Illness and Treatment in the 16th and 17th Centuries Essay Example
Samuel Pepys and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu examine illness and treatment throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Pepys witnessed the plague in the sixteenth century while writing about it in his diary. Montagu had the smallpox illness and wrote a letter to a friend about the smallpox pandemic and treatment in the seventeenth century. Pepys and Montagu represented the illness during the Enlightenment years by witnessing it and aiming for possible treatments.
Samuel Pepys was born on February 23, 1633, in London. Pepys starts his diary at a critical juncture in British history. It all started when Oliver Cromwell died in September 1658, leaving the title of Protector to his son Richard (Gyford).The diary of Samuel Pepys is one of the most significant works in English literature. Furthermore, "Pepys's words from the Diary provide a commentary on and backdrop to events and personalities of the 1640s and 50s"(Hill). The plague first struck London in 1665, and Pepys' diaries span the months from when it first struck to when it was at its worst in September to when it was less of a concern in the winter. The plague struck London on June 7, 1665, and it changed the way people traveled around the city. The afflicted homes' roofs were marked with a red cross. On June 7, 1665, Samuel Pepys expressed his dismay at seeing the red crosses in the following letter:
This day, much against my Will, I did in Drury lane see two or three houses marked with a red cross upon the doors, and ‘Lord have mercy upon us’ writ there – which was a sad sight to me, being the first of that kind that to my remembrance I ever saw. It put me into an ill conception of myself and my smell, so that I was forced to buy some roll tobacco to smell to and chaw – which took away the apprehension.
During the plague breakout, Pepys chose tobacco as the first treatment. In July, a noble presented him with a herbal treatment. But he was not sure if any of this was working.
Burials began to take place by August. On August 12th, Pepys writes that people are dying so quickly that they are now fain forced to transport the dead to be buried by daylight, as the nights are insufficient. And the Lord Mayor orders everyone to be inside by 9 p.m. so that the sick can go outside. Many people believed that poor air quality was to blame for the plague, which is why affected persons were advised to walk outside for fresh air during the nightly curfew.
The population was both dismayed by the rise in instances and concerned that the number of deaths was under-reported. Pepys wrote on August 31st about how the public had suffered greatly. As a result of the enormity of the epidemic, which had nearly extended throughout the Kingdom. Every day, the news of its worsening becomes more and more depressing. Pepys writes:
In the City died this week 7,496; and of them 6,102 of the plague. But it is feared that the true number of the dead this week is near 10,000 – partly from the poor that cannot be taken notice of through the greatness of the number, and partly from the Quakers and others that will not have any bell ring for them. (Pepys)
It was difficult to picture living without the epidemic by the autumn. Carts were stacked high with bodies. On the 7th of October, Pepys describes how he comes close to the carriers with a body of the disease. However, the "Lord, to see what custom is, that I am almost come to think nothing of it" (Pepys). Thankfully, the number of instances began to decline near the end of the year. Pepys writes in his diary on New Year's Eve that the plague has decreased practically to nothing to our great satisfaction, that "the town fills apace, and shops begin to open again. Pray God continue the plague’s decrease" (Pepys). At the time, treatments and protection were unsuccessful. The illness was thought to be caused by polluted air, which could be treated with smoke and heat. The number of plague casualties began to fall as the temperature grew cooler. None of the treatments were to blame.
Between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, two pandemics transpired. As previously stated in regards to Samuel Pepys diary notes on the plague epidemic. What was the 1665 plague called? It was called the “Great Plague of London.” The Great Plague of London, which lasted from 1665 to 1666, was the last major outbreak of the lethal disease in England. In the seventeenth century, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu introduces the world to another deadly illness, smallpox.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, born in 1689, was an English independent woman and lady of letters. The introduction of smallpox inoculation (of implanting a disease inside a person) to Britain and Western Europe was by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Although Lady Mary recovered from smallpox in 1715, her brother died of the illness in 1713. Montagu made an unquestionable contribution to the smallpox discussion. She was the driving force for “the first smallpox inoculation on English soil, and she was largely responsible for making the practice acceptable in elite circles” (Barnes, 331).
