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The single biggest problem with health in the Middle Ages was that no one understood the nature of disease vectors. The disease vectors are the things that can carry diseases, and they include such things as rats and fleas, air contaminated by people's coughing, shared eating utensils, polluted water, and unwashed hands. In the Middle Ages, a common idea was that diseases were born in bad air, and so people tried to eliminate odors as a way of preventing disease, but that did not work if the vector was fleas and rats.

In cities, people were packed closely together, and so the problem of disease spreading was made much worse than it might be in the countryside, especially where manors got their water from wells or springs, as many did.

Some of the problems commonly cited about health in the Middle Ages result from misunderstanding of the times, however. Medieval people were rather clean, especially when compared to people of the Renaissance and later times. They washed quite a lot because they regarded cleanliness as next to godliness. They also removed things that smelled because they believed the smell could cause disease to spread. The pipes we sometimes see from the medieval houses to the open sewers in the street were for gray water, not sewage, and there are records of fines being levied against people who left things that could rot out on the street.

Also, we should understand that the problems with health in cities of the Middle Ages did not go away until people understood how diseases were transmitted. Learning this took until the middle of the 19th century to start to happen, and is still going on today.

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13y ago
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13y ago

It affected them because people would be unhealthy and lack of knowledge, so it caused many deaths and illneses. Towns were very dirty places.

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Q: How did unhealthy living conditions and limited medical knowledge affect life n medieval towns?
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What was the living conditions in the medieval times?

The lives of all the classes, rich and poor, were dominated by the feudal system. People tended to live in small communities and there was a central lord or master. This arrangement was necessary for safety and for defense. As the populations of medieval towns and cities increased, the hygienic conditions began to worsen this lead to an increase in the rate of diseases. Medical knowledge was limited and limited health care was available to the common people. Antibiotics were not invented until the 1800s and it was almost impossible to cure diseases without them. The lifestyle of peasants in Medieval England was extremely hard and harsh. Many worked as farmers in fields owned by the lords and their lives were controlled by the farming year.


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What was the living conditions in the medieval times?

The lives of all the classes, rich and poor, were dominated by the feudal system. People tended to live in small communities and there was a central lord or master. This arrangement was necessary for safety and for defense. As the populations of medieval towns and cities increased, the hygienic conditions began to worsen this lead to an increase in the rate of diseases. Medical knowledge was limited and limited health care was available to the common people. Antibiotics were not invented until the 1800s and it was almost impossible to cure diseases without them. The lifestyle of peasants in Medieval England was extremely hard and harsh. Many worked as farmers in fields owned by the lords and their lives were controlled by the farming year.


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