With this ‘podwalk’, you’ll learn, literally stap by stap , about health in Aletta Jacobs’s time and today. The route takes you past historic sites, such as hidden guesthouses. There, you’ll discover all sorts of things you’ve certainly never heard of before. Did you know, for example, that the first person confirmed to have lived to the age of 110 was from Groningen? Our very own Geert Adriaans Boomgaard spent 35 years of his life in the Jacob and Anna Gasthuis. Boomgaard’s story shows that people in the past could also live to a very old age, provided they survived the critical early years of childhood. Would you ever have thought that possible?
You’ll also take a stroll through Het Nieuwe Kerkhof, for instance. Here, the history of the plague in Groningen becomes almost tangible, and there’s a rather grim notion that the grass here is raised because of all the plague victims buried there. There are many strange notions about the past. People think everything must have been filthy, and that people didn’t live past the age of thirty. But we can actually learn a great deal from the pre-modern era. For instance, people back then already knew that social contact was very important. The people protested against the isolation of the sick and the dead during times of the plague. This story actually served as a warning about the strict rules imposed during the coronavirus pandemic. It just goes to show once again that history holds wise lessons.
Fancy going on stap with Aletta? Visit the website and take a stroll through the history of health.
