hi everyone welcome to this revision video for GCSE history people's health on the early modern period in this video we're going to talk about living conditions in the early modern period we're also going to look at a case study of responses to the plague in the early modern period we're also look at the great plague in London of 1665 and then we're going to look at responses um in terms of public health during the early modern period and in particular we're going to look at the gin craze so let's find out more so it's just a reminder of the key themes uh in terms of people's health impact of living conditions response to epidemics improving public health and then the key factors beliefs attitudes and values local and national government science and technology urbanization and wealth and poverty so let's delve into the early modern period so in terms of the specification these are the things you need to know so you need to know cultural social and economic changes including the growth of towns um overview of that changing living conditions so for living conditions in early modern you need to know about housing food clean water and waste responses to outbreaks of plague including national plague orders and also local reactions and then the impact of local and national government on public health including measures to improve the urban environment and the government response to the gin craze these are some key words that you'll come across for early modern people's health and alderman member of an English council bubonic plague cess pits colonies contagion dur dung hills dissentry guilds influenza middling sort plague doctor raka rates typhus and a water closet okay okay so it's a good idea to know some key features of the early modern period just to place yourself within this time period so in terms of farming and food which were linked to living conditions bad harvest could still lead to hunger but by 1750 improvements to farming methods meant more people could be fed there were a series of famines in the mid 1590s there was some more in the 1620s actually which led to malnourishment and a little bit of starvation but in a nutshell you were much less likely to starve in the early modern period than you would in medieval time times towns and trade we have more urbanization towns definitely grow in size become more crowded mines open in the northeast of England and coal for people's fires was shipped to London by 1750 new products such as sugar and tobacco were being traded um due to the expansion of the empire the East India Company and the slave trade the Great Fire of London led to London being rebuilt after 1666 in terms of beliefs attitudes and values the country was still Catholic in 1500 but by 1750 it was Protestant most of the wealth of the church was taken by the government in the dissolution of the monasteries the monasteries are closed down puritans did build ale arms houses not ale houses puritans would wouldn't have built ale houses puritans built arms houses for the poor and old ideas like the theory of the four humors and myasma continued okay so alcohol was a problem in the early modern period ale houses grew rapidly during the time period and cheap alcohol from abroad such as gin meant that alcohol abuse became even more of an issue in society in terms of technology uh we had some new discoveries people began to search for a scientific way of understanding the world um in the so-called Renaissance and in the 1660s um Robert Hook developed a powerful microscope the Renaissance led to a rebirth of learning and new discoveries although these did not always have an immediate impact on people's health a really important change actually took place at the end of the medieval period but it's the printing press but this was highly significant within the early modern period because it allowed new ideas and books and pamphlets to spread rapidly and it enabled things to happen like the Elizabeth and plague orders parliament had become more powerful than the monarch by 1750 Parliament began to make new laws that affected different aspects of people's lives such as the Elizabeth and Paul law to help out um with poverty during this time period now during the early early modern period there was increased urbanization with London becoming the largest and busiest city in Europe the population rose from 120,000 in around about 1550 to 375,000 by 1650 now the great plague of 1665 hit the city of London hard it killed between 70,000 and 100,000 Londoners with 1,000 people dying a day at its height so in terms of diet in early modern times the diet for the rich they ate large quantities of meat and fish new food types from overseas trade and colonization such as peppers chilies tomatoes and potatoes they would eat white bread which is not expensive and some fruit and vegetables they would drink wine um ale um would drink much more obviously than water the rich actually enjoyed fine wine from France or Spain and the rich enjoyed feasts and had banqueting houses to enjoy sugar treats but they meant that the diet was about 80% protein which led to some digestive problems and some of the rich suffered from gout which caused severe joint pain in terms of diet for the poor they ate bread vegetables pottage um occasional opportunities to eat eggs cheese fish and meat particularly during religious festivals this meant the diets of poorer people were in some ways healthier but their diet lacked vitamin C and iron which you would get from things like meat um there were periods of hunger and starvation due to bad harvest for the very poor there's a widespread famine 1623 to 1624 but generally famine was less common than medieval times so in terms of similarity and difference there's a few things there just to be aware of in terms of diet in early modern times as well richer families enjoyed exotic foods that were brought in from the Americas including peppers turkeys chilies and tea and chocolate of course the religious custom of eating fish on Fridays continued in the early modern period early modern people um also believed that what you ate affected your health some people believed eating fruit made you fart