Title: Healthcare Advancements of the 1700s - 18th Century History -- The Age of Reason and Change
Headings: Healthcare Advancements of the 1700s
Healthcare Advancements of the 1700s
Nutrition
Glasses
Vaccines
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Content: The preventative care many people take for granted now has helped decrease infant mortality rates, save people from preventable illnesses, and has removed simple but debilitating inconveniences that people dealt with for hundreds of years. Nutrition
Up until the mid-1700s, thousands of seamen died of scurvy during each voyage due to the large amount of physical labor and lack of well balanced diet available to sailors. In 1747, Scottish Naval Surgeon James Lind discovered that scurvy was preventable by citrus fruit intake. In 1754, his book Treatise of Scurvy was published, which identified the simple solution for avoiding the common and deadly disease, which ended the era of an easily preventable sickness. Although the book was published in 1754, it took some time for the information to spread, and almost 50 years before lemon juice became a requirement to be carried on ships. Glasses
Up until the 1200’s, people with poor eyesight simply dealt with their shortcomings. Finally, glasses were invented, which gave people the chance to be unhindered by their eyesight, which was enough for the next 500 years until the 1760s, when Benjamin Franklin invented bifocals. Although there is some speculation about who invented bifocals, Franklin is ultimately given credit. Bifocals are able to accommodate presbyopia, which happens when the crystalline lens of the eye ages and becomes less flexible and unable to change focus. Bifocals provide presbyopic patients with lenses that help people to see up close and far, which make it much easier for people see clearly without carrying around multiple pairs of glasses.