Global contact and the emergence of public health, 1200-1700

¶ … 13th century, the world's civilizations -- by the most accurate of definitions -- were emerging from lower cultural and technological evolution to a higher plane of refinement. Thought, manners, life situations, and the like were being considered as important as survival.

From 1200 to 1600 AD, Europe demonstrated its emergent renaissance; France, Asia, Africa, and the Northern Hemisphere were sending explorers to uncharted territories and discovering wonders not yet conceived. Average citizens took control of personal destinies and global civilizations shrunk the world practically overnight. The end of the period of increased contact ushered the Industrial Revolution into the lifestyles of the largest countries in the world and with it entered competition. Marketplace dominance, intellectual pursuits, quality of life, and a longer life expectancy emerged as one result of ever-increasing contact with other nations.

Examples of Global Contact

In 1275, Marco Polo discovered "burning black rocks" while traveling through China. These rocks became known as coal and England embraced this new form of fossil fuel to the disregard of all others and the inevitable detriment of public health. The cloud of pollutants was so thick, Edward I forbad coal's burning during Parliamentary sessions -- to no avail.

From 1347 onward, the bubonic plague decimated Europe and genocidal Jewish pogroms were preceded by hysteria and superstitious ramblings about the causative factors.

France forced its butchers to dispose of animal remains outside the city and Ulrich Ellenbog began occupational disease awareness the world over. Italy began to develop a social climate of mining's occupational hazards in 1556 -- the harbinger of black lung and other diseases still in existence. Physicians the world over began to communicate with one another concerning the nature of nosocomial and infectious diseases; Girolamo Fracastoro outlined his 3 pronged theory in 1546 while German, Jewish, English, Chinese, and French medical practitioners began acknowledging that isolation and disinfection were paramount considerations when avoiding plague recurrences.

Scotland began contributing the cleaner burning anthracite in 1603 out of market demand for healthier ways to prevent death in the frigid climates of the world. The origins of epidemiology are rooted in the mid-1600's with the misguided but sincere study of mortality statistics; France regulated its forests for Navy usage and support; colonial American Jared Eliot introduced efficient husbandry by -- among other things -- teaching farmers how to plow green crops back into the soil for increased harvests and healthier topsoil; Paris learns from the water closet fiasco in England and becomes the first European culture with a sanitation system; and Turkey introduces smallpox vaccination techniques in 1721.

Disadvantages to Global Contact

Envy, greed, and 'social entitlement' emerged from the knowledge that others 'out there' had more, knew more, made more, lived more, and got more than they. As the world shrank and emergent technologies grew, the potentially healthy sense of competition turned into a pervasive lust for control, ownership, and power. Dominant world powers wanted more land, more serfs, more nations, more wealth, and more of everything.

Predictability

It is doubtful that the average middle-class working person would recognize the hazards of a world without boundaries. For example, colonists knew the only way to achieve the freedom of worship, thought, expression, and lifestyle they'd fled England to find, would be war. Cornwallis had to surrender at Yorktown in 1781 to end the largest of the battles between the two countries. Relinquishing American control was a very difficult thing for the British to endure. Certainly, loss of revenue played a part, but it is this writer's studied opinion that the nature of greed -- be it for owning property, money, possessions, power, or even other people -- is not lightly stilled.

The world is a miniature place today with the Information Age firmly entrenched about us; greed still lurks but in different forms and with differing agendas.

Summarily, therefore, it falls to each individual to know the world wherein lies our deepest happiness -- one of returning to an open, sharing culture where all may thrive, grow, and live.