Poor sanitation in cities created breeding grounds for rats that carried the disease. There were recurrences of the plague in 1361–63, 1369–71, 1374–75, 1390, and 1400. Death rates from the Black Death varied from place to place. The disease spread more quickly in populated towns than in the countryside.
Stirred by the Black Death, public officials created a system of sanitary control to combat contagious diseases, using observation stations, isolation hospitals, and disinfection procedures.
As most people ate meals without knives, forks or spoons, it was also a common convention to wash hands before and after eating. Soap was sometimes used and hair was washed using an alkaline solution such as the one obtained from mixing lime and salt.
Peasants lived in rat- and flea-infested homes, only bathing a couple of times a year. While the wealthy were able to afford to bathe much more often than peasants, they were still exposed to dirty living conditions. Sewage and rubbish were often disposed of in the streets or in the rivers.
The oldest accountable daily ritual of bathing can be traced to the ancient Indians. They used elaborate practices for personal hygiene with three daily baths and washing. These are recorded in the works called grihya sutras which date back to 500 BCE and are in practice today in some communities.
Today, modern antibiotics are effective in treating plague. Without prompt treatment, the disease can cause serious illness or death. Presently, human plague infections continue to occur in rural areas in the western United States, but significantly more cases occur in parts of Africa and Asia.
“Bathing as you and I know it was very, very uncommon [among western Europeans] until the later part of the 18th century,” says W. Peter Ward, a professor emeritus of history at the University of British Columbia and author of the new book The Clean Body: A Modern History. This went for people of all social classes.
The idea that medieval people never bathed? Time to leave that myth in, well, the Dark Ages. Medieval folks loved a bath, though it was a little more work than it is today with the marvels of modern plumbing. Laborers, who made up most of the population, probably used ewers and shallow washbasins.
They believed this would remove the bad smells from the air before the doctor breathed it, preventing the doctors from catching the plague.
Among tools people used in the past were moss, sponge on a stick, ceramic pieces and bamboo 'spatulas. ' Among tools people used in the past were moss, sponge on a stick, ceramic pieces and bamboo 'spatulas. '
In the Middle Ages, people would make use of sticks, moss and other plants. Archaeological findings from cesspits of monasteries in Ireland and Norway included small pieces of cloth that were used like toilet paper.
Nearly everyone wore a cap or kerchief to bed to keep their heads warm. Women would braid their hair and tie it up to keep it from tangling. Most Medieval pictures show people sleeping in the nude, but there is evidence that by the 16th century, night shirts and night gowns were common.
Most medieval people probably were dirty, and perhaps even smelly, by our standards – however hard you try, it must be nearly impossible to make a cold, muddy river work as well as a power shower and a washing machine. But only a tiny number of medieval people were truly filthy. Even fewer actually wanted to be dirty.
In the 1700s, most people in the upper class seldom, if ever, bathed. They occasionally washed their faces and hands, and kept themselves “clean” by changing the white linens under their clothing. “The idea about cleanliness focused on their clothing, especially the clothes worn next to the skin,” Ward said.
Prior to that people used water only and the oils from flowers. In chambers, people had basins of water for washing the face and hands, and maybe a more intimate part of themselves… Rivers, lakes, ponds, etc… were used to taking dips and rinsing the filth from one's body.
Two baths in a lifetime, a stick for a toothbrush and mutton fat as soap. Hold your nose, this is going to get nasty. While people in medieval times weren't quite as filthy as we tend to think, they certainly weren't clean by today's standards.
Before soap, many people around the world used plain ol' water, with sand and mud as occasional exfoliants. Depending on where you lived and your financial status, you may have had access to different scented waters or oils that would be applied to your body and then wiped off to remove dirt and cover smell.
Why did the English not bathe? In fact, westerners of his era believed bathing was downright dangerous. They feared that if they submerged themselves in water, they risked toxins infiltrating the body through its pores.
Almost everyone (95%) in UK cities prefer showers over baths, according to recent data by QS Supplies. Only three cities in the UK – Mansfield, Poole and High Wycombe – prefer baths over showers while the other 70 cities investigated all prefer showers.
Many of you have heard the statement that the moors taught Europeans how to bathe, this is very true.
Fast forward to 1767, when the first patent for a shower was granted to William Feetham, a stove maker from Ludgate Hill in London. These early modern-day showers were powered by a hand pump and used less water than baths.
Antiserum. The first application of antiserum to the treatment of patients is credited to Yersin [5], who used serum developed with the assistance of his Parisian colleagues Calmette, Roux, and Borrel.
Because most people who got the plague died, and many often had blackened tissue due to gangrene, bubonic plague was called the Black Death. A cure for bubonic plague wasn't available.
How is plague treated? Plague can be successfully treated with antibiotics. Once a patient is diagnosed with suspected plague they should be hospitalized and, in the case of pneumonic plague, medically isolated.