h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Who treated illnesses during the renaissance - A9526890
Author: MagicJim - U3263821

trying again to make an acceptable entry

Wondering if theres anything else that needs adding

Hi there!

This is an interesting start, but I do think it needs quite a bit more fleshing out. Because we already have an Edited Guide entry on the history of modern medicine that has quite a nice section on the Renaissance, your entry will need to add something above and beyond what is already in that other entry (A600418).

I do think this is a good topic for an entry, but I think that each group of practitioners you mention needs quite a bit of expanding upon. For example, for the physicians, were these located mostly in the big cities, and were they more expensive, or were they available to all people? What was the training like? What sort of people ended up in this field? Was university-training for physicians a new concept during this period, or had it been around for awhile? People may not be familiar with the four humours, so explain those as well.

Each of the other sections could be similarly expanded upon. Oh, and I think what you refer to as a "wise woman" is probably what is more commonly called a "village midwife", yes?

Oh, and just so you know, there's no need to remove your entry from the workshop once you've received some comments. The idea is to submit an entry, receive feedback, post back here in the thread when you've worked on the entry to address the feedback, and then people come and give you more comments.



Mikey

Thanks!

Attempted an improvement

Still wondering if anythings still needed

It's pretty normal around here for it to take people a bit to come back and respond -- I know that I try to get back to people within a day, but oftentimes it's a few days before I have the time.

Anyway, this is a definite improvement!

Next, would you be willing to format this in GuideML, so that it could easily have headers and links and the like? You don't have to, but it would make the entry a bit easier to read, and might atract more commenters once this is ready to submit to Peer Review.

Along with that, it would be good to add some links to other reliable places on the net that discuss this topic. For example, this link looks interesting and useful:

http://www.open2.net/renaissancesecrets/patient_options.html

Thanks Again

My $0.02 worth...

It's a decent start, but it's still missing some things. One missing factor is that witch burning was being practiced during the Renaissance in Europe. One of the many worries a local "wise woman" would have is that if she failed to cure a patient (especially a prominent member of the community) she ran the risk of being labeled a witch. The near universal respect given towards Jewish doctors is also missing. While the Inquisition was thriving during this time, this didn't stop the nobles of Europe from using Jewish doctors. The fact that court Jews were given such standing caused a trickle down effect towards Jewish physicians amoung commoners, despite any religious ill will they may have held. The same can be said of Moorish doctors. While far less common in Europe than Jews, Moors had a much better grasp of effective techniques than most europeans of the time.

Thanks for the info but unfortunately I know very little about moorish and jewish physicians of the time so I think I had better change the title to something more appropriate instead