical ethics. The Hippocratic Oath, still taken by doctors up to today, was written in Greece in the 5th century BCE. The germ theory of disease in the 19th century led to cures for many infectious diseases. Public health measures were developed especially in the 19th century as the rapid growth of cities required systematic sanitary measures. Advanced research centers opened in the early 20th century, mid-20th century was characterized by new biological treatments, such as antibiotics. These advancements, along with developments in chemistry, genetics, and lab technology led to modern medicine. Medicine was heavily professionalized in the 20th century, and new careers opened to women as nurses and as physicians. The 21st century is characterized by highly advanced research involving numerous fields of science.

In American industrial cities, late 1800s, Poor neighborhood were not the best place to live. With poor living conditions, poor sanitation and crowded housing, many epidemics of infectious disease spread into the poor population and touched even the wealthy class. Cities such as New York were crowded and workers were living in tenements, which were often cramped, poorly lit and poorly aerated. Moreover, these tenements lacked of adequate plumbing, therefore waste was flooding in the public streets. Streets was crowded of waste and garbage. Population was poorly nourished and has a poor life hygiene like water pollution and poisoned food and milk. Accordingly, infectious disease was the common death reason. Big cities had known outbreaks of

Since 1878, the US Public Health System has been collecting information on infectious conditions for the purpose of early identification and control of massive outbreaks, including, when necessary, instituting quarantines

In Elizabethan times many deadly diseases had spread such as the plague, smallpox and typhoid, but the causes and cures had yet to be discovered. Due to bad hygiene because of open sewers and rubbish dumped in the river, this caused disease to easily spread as it was a natural habitat for rats, fleas and lice. The plague was carried by the fleas living in the fur of rats. As a result of this one third of the population died. Elizabethan physicians believed that medicine was basic, they had no idea why and how people were getting so sick, treatments were based from superstitions and guesses so they used a mixture of herbs for cures and also believed leeches would ‘suck

Healthcare in America was very limited during the early 1800s but advanced during the 1900s. One of the most critical scientific discoveries was made by Alexander Fleming in 1928 when he found a way to fight infection utilizing penicillin (Ho, 1999). This provided a way to treat infection and save lives. Also, facilities, organizational structure and training of health care were limited along with advancements in medicine and technology. However the expansion of heath care facilities advanced with the adoption of the Hill-Burton Act that provided federal funds matched by state/local governments to construct 10,748 healthcare facilities ranging from nursing homes, mental health and public hospitals (Thomas, 2006). Prior to this there were

Healthcare in early America was not based on scientific medicine and healthcare facilities were limited to “at home” care. The view of health care was focused on epidemics of acute infections related to poor food, water, housing and sanitation resulting limited to untrained physicians an d nurses that were inadequate to provide sustainable life saving care (Williams & Torrens, 2008). Since health care was limited to the home or charity, very little progress was made to on the prevention of diseases. During the early 1800’s towns like North Carolina had no way to combat the spread of diseases like small pox, therefore their only option was to introduce maritime quarantine that would later lay the groundwork for advances in control measures for epidemic diseases (Watson, 2013). These measures helped limit the spread of the disease but failed to address disease management. However the advancement of medical schools such as Harvard

The barriers to receiving effective public health treatment are nothing short of intimidating. Many people in the United States could die if they do not receive adequate public health that take care of their diseases. The government need to create available programs to deal with the increase of diseases and with the aging U.S. population. Invasive and debatable actions sometimes are needed it to find the causes of some diseases.

In my fifteen years of living, I have been vaccinated numerous times for all types of diseases; Polio, Measles, Mumps, and a few others. Immunization

The 21st Century has seen the healthcare system struggle with challenges such as an increase in chronic conditions, an increase in government spending on public health, and emerging threats such as global health security and antibiotic resistance. On the positive side, more people have gained access to care. To deal with these emerging issues as well as existing challenges, we need an effective public health workforce. The public health has the role of protecting the health of citizens. This could be through health promotion and lobbying for increased access to care. To address the problem of the rise in chronic ailments, public health has a role of creating awareness on chronic conditions, their symptoms and management. This is because these conditions are expensive to treat and drain the resources of patients and their families. Public health should therefore educate the public on the importance of screening and conduct these screening services for early diagnosis and prevention of chronic diseases. Another role of public health in the 21st Century is to provide and use evidence based practice in providing clinical services. This would help in addressing some of the emerging challenges such as antibiotic resistance.

The Middle Ages were tough times when it came to disease and medicine. There were numerous types of sickness and disease that flooded Europe during the Middle Ages. Not helping the situation, the medicinal knowledge of the people of Europe of the time was not up to par. Some of the diseases and illness that were running rampant during these times were pneumonia, leprosy, and the plague. The middle ages were a time of great suffering and death because of the abundant disease and lack of knowledge of the spread and treatments.