Smallpox arrived without mercy, claiming the lives of countless people throughout Europe's sexes, classes, and ethnicities. The disease was particularly devastating for women, as survivors were left deformed. Barnes states:
Smallpox first appeared in Europe in the early Middle Ages, and until the mid-seventeenth century, it was not usually fatal in adults, although children were more vulnerable. From the early seventeenth century, smallpox mortality rates rose significantly. (Barnes, 333)
The disease was extremely contagious, killing one out of every four people who came into contact with it. Deep, sunken scars marred the survivors for the rest of their lives. Mary was able to overcome her infection and live. Her once-perfect complexion was disfigured, her eyelashes were missing, and the area surrounding her eyes would be red and inflamed for the rest of her life.
Lady Mary heard about the native practice of variolation, or smallpox inoculation, while she was in the Ottoman Empire. Variolation is an "obsolete method of immunizing patients against smallpox by infecting them with substance from the pustules of patients with a mild form of the disease" (Britannica). She witnessed the procedure of variolation, which she named engrafting, in March 1717 and wrote home about it in a series of letters. Her "Letter to a Friend," dated April 1, 1717, is the most renowned of these letters. To build immunity to the disease, researchers put live smallpox virus in the pus from a mild smallpox outbreak and injected it into the scraped skin of a previously uninfected person's arm or leg. As a result, the inoculate would get a weaker case of smallpox than they may have gotten otherwise. Lady Mary, in the outcome, was on her way to a solution.
Lady Mary was infected with smallpox. She got her children immunized to safeguard them from the same calamity. When she returned to London, she avidly advocated the procedure but was met with strong opposition from the medical community. It all started when "Mary Wortley Montagu began sending home letters about her journey across Europe to Turkey, both the epistles and Montagu herself became the targets of critical scrutiny"(McQuigge) . According to her letter, ingrafting was performed by elderly women who scratched or punctured the arm four or five times and inserted material extracted from smallpox blisters from patients with moderate symptoms of the disease. Lady Mary states:
A propos of distempers, I am going to tell you a thing, that will make you wish yourself here. The small-pox, so fatal, and so general amongst us, is here entirely harmless, by the invention of engrafting, which is the term they give it. There is a set of old women, who make it their business to perform the operation, every autumn, in the month of September, when the great heat is abated. (Montagu)
Lady Montagu was so committed to preventing the horrors of smallpox and so fascinated by the Turkish procedure that she had her 5-year-old son inoculated by a surgeon. Lady Montagu was so confident of variolation's usefulness in preventing the sickness that she pushed for clinical trials. Even though early successes were achieved, there was still a risk of death because inoculated patients were temporary smallpox carriers, and variolation might potentially transmit the illness. Variolation was used as a kind of smallpox immunization for at least another seventy years until Edward Jenner presented his vaccine, which entailed inoculating humans with cowpox to prevent smallpox infection.
At last, two pandemics occurred between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Pepys begins his diary during a pivotal period in British history. Pepys' diaries cover the months from when the plague first struck to when it was at its worst in September to when it was less of a concern in the winter. Pepys selected tobacco as the initial remedy for the plague outbreak. He was not at all sure if any treatment was working. As a result of the magnitude of the disease, which had practically spread across the entire Kingdom. The news of its deterioration became sadder by the day. Furthermore, in the seventeenth century, another terrible disease, smallpox, is introduced by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Even though Lady Mary recovered from smallpox in 1715, it was a highly contagious disease that killed one out of every four persons who came into touch with it. In March 1717, Lady Mary witnessed the technique of variolation, which she renamed engrafting. Until Edward Jenner presented his vaccine, variolation was used as a kind of smallpox inoculation for at least another seventy years. During the Enlightenment, Pepys and Montagu represented the illness by witnessing it and aiming to control it.
