Death, disease and violence in Shakespeare's time.

1. Death, Disease and Violence
By Anna, Patrick and Arianna

2. Wars, Plots and Uprisings
• Irish Revolt – Nine Years’ War
• Gunpowder plot
• Enclosure riots
• Anglo-Spanish War
• Babington Plot - Mary Queen of Scots
• Ridolfi Plot, Throckmorton Plot
• Essex Rebellion – staged an ‘ill will’ stirring play
• Bye Plot

3. Fighting
• Every upper/middle class boy required to
learn fencing
• Joust Tournaments
• Archery, wrestling, hunting, hawking
• Bear and Bull baiting, dog and cock fighting

4. Torture
• The Rack
• The Scavenger's Daughter
• The Collar
• The Iron Maiden
• Branding Irons
• The Wheel
• Thumbscrews
• The Gossip's Bridle or the Brank
• The Drunkards Cloak
• Ducking stools
• The Pillory and the Stocks

5. Punishments
• Criminals might be chained to the banks of the
Thames
• Whipping, Cutting, Branding and Burning with
hot irons, Pressing, Boiling in oil water or
lead, Starvation in a public place, Cutting off
various items of the anatomy - hands, ears etc

7. Highwaymen
• By the middle of Elizabeth’s reign, the authorities
were showing alarm at the increasing use of
pistols by highway robbers.
• King Henry IV, Part One, in which one of the main
characters is the highway robber Sir John Falstaff.
In Falstaff and his associates, Shakespeare
thoroughly debunked the idea that there is
anything brave or admirable about committing
robbery.
• English highwaymen behaved, or tried to
behave, like gentlemen

8. Death
• Doctors still treated people based on ‘humours’, a
lot of which was based on astrology
• More used to death than they are now
• A normal man would die at around his 40th
birthday
• Shakespeare lived to 52, but many of his plays
where based on the prevalence of death around
him
• It is thought Hamlet is based on the death of his
only son Hamnet

9. Major Diseases
Typhus
Chlolera
Malaria
Syphilis
Plague

10. Disease
Bubonic Plague
- Repeated outbreaks
- Transmitted by fleas living on rodents
- Both people living in towns and on farms were at risk
of catching the Black Death
- The cause was unknown, they were therefore unable
to cure it
- Bad hygiene increased the spreading
- In 1593, around 20,000 people died of the disease
- Those with the disease were confined with their
houses

11. Disease
Symptoms
• Acral gangrene: Gangrene of the extremities such
as toes, fingers, lips and tip of the nose
• Chills
• General ill feeling
• High fever (39 °Celsius; 102 °Fahrenheit)
• Muscle cramps
• Seizures
• Painful lymph gland swelling called a bubo
• Skin color changes

12. Disease
Treatment
• Several classes of antibiotics are effective in treating
bubonic plague.
• Mortality associated with treated cases of bubonic plague
is about 1–15%, compared to a mortality rate of 40–60% in
untreated cases.
• People potentially infected with the plague need
immediate treatment and should be given antibiotics
within 24 hours of the first symptoms to prevent death.
• Other treatments include oxygen, intravenous fluids, and
respiratory support.
• People who have had contact with anyone infected by
pneumonic plague are given prophylactic antibiotics.

13. Disease
• The bubonic plague really tested the medical
knowledge at the time.
• Ignorant of the disease, doctors typically prescribed
anything from amulets to sweet-smelling things.
• In an attempt to slow the disease's spread, regulations
were passed. One was to temporarily close all London
theaters when the death rate was high. People
believed this would help to prevent human contact.
• Another policy was to kill cats and dogs. Since there
were few cats around to hunt rats, which carried the
fleas that carried the plague, the bubonic plague was
not hindered.