others thought fruit caused the plague by 1750 there were over 500 coffee houses in London and the increase in sugar in the diet led to bad teeth and obesity of course Elizabeth the first famously had terrible uh teeth from all the sugar she ate now when you're thinking about housing in early modern times if you if you study Elizabeth and frob you'll be really familiar with best of hardwick and the idea of the Elizabeth and prodigy houses and that enables the rich to live a life of luxury so best of Hardwick for example built Hardwick Hall in 1597 lots of chimneys and glass hardwick Hall more glass than wall and that compared very much to the homes of the poor who were living pretty much in houses that were pretty much um like medieval homes so many of the poor lived in poor quality housing which had changed little from medieval times they were dark cold and damp with often only one room there was no glass in the windows and no chimneys making smoke fill the room um like peasant houses poor people's houses during this time would be very dark for example and uh not very nice at all um so rich people lived in Grand Elizabeth and prodigy houses whereas the poor still lived in tiny cottages with a little natural light the rich had glass in their windows whereas the poor had simple shutters over very small windows no glass or chimneys so though in some ways life seemed to be getting healthier there were many health dangers lurking in the towns and this is the key factor of urbanization you know we've got the growth of London during this time but we've got bigger towns during this uh early modern period as well so meat sold at the market would rot very quickly and animals roamed the streets and animal poo could spread bacteria respiratory or lung diseases were caused by burning wood and coal in open fires coal was increasingly burned from the 17th century all houses had an open fire which created soot dust and smoke which people breathed in as they walked the streets accommodation was crowded and damp and that resulted in breathing difficulties and lung problems as well as towns grew streets became more and more overcrowded many animals roamed the streets like dogs sheep and cats there also lots of rats which would help bring about the many plague outbreaks during this period streets were unpaved and could become muddy tracks when it rained animal waste would mix in with the mud and rainwater so we're just going to have a look at water supply in the early modern period and compare that between rich and poor so in terms of water supply in some towns companies piped water to houses but that was very expensive water could also be bought from a water seller now one big change was that in 1609 Hugh Middleton built a quote new river bringing spring water 38 miles from the countryside outside London to a reservoir in Islington supplying 30,000 homes in the city people paid four times a year to be connected but the water was still fairly dirty when you compare it to modern standards in terms of poor people they collected water from uh free public water fountains called conduits or they bought water from a water seller if they could afford to do so but that was often not even really as as you know any better really than the water they're getting from the conduits in terms of keeping clean for the rich people servants wash clothes bathtubs were used using water heated by fire so they could have baths although they wouldn't obviously clean as much as say we would today they also used soap which made them olive oil for use on the skin poor people would bathe in a river they used um brushes on their skin which was known as dry washing but the poor tend to be quite dirty and covered in lice and that would lead to diseases like typhus which is spread by lice so in terms of similarity and difference it's much easier for a rich person to stay clean than a poor person a rich person could now benefit from cleaner pipe water than a poor person however the pipe water was nothing like as clean as our water today but most people would still drink small beer which was a weak ale during this time period yeah and there's just a little picture of Hugh Middle's reservoir built in 609 to bring water to London in terms of dealing with waste in the early modern period um household waste scavengers or rakers collected ash food waste and sweepings from houses once or twice a week and there were dung hills outside the towns so household waste was effectively dealt with and rakers sold the waste to market gardeners in terms of uh we and pooh you're in an excrement the flushing toilet was invented in 1596 by Sir John Harrington but it only became popular towards the middle of the 18th century the flushing toilet was very expensive and only for the very rich who had access to water and drains privies emptied into rivers if built nearby or over them um these are sometimes known as jakes most privies emptied into a cess pit which often overflowed samuel Peeps the diarist in the 1660s complained of stepping into a quote great heap of turds which leaked into his cellar from his neighbor's cespit cespits tended to be emptied every year or two by scavengers which was very expensive and poorer people emptied their own created dung hills and back alleys and yards so little change really from medieval times prives pits polluted rivers and wells and piles of excrement could build up in gardens yards and alleyways which spread disease okay we're now going to look at response to epidemics which for the early modern period is the great plague now there are many outbreaks of plague in the years after 1348 particularly in towns the plague increasingly becomes a disease of the towns and in 1665 London suffered a devastating blow from the great plague the most terrible outbreak of the disease um and was an epidemic the great plague epidemic struck towns and villages in 1666 and 1667 and then never returned to England afterwards this time period saw many significant changes in people's health and many examples of continuity so people lived in fear of the plague until around the year 1667 when there was no more plague uh and as we've seen there were serious