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Overview

Modern medicine is wonderful. It’s easy to take the advances we’ve made for granted, but going back just a century or two in human history, our chances of dying from disease are much higher. And throughout most of human history, people didn’t understand how diseases worked and failed to do anything about them.

People have learned from their mistakes in healthcare. Healthcare has gradually improved because of this learning process. The key points that led to these improvements are outlined below:

Big Idea #1: Don’t go letting Saint Vitus inspire your dance moves.

Dancing used to be a social taboo. However, times have changed and dancing is now viewed as something enjoyable. In our minds, we see smiles and laughter, or perhaps even people drinking alcohol.

In the 16th century, the plague and famine were rampant in Europe. The people believed that there was something more sinister going on than just disease. In 1518, a woman started dancing in the streets of Strasbourg, France. Soon after she started, other townsfolk joined her until they collapsed from exhaustion. When she awoke from her coma-like state, she continued to dance again and soon others did too until blood flowed from their shoes and bones ruptured through their skin because they danced so much. The townspeople thought that God punished them for their sins by making them dance like this so they banned gambling and prostitution to appease him but it didn’t work out as planned…

However, the problem persisted. Soon, 15 people a day were dying from heart failure or other complications caused by their dancing.

The authorities believed that Saint Vitus was the cause of this mania. They also thought that if they took the afflicted dancers to his shrine, he might forgive and cure them. At the shrine, each dancer received a pair of red shoes stained with holy oil as an act of forgiveness. Remarkably, their dancing stopped and returned to their normal lives.

However, the real cure for scrofula was probably a sense of community and care shown by others.

Big Idea #2: No one knew what caused the plague, and the attempted cures for it were often a little odd.

The author is so terrified of Alzheimer’s that she clicks on internet ads claiming to cure the disease. It may be a similar mentality that led medieval Europeans to believe in treatments for bubonic plague, despite knowing they were impossible.

The bubonic plague was the first sign of an epidemic. It started with a boil in the armpit or groin and then fever, vomiting and death followed. In the 14th century, it killed 30% of Europe’s population.

The worst part about the plague was that no one knew what caused it. This led to some bad ideas for treatments. Some people suggested living in sewers, but they reasoned that if you lived in a sewer, your chances of meeting a rat would increase and then you’d get bitten by fleas carrying the disease.

People in the middle ages believed that vegetables would ward off the plague because they were a substitute for other foods, particularly meat and cheese.

In the middle ages, people believed that bad smells caused plague. However, there were some remedies that made sense. The famous French physician Nostradamus recommended washing to reduce the risk of fleas spreading disease and he was right since better hygiene reduced the chance of a flea infestation. Most people didn’t listen though; they thought bathing actually increased susceptibility to disease because warm water expanded pores, making it easier for plagues to enter the body. Therefore most people bathed only twice a year and changed their clothes even less often than that.