Did you know there was a time when infectious diseases like the common cold could kill you and your family? This was the Elizabethan era, probably the last time disease became the “grim reaper” before modern medical advances. With infectious diseases spreading and so many people dying, doctors were desperate. Since these doctors knew very little about medicine, they were perfectly willing to try experimental treatments on their patients (Alchin). Unfortunately, almost everyone with an infectious disease has died. All the knowledge these doctors knew was based on: Humors, what brain function controls each internal organ, and how to protect yourself from them. Furthermore, the basic knowledge that all these doctors knew was: There are only four elements in the world, each element represented a humor, and all four humors are balanced in the human body. Humors are “natural body fluids. They correspond to the elements and have various qualities: cold, dry, hot and humid. (Ross) The four elements are: earth, air, water and fire. Humor for the land was black bile meaning melancholy or sad: black bile is actually the foam from the surface of blood. The humor of air is blood which means sanguine or lustful. Water humor can disgust people... it's phlegm meaning phlegmatic or lazy. Finally the humor of fire is yellow bile which means capricious or angry - yellow bile is also anger (Ross). All four humors are supposed to be in balance, causing disease if one of the humors was out of balance (Alchin). As stated previously, doctors of that era believed that a person would become ill if one of the humors was out of balance. To restore balance, doctors would bleed patients. The bloodletting was not done with leeches but with a bowl and a prickly needle... in the middle of paper... coffin. The rich provided the black clothes for their invited guest (McKenzie). This helped prevent a guest from offending her clothing choices. To conclude, the medicine of that time was so sad that death was inevitable. They couldn't blame the doctors or even themselves for the cause of all these illnesses because they really didn't know what to do. Doctors were experimenting and taking lives, but not learning from their ineffective practices like bloodletting or leeching. Religion was probably the best possible choice for that time. Works Cited Ross, Maggi “Science and Health” Elizabethan.org/. Np, March 26, 2008 Web January 17, 2014Alchin, Linda. “Elizabethan Medicine and Diseases” www.elizabethan-era.org. UNITED KINGDOM. NP May 16, 2012 Web. January 17, 2014McKenzie, Eleanor. “Funeral Rites and Customs in Elizabethan England” Classroom.synonym.com/Demand Media Web January 20 2014