The England And Holland Of The Pilgrims

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The publisher of this book utilises modern printing technologies as well as photocopying processes for reprinting and preserving rare works of literature that are out-of-print or on the verge of becoming lost. This book is one such reprint. Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER HI THE SHADOWS IN THE PICTURE We are not to suppose that, because of their ignorance of all this as yet undiscovered science and art, the people of that day were conscious of a great lack waiting to be supplied. Within a century there had been a noticeable decline in material prosperity, accompanied by, and in some part the cause of, a decline of popular intelligence. The growing democratic tendency of the fifteenth century had been suppressed, and power had been concentrated in the Crown.1 With the resulting partial loss of the sense of personal responsibilily for the public welfare had come some loss of stimulus to personal intellectual growth. In some things the average Englishman of 1601 was not much in advance of his ancestors of the fifteenth century. The popular mind was crowded with crude, false and pernicious notions. It was at the mercy of honest delusion and, too often, of impudent empiricism. The condition of things may be indicated by an examination of two subjects having vital relation to the civilization of that time. Several causes peculiarly exposed people to dangerous distempers. They had but the most general notions of hygiene. Indeed, they had almost no understanding of the need of pure air, pure water and personal cleanliness.2 Andrew Boorde,3 afamous physician of the sixteenth century, advised people to wipe their faces daily with a scarlet cloth, and to wash them but once a week. Onyx was imagined to strengthen the heart, and ruby to protect from the plague and resist poison. Diamond also preserved from poison, yet, if taken inwardly, would be deadly. Tumors were to be reduced by being stroked with a dead man's hand. Pills from the powdered skull of a hanged man, water drunk from that of his victim, powdered mummy, scorpion oil, dried entrai...

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