Part 2: Summarizing Central Ideas about Elizabethan England

Elizabethans do not understand infection and contagion as we do. It is not that they are completely ignorant as to how illnesses spread—physicians believe they know perfectly well—it is rather that their understanding is very different from ours. The principal ideas underpinning most Elizabethan medical thinking come from Galen, who lived in the second century A.D. Physicians will cite him as an unquestionable authority when they explain to you that your health depends on a balance of the four humors: yellow bile or choler, black bile, phlegm, and blood. -The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England, Ian Mortimer What is the central idea of this passage?

Elizabethans believed that health depended on the balance of the four humors.

In such circumstances [poor harvest], storage of food is most important. The principal rule is to have separate places for different types of commodity: dry things can be kept in a pantry with bread and dry linen; wet things are normally stored in the buttery. Wine and meat must be kept apart, and cellars should be avoided on account of their dampness. Meat should be seethed in summer to keep it fresh, then kept in a cool cellar, soaked in vinegar with juniper seeds and salt. Most yeomen will have vats and presses for making cheeses—a valuable source of protein in the long winter season. Similarly, most livestock owners have troughs for salting meat or allowing it to steep in brine. -The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England, Ian Mortimer What is the central idea of this passage?

Elizabethans had to be very careful about properly preserving and storing food.

Serious though influenza and malaria are, they are not the biggest killers of the age. That title belongs to the plague or "pestilence." No one knows precisely how many die over the course of the reign but the total is probably around 250,000. In 1565 the people of Bristol count up the plague victims for that year and arrive at the figure of 2,070, almost 20 percent of the population. Ten years later, after another deadly outbreak, they record a further 2,000 fatalities. -The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England, Ian Mortimer How does the passage expand on the central idea "large numbers of Elizabethans died from illness and disease"?

It clarifies that the plague was the biggest killer in Elizabethan England.

How do these humors get out of balance? This is where the overlapping ideas of Elizabethan medicine might leave you a little confused. By far the most important cause is divine intervention. People believe that illnesses may be sent to punish them for a sin—or simply because God wants them to die and go to Heaven. Some hold that God, by sending them an illness, is giving them a chance to atone for some previous transgression through suffering, and so they are thankful for their affliction. -The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England, Ian Mortimer How does the passage develop the central idea "Elizabethans believed that health depended on the balance of the four humors"?

It explains that Elizabethans believed that divine intervention caused imbalanced humors.

What can you do to avoid the plague? The answer is: very little. Although there are no fewer than twenty-three medical treatises dedicated to it by 1600, including hundreds of recipes for medicines, none of them will help you. Nor will perfuming your room and airing it with fire save you—despite this being the official advice of the College of Physicians. -Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England, Ian Mortimer How does the passage expand on the central idea "the plague was the biggest killer in Elizabethan England"?

It explains that many people died because medicines and medical practices were not effective.

It is easy to write the line "people starve to death"; it is much harder to deal with the harsh reality. But you need to understand this point, if only to see how little choice you might have in what you eat. The itinerant poor might literally die in the street. The following examples show how famine hits the Cumberland parish of Greystoke. Here "a poor fellow destitute of succor" is found in the highway and is carried to the constable's house, where he dies. A miller's daughter dies in her bed, weakened from lack of food. -The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England, Ian Mortimer How does the passage develop the central idea "food was valuable due to the limitations of local resources"?

It explains that the poor starved to death as a result of a shortage in the food supply.

Perhaps the most difficult thing to come to terms with is the scale of death. Influenza, for example, is an affliction which you no doubt have come across. However, you have never encountered anything like Elizabethan flu. It arrives in December 1557 and lasts for eighteen months. In the ten-month period August 1558 to May 1559 the annual death rate almost trebles to 7.2 percent (normally it is 2.5 percent). More than 150,000 people die from it—5 percent of the population. This is proportionally much worse than the great influenza pandemic of 1918-19 (0.53 percent mortality). Another familiar disease is malaria, which Elizabethans refer to as ague or fever. You might associate this with more tropical countries of the modern world but in marshy areas in sixteenth-century England, such as the Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire Fens, the Norfolk Broads, and Romney Marsh in Kent, it kills thousands. -The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England, Ian Mortimer What is the central idea of this passage?

Large numbers of Elizabethans died from illness and disease.

There is no concept of "health and safety" in Elizabethan England, so you will inevitably feel vulnerable when you arrive. Nauseating smells and sights will assail your senses; contemporary standards of cleanliness will worry you. People die every day from unknown ailments, the young as often as the old. Infectious diseases periodically kill thousands within a few weeks. -The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England, Ian Mortimer What is the central idea of this passage?

Remaining healthy in Elizabethan England was a challenge.

Think about the central ideas in "Hygiene, Illness, and Medicine." Write three to four sentences that summarize the chapter.

Sample Response: In "Hygiene, Illness, and Medicine," Ian Mortimer points out that Elizabethan medicine was unsophisticated compared to modern medicine. A commonly held belief was that a body's humors directly affected health, so sick people were treated accordingly. Due in part to the medical practices and beliefs of the time, illnesses and diseases, such as influenza, malaria, and the plague, spread rapidly, killing thousands.

But you still have producers holding back corn supplies, even though hoarding is forbidden by law. In Stratford in 1597 seventy-five townsmen are found guilty of hoarding corn . . . . Worse than this, "engrossers" buy up all the local supply of an important commodity, such as eggs or butter, in order to drive up the price. In the 1590s certain unscrupulous businessmen buy up to twenty thousand pounds of butter—and this is disastrous because it is an important part of people's diet. Combined with hoarding, this has dramatic consequences for the poor. In some places the famine of 1594-97 proves as deadly as the plague of 1563. -The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England, Ian Mortimer Which statement best describes the interaction of central ideas in this passage?

The passage shows that when people purposely controlled the food supply, the poor were affected the worst.

What is the main topic of "Hygiene, Illness, and Medicine" from The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England?

medical practices and illness in Elizabethan England

Food is valuable in Elizabethan England, far more so than in the modern world. A flock of 180 sheep is worth more than the average detached house. The difficulties of transportation mean that the food supply depends heavily on what grows locally and how much surplus is available. It also depends on the season. Harvest is obviously a time of much grain and fruit. Animals are traditionally slaughtered on Martinmas (November 11) if the owner cannot afford to feed them through the winter. Even the availability of fresh fish depends on the season. There is no use in trying to buy fresh turbot in December if you are more than twenty miles from the coast: only in summer is sea fish carried to markets that far inland. -The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England, Ian Mortimer What is the topic of the paragraph?

the food supply in Elizabethan England