how was public health as good in the Middle Ages as it was in Roman times?

Answer 1

i did this for GCSE last year. After the roman empire was sacked, all the ingenious methods of everything fell into dis-repare because the people left were too dumb to think of how to use it, so no advancements were made. Because the people after the romans didnt have a good governmental system to impliment such things as public health, and it lacked such things as manpower, while the romans had a nice big well trained professional army, the people after the romans were unable to build things like aquaducts and bath-houses. also, there was a lack of writing by the people after the romans, and also, they just didnt know how to use the roman things, and when they broke, people did not no how to fix them, so they just got forgotten about, and they just broke. so if anything, public health got alot worse

Answer 2

Not much, when the Roman's left, most of the books and documents were burnt by the church, and many of these contained information about public health. Also, people no longer looked after the buildings built by the Romans, like aqua-ducts and public baths. The church however did help because their monks and nuns looked after the wounded in hospital-type rooms. However, they did not look after lepers or contagious people for fear of making others ill. Superstition also hindered public health. Instead of looking at health in a logical way, for instance cleanliness, they believed in other things controlling disease (like astronomy). The cities and towns were very unhygienic, with dung/waste piles left in the streets which small children would play in, and sewage simply being chucked out of windows. Cess pits were used to dispose of sewage sometimes, but these were very poorly lined, and often seeped into water wells, causing disease. Medical officers were few and the ratio between med officer and citizens was hugely unbalanced. They'd also use methods such as amputation and blood letting, which often caused physical and mental trauma, often resulting in patients being worse off than before 'treatment'. I really hopes this helps!

Answer 3

Its a bit of a mixed picture really. Sure, public health was good under the Romans with bath houses, public fountains for drinking water etc. The level of surgery (especially in the army) was also high. But Roman health had a big downside. Lead was used in all this plumbing, and pewter dishes (containing lead) was used in cooking. So although the average urban Roman was a lot cleaner than his medieval counterpart, the Roman was probably also suffering from chronic lead poisoning.
Also, the Anglo-Saxon diet was pretty healthy: meat, fruit, vegetables, fish, wheat and beer. In terms of quality it was only bettered in the early Twentieth Century. Things were not all bad.

Answer 4

Just about all of the sciences of the Romans and Greeks were forgotten during the medieval age. That's why it used to be called the Dark Ages.
Just about everything would have been lost , except for the church records. The Medieval church saved most verything known to it.
Medicines, cleanliness, knowledge of wound care, anastisia, arts and sciences were forgotten, so health was far below that of the Romans.

Answer 5

where did you here that the Romans had better health than the middle ages only recently in the last hundred years has the modern world court up with Romans

Answer 6

It wasn't.

Consider that human waste was indeed thrown from windows into the gutter (and that people also relieved themselves in the gutter), then add to this dead animal carcasses, by products of the butcher's trade, vegetable refuse, the end digestive products of domestic animals, and that bathing was by no means habitual and you can see what a mess it was. The smell alone must've been enough to make a modern person sick!

An interesting side note is that the general hygiene was better in the ghettoes, where the Jews were confined. Because they adhered to the Mosaic commandments, which included rules governing waste disposal and ritual bathing, the Jews tended to be healthier than their Christian neighbors.

Answer 7

It wasn't as good. The Romans had running water, public baths, and a huge sewer system. The middle ages relied mainly on prayers.

Answer 8

Sickness and disease was so prevalent in cities during the middle ages because of non existent sanitation measures that survivors developed resistance to germs. Then they went to the new world with their germs and decimated the Indian population. Did the Indians give the Europeans their germs? No they didn't, because they knew enough to keep sewage from running down their main streets, creating above ground cesspools, attracting rats and other disease carriers. If they had lived in sewers like their European invaders. They could have given them their germs and maybe had a chance.

Answer 9

I'm not sure that statement is accurate. Rome had clean running water & better sanitation overall.Not so in the Middle Ages in Europe, which led to the plagues that swept through Europe at that time. Also there was widespread starvation because sudden climate changes destroyed most of the crops.

Answer 10

Most of the Roman bath houses were still functional and open until around 1000AD. The churches closed them down then because they were thought to be spreading disease through bad maintenance. The churches called them sinful and decadent and came down hard on frequent bathing.

As one Moor put it, you could smell a Christian long before you saw him. Jewish and Moorish society continued the practice of frequent bathing and were not hit as hard by disease. The church found it easy to make the Jews scapegoats when things went badly because they were healthier than everyone else.