outbreaks of pl of plague in this period and it was mostly now disease of towns with the most serious one being in London the great plague and plague plague was terrifying because it was frequent the symptoms were terrible and many people died it could kill around 10% of a community sometimes as much as a third people still did not know what caused the plague so there was great continuity in people's approach to the plague people still believed that disease was God's punishment for sin the myasma theory was still accepted those myasma ultras all around modern period believing in myasma by the end of the early modern era scientists began to think that close contact or contagion with an infected person may be the real cause but they did not fully understand why and still connected this with my asthma so plague increasingly disease of towns epidemics would hit once every 20 years or so but the disease was not quite as severe as it had been in medieval times so let's look at national responses to outbreaks of plague well one of the first big things is say that isolation increasingly becomes a key method of tackling the plague this comp combined with plague orders made national government responses far more effective than they have been in medieval times so in the year 1518 during the rule of Henry the e new rules were brought in to isolate plague victims their own houses and identify them straw was hung outside infected houses to identify people and anyone leaving a house had to carry a white stick they also isolated people in pest houses outside the city walls there was limited effectiveness as the orders were not enforced in 1578 during the rule of Elizabeth I there were plague orders now there were 17 orders including recording the spread of the disease financial help for the sick and burning of victims clothing and bedding streets and alleys were to be cleaned thoroughly no dogs cat p cats pigeons allowed in the streets funerals at dusk to reduce those attending barrels of tar to be burned in the streets that of course links with myasma plague sufferers and the healthy who lived in the same house were quarantined isolated away from others for at least six weeks special prayers were said to ask for God's forgiveness now this was effective in reducing the spread of the disease although it isolated the healthy with the sick and that was criticized at the time the connection between dirt and disease was slowly being made but no understanding of germs but there was still the belief in God there responses were coordinated due to the plague orders now the printing press is absolutely crucial for plague orders because these orders can be um put up on paper and and displayed around town so people know what they need to do in6004 during the rule of King James I the plague act increased financial help for the families of the sick city and town watchmen could use harsh punishments to enforce the policy of isolation and there were harsher punishments imposed if a victim left isolation a plague victim who left their house and mingled with other people could be hanged so that's effective in terms of punishments including death for those leaving isolation and it reduced the spread of of the disease as people stayed um in isolation because the harsh punishments made isolation more effective but people still did not know that plague was spread by fleas and rats so by the early 17th century there was more help and support being provided for the sick this combined with harsh punishments for breaking the rules mirrored the Elizabeth and approach to poverty which we saw with the Elizabeth and poor law if you've done the Elizabethans now in terms of local government reactions were often more effective in Yarmouth the local authorities banned pigs dogs and cats from infected streets the village of EM in Darbasher quarantined itself in 1665 to stop the spread of the plague to nearby Sheffield 75% of the population of Eim died but it did save Sheffield from the plague some towns like Cambridge only allowed strangers into the city if they had a certificate of health and many towns produced bills of mortality which would detailed records of plague deaths and there's a plaque outside Rose Cottage in Ian there where nine members of the Thorp family died from the plague in 1665 so how do individual people respond to the plague well people go to church in the early modern era nearly everyone believed in God so people prayed that God would take away the plague people went to church they lit candles and used holy water similar to the approach in medieval times however as England was now Protestant they did not go on pilgrimage barefoot like they had done in medieval times people ran away or um and only the rich though could leave an infected town most people had to stay and deal with the disease as best they could this was because more people believed in the idea of contagion although they did not understand that germs cause disease so people did try and stay away from others and the rich would leave infected towns for the countryside people tried to find a cure there was no shortage of people claimed to invented a cure plague doctors used sweet smelling posies to fight against my asthma smoking tobacco became more popular as people um thought smoke tackled the myasma and people used apothecarries to find potions to cure the plague and apothecary is basically a place where you can get kind of medicines um in the early modern period people avoided the sick it became a sensible option to avoid people who are contaminated sometimes um there was racist attitudes and foreign immigrants were blamed for the plague people did not usually abandon their families though they did stay together and prayed that they would survive now another new thing in terms of treating the plague in the early modern period is the plague doctor would wear a black would wear a black leather hat to show they were a doctor red glass eyes to protect the wearer from evil and bad air the beak was filled with sweet oils petals and herbs to disguise bad air such as rotten bodies and there was a wooden stick to move dead bodies and examine living ones without having to