Medical care in early modern Venice

Alex Bamji

Economic History Working Papers from London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History

Abstract: In early modern Venice, a wide range of people offered care, goods and services for the health of the city’s numerous inhabitants. This study utilises Venice’s civic death registers to assess when and why the sick and dying accessed medical care, and how this changed over the course of the early modern period. The detailed registers permit consideration of the profile of medical practitioners, key aspects of patient identity, the involvement of institutions in the provision of medical care, and the relationship between type of illness and the propensity of the sufferer to seek medical support. This study assesses the type, number, density and distribution of practitioners in the city. It demonstrates that recourse to medical care was largely determined by age, social status and type of illness. The lack of financial resources or family support did not preclude access to medical care, due to a web of institutions which offered care to a diverse clientele.

Keywords: age; death; medical care; medical practitioners; Venice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I11 I19 N30 N33 O14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2014-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-his
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:wpaper:56122

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