During the Elizabethan Era, the Bubonic plague, Typhus, Malaria, Syphilis, and Smallpox, were some very new and extremely dangerous diseases to the people in Europe. These diseases resulted in many deaths and injuries. They needed to slow down or cure these diseases before they wiped out England. So they trained doctors. Doctors such as physicians, apothecaries, and surgeons.
Physicians were the ones who diagnosed the many diseases at the time. "The physicians of the Elizabethan period were men of good education. Their degrees were generally taken abroad and were then incorporated at Oxford or Cambridge. A very thorough examination had to be passed before licenses were granted for practicing in the metropolitan area. The college was less severe about licenses to practice in the country"(Shakespeare & Elizabethan Medicine and Doctors). Physicians were very well educated on diseases they have seen before, but during this era many new diseases had arisen. "Physicians were covered in clothing from head to toe to protect them for coming down with a serious illness. They wore long, dark robes with pointed hoods, leather gloves and boots, and a mask with a long beak that contained special oils that allowed them to breath the same air as the patient without becoming sick. They even had rituals to protect them from illnesses. They would wear amulets of dried blood and dried toads around their waists as well as douse themselves in vinegar and chew angelica. As weird as their customs seem today, they actually worked in protecting against the sickness"(Elizabethan Medicine and Illnesses). Out of these three doctors, the physician saw them first, they didn't know how sick the patients, but were they were protecting themselves from sickness. "Medicine in this era was very basic. Physicians had no idea to what was causing everyone to become sick. They based their beliefs on the teachings of the philosophers Aristotle and Hippocrates, and astrology.