touch them clothing made of wax leather was used to cover as much of the doctor as possible to protect them from the disease okay we're now going to look at the Great Plague in London in 1665 and look at approaches to treatment attempts to stop its spread so the plague returned to England throughout the 17th century the great plague was the last major epidemic to hit England and it came to England in 1665 and it actually killed 100,000 people in London no and you know across England it's mainly combined to London to be honest what did people believe caused the great plague well there is a lot of continuity in beliefs about what caused disease people still believed in astrology and the alignment of the planets they still believed it was a punishment from God to cleanse sins there was still some people believing in the four humors still people believing in myasma bad air from rotten food and waste and the idea of persontoerson touch was a slightly kind of newer idea so prevention and treatment of the plague while prayers were recited but probably a big difference from what was happening with the black death in 1348-49 was that plague victims were quarantined for 28 days and the door was painted with a cross with the words Lord have mercy on us so again we've got that sense of religion there people encouraged to have a commander which is a ball containing perfumed herbs due to the bad air the myasma fasting took place some people changed their diet such as eating garlic played doctors treated patients wearing a bird-like mask with sweet smelling herbs inside to ward off my asthma and people smoke tobacco as well to ward off my asthma prevention and treatment of the plague there's a lot more done uh by the government to deal with the plague in 1665 if you think in 1348 we had this sort of rather weak order from King Edward the third to clean up the streets was actually 1349 he made the order um the mayor of London published orders to deal with the plague now this idea of plague orders had first come in during the rule of Elizabeth the first actually in the late 16th century but it's used a lot in 1665 and of course you know having things like the printing press enable plague orders to uh to happen so these are like orders that are printed and put up around uh the uh city to um tell people what they should be doing so it banned public meetings funerals and fairs theaters bear baiting arenas and taverns that's like a pub were closed down streets were cleaned and barrels of tar were burned again that's an approach for myasma stray cats and dogs were ordered to be killed 40,000 dogs estimated and 200,000 cats were killed searchers were appointed to monitor the spread of disease and clear victims bodies from towns and the mayor of London ordered watchmen to guard houses to make sure people stayed inside their houses during quarantines bills of mortality also kept records of who died in each parish and how they died so the actual disease could be tracked and of course that provides a brilliant source for historians to find out exactly what happened okay now one thing to be aware of is it was quite hard to enforce these uh plague orders so this was partly because parliament did not want to pass the laws as members of the house of lords did not want to get isolated in their homes uh many uh simply ignored the rules so plague symptoms did not get reported 20 watchmen um in London actually got murdered by people escaping from their houses when they were under quarantine king Charles II and his council left London they discussed what to do about the plague just three times in seven months which kind of shows they a lack of interest really from the king mostly they were concerned about the king's safety not the people's nine men were put in charge of dealing with the plague but six of them simply left London it was hard to find people to be watchmen and if they did some people simply use it as an opportunity to steal from the sick and many beggars and homeless people caught the plague but they still stayed in the streets begging for help so that would spread the plague further and this picture just shows you some of their different responses they had to the plague in London in 1665 um and obviously we've seen examples of all of those already okay okay so one thing that's quite good to prepare for is to be able to compare dealing with the great plague in London 1665 um with uh what happened with the black death in 1348 so there are some similarities um ideas about causes for example punishment from God imbalance of the four humor myasma and astrology we see that in both uh events and prayers preventions and treatments things like prayers going to church lighting candles and the fact there was some government action so Edward the third did order the mayor of London to clean the streets um in 1349 but there were some differences as well some new ideas about causes so personto person touch was believed in 1665 but really they had no clue um what was actually causing the great plague in 1665 that still didn't know about germs you know the germ theory of disease is is still going to be 200 years away it's not discovered until 1861 but where there is a major difference is in the prevention and treatments so we've got a lot more being done now so we've got quarantine for 28 days not really used in England formally in 1348 smoking tobacco local authorities the mayor of London did much much more such as appointing viewers and searchers the plague orders doing things like banning public meetings closing theaters and taverns so that's the the the big difference really lots of similarities in causes but lots of differences in terms of prevention and treatment so we're now going to look at the impact of government on public health so the first thing we're going to look at is local government in improving the urban environment so in the 16th century York was England's third city and the older men the local officials of York tried to keep the city clean people in York were told to clean the areas outside their houses twice a week people were not allowed to put waste out for scavengers until after 7 p.m and there was a fine system