OCR Text |
Show death and mystifying diseases had entered were marked with a red cross, painted on the door the origin of the medical symbol of today. And above the cross was painted, also in red, "God Have Mercy Upon Us," so that pedestrians pedes-trians might hold their handkerchiefs handker-chiefs to their noses and run past. It is estimated that more than 15,00 quacks flourished in the British Bri-tish capital then. They advertised their cures through the medium of the press and by handbills scat-! tered about the streets and stuf-i fed beneath doors. - Windows, 1 doors, shops and houses were closed to prevent the "poisoned maisma" from entering and laying lay-ing low the citizens. Fires burned burn-ed at the street intersections to THE by W.EAUGHINBMJGHMH 17th Century Medicine When the Great Blade Plague ravished London approximately in the year 1603, medicine was still in its swaddling clothes. Doctors Doc-tors were uninformed but pregnant preg-nant with superstitious beliefs, and the quacks made sums of money that would, even at this late day, be considered fabulous. London, then a filthy, ill-paved city, without sanitation of any kind, and notortous for its gerni-ladened gerni-ladened drinking water, very naturally na-turally suffered a heavy death rate from diseases of all kinds and relied upon superstitious beliefs be-liefs to prevent and cure ailments. Naturally, this was a fertile field for the quacks and they prospered. pros-pered. In fact, there was not a large city on the continent of which the same might be said. Homes where clarify the air. The learned medical medi-cal men of London gravely shook their bewigged heads and said the "Black Death was caused by a conjunction of Saturn, Venus and Mars" and. that medicine could do nothing for those stricken. Physicians of the day, in common com-mon with the populace, had no knowledge of insanity or its treatment treat-ment and the handling of these mentally sick unfortunate beggars. beg-gars. The so-called insane asylums often sent, for a gratuity, patients to weddings and feasts, in charge of an attendant, who put them through their erratic performances, perform-ances, using, a whip on them as though he were in a cage of wild beasts, and thus created entertainment entertain-ment for the guests. Sundays, many London citizens! spent part of the day at these horrible places, watching the an-j tics of the inmates, much as we take our children to the zoo at j present. Hangings were common and public, and usually took place on holidays so that the crowds' might gloat over the victim's struggles. When the culprit was disembowled, as was often the case, crowds assembled days before be-fore the execution, in order to gain favorable locations to witness the revolting tragedy. |