Matilda Bone The Bonesetter

The book ‘Matilda Bone’ by Karen Cushman is a historical fiction noble. Matilda Bone describes the theme of lack of hygiene, basic medical knowledge and religion values. Matilda goes on a personal journey and spiritual which she meets new people around her and realizes that she is useful to other people not useless. This book took place in Middle Ages. Matilda was desperate and sad however later, she turns into a happy and joyful girl. In the Middle Ages, there was lack of hygiene. The lack of hygiene made one third of people died in England. They usually got diseases for not cleaning themselves and not cleaning the floors. The author Karen Cushman described the hygiene as natural sources such as cow dung or drinking yurin and mixing with the grass using as medication. This tells us that they were far behind the medical knowledge too. By having less medical knowledge, there were many sick people in middle ages.

In the book, there were many patients who were sick, had eye problems and other many illness. That describes how bad the hygiene was and the basic medical knowledge in the Middle Ages. The man who had eye problem was because probably he had not eaten healthy food like carrots that helps eye better. I think the eye problem was caused because of the environment and they probably didn’t know that what food helped eyes to improve. They usually got diseases and got sick because they didn’t know what to do. If they don’t know what to eat or when they hurt somewhere, they would just leave it because there wasn’t anyone who knew the answer. When you read the book, Matilda runs over and over to the wise man and asks question so she gets the answer and tells what the patient should eat. Hopelessly, that didn’t help any better. That kept the same and the medication that the wise man told was yucky so the patient could not eat properly. One thing that kept them clean was soap. The soap was invented during the Middle Ages and it kept them safe later on.

During the Middle Ages, religion was very important and valued to them. Matilda kept going to the church and believed in Saints and God. She kept praying and praying for help and to help people. Even socially, she showed people that she is religious and value her religion as she puts what the saint said to her or what she believes in. When unlucky things happened to her or her friends, she asked Saints and God for help until her help became in real.

In conclusion, we can see that the biggest problem in Middle Ages that caused people die and become sick was the lack of hygiene and the basic medical knowledge. We can also know that they valued religion highly and very religious even the peasants and very low-classed people worship God highly.