in York for any household which threw human waste into the street at night people were encouraged to empty cess pits nobody was allowed to block the gutters running down York's main street and privies could not be built over the stream that ran through the city and there's a picture of the shambles in York and this the shambles a traditional place where the butchers were and right in the middle um there would be like an open sewer open channel that would take waste down to um the river so pretty disgusting really to be honest okay now plague outbreaks stopped after 1670 and towns improved mainly for the rich so in London water companies uh brought piped water into people's home but only the rich could afford this from 1670 to 1750 local authorities improved town centers large houses were built for the rich and streets were lit with oil lamps london was rebuilt after the great fire of London of 1666 streets began to be um paved so you can see an example of a typical um street Fert Street in London around about the year 1750 but conditions did not improve in the poorer areas of towns privies and cespits and the health problems associated with them were a feature of life the poor still had to collect water from a conduit these changes more about improving the urban environment and for civic pride than actually improving um public health now another big public health problems are alcohol there was a huge increase in ale houses from 1550 town authorities made it illegal to sell um alcohol without a license by the 1630s attempts to control licenses had had a real impact then Puritans strict Protestants were against drinking alcohol they made pamphlets like the one you can see there about the evils of alcohol pubs were closed down in the 1650s during the rule of Oliver Cromwell if you've done the Elizabethans you'll know that Puritans were you know against kind of like alcohol and these kind of entertainments if you've done the Merry England inquiry for Elizabethans rum was a byproduct of the slave trade and became popular in Britain sailors were given a daily ration known as a tot of rum porter's ales and Guinness were very popular by the mid- 18th century the ales were darker and stronger than traditional ale but became popular so people drank large quantities of alcohol and that caused huge health problems now in the early 18th century the gin craze was a serious problem from the 1660s the gin craze meant that people were drinking spirits in London many drum shops as they were known as open selling brandy and gin now gin was initially imported from the Netherlands but Parliament banned imports in 1689 to encourage distillers people who make gin in England this led to gin becoming very cheap now because jin was very cheap it led to gin shops opening some people even sold it from barrows in the street by the 1720s jin was a social and health problem with poor people turning to it for escapism gin shops advertised drunk for a penny dead drunk for 2 p thousands of gin shops opened in sellers attics back rooms and even sheds jin was a cheap buzz which allowed the drinker to escape the harsh reality of their poverty-filled lives gin drinking led to an increase in crime ruined families and increased the death rate and many women as well as men became addicted to jin some women drank whilst pregnant leading to birth deformities and jin became known as the mother's ruin now one story to be aware of is that in 1734 a woman called Judith Defor killed her two-year-old daughter Mary so she could sell her clothes to buy Jin so again that reinforces the horrible social uh problems that Jyn was causing now the artist William Hogarth was a strong critic of the gin trade craz uh and gin trade in 1751 he produced his very famous engraving called Jin Lane which gave a realistic and horrifying picture of the evils of Jin the image shows of course a thin soldier with a basket containing a bottle and a note that reads the downfall of gin the slogan the gin shop reads "Drunk for a penny dead drunk for two pence clean straw for nothing implying that people could die." And if you look at this um image in in the background you can see absolute horrors of the gin gin uh kind of uh craze um and the buildings are all like in a in a sort of dilapidated state um and you can see there as well in the image a coffin kind of hanging down reinforcing the idea um that the coffin shops are doing well out of the gin trade so how does the government tackle the gin craze well it tries to take lots of different actions ale houses had to have a license in order to sell alcohol but that only has limited effect as there were many smaller ale houses which are not regulated people sometimes sold gin on the streets or in market stores the Gin Act of 1729 introduced a 20 pound license fee for sellers and a 5 shilling 25p tax per gallon for producers the 1729 act was impossible to enforce because of the huge number of small gin shops the Gin Act of 1736 increased the license fee to 50 and a producers tax to 20 shillings but the 1736 act failed because of similar reasons to the 1729 act rioting against this law there was and many people began distilling gin in their own homes illegally so this shows that how hard it was to actually act um to actually stop the gin craze because people were ignoring the rules and just acting illegally the Gin Act of 1743 restricted the sale of gin to ale houses which already sold beer ale and wine but that had little impact and by 1750 it's estimated that Londoners were drinking 11 million gallons of gin a year which is a lot finally though the Gin Act of 1751 imposed really harsh punishments on anyone selling illegal gin the 1751 act worked and consumption and the amount drunk fell so the gin cris shows it was difficult for the government to enforce changes to public health this was because many were addicted to alcohol and it was really hard to enforce the laws and remember there was no police force during this time either okay so thanks very much for listening to that GCSE history revision video on people's health and the early modern era hope you enjoyed that hope it's been useful and good luck with your exams bye-bye