C1250 - C1500 Flashcards
Ideas about the cause of disease
A punishment for sin To purify the soul or test faith Astrology (alignment of planets) Theory of the four humours (blood, phlegm, black bile and choler) Miasma Used urine charts in diagnosis
What influenced the continuity in ideas about the cause of disease
Individuals and the church:
Church controlled medical learning and book learning and they promoted the theory of the four humours.
Hippocrates and Galen were approved by the church and extremely popular
Science and technology
Lack of medical knowledge, people weren’t experimenting to explain new discoveries
1440 - printing press Johannes Gutenberg
Attitudes in society:
Very religious - did not criticise the church
Theory of the four humours (Galen and Hippocrates) knowledge
4 humours (blood phlegm black bile and choler)
Each humour was linked to certain characteristics which physicians would look for when carrying out diagnosis
Also linked with seasons and star signs and personality traits
All humours has to be kept balanced
Created by Hippocrates (Greek) in 5th century bce, the theory fitted with what he saw when he observed symptoms
Galen (in Ancient Rome) in 2nd century ce developed the idea - he had been a physician in gladiator school and later became the personal physician of the Roman emperor
He wrote 350 books by the time he died
Galen created the theory of opposites and theorised that the circulatory system circulated blood generated in the liver
Treatments of disease
Religious : Healing prayers Paying for a special mass Fasting Pilgrimages
Supernatural:
Chanting incarnations
Wearing amulets
Astrology
Humoural: Blood letting (cutting a vein, leeches or cupping) Purging (given an emetic or laxative) Herbal remedies Bathing
Prevention of disease
The church (be a good Christian and live free of sin)
Follow the regimen sanitatis
Diet
Purifying the air
Medical medics
Physicians - role was the diagnose and recommend treatment - they rarely treated the patients - they consulted urine charts, star charts and the humoural tendencies of the patient - very expensive
Apothecaries - mixed herbal remedies - quite cheap - sometimes made amulets and charms - frowned upon by the church sometimes
Surgeons
Barber surgeons - least qualified - sharp knifes - practiced blood letting and small surgeries
Some surgeons were highly trained
Hospitals and home treatment
By 1500 there were 1,100 hospitals in England
30% of the hospitals were owned and run by the church ( run by monks and nuns)
The rest were funded by an endowment
Did not acc treat the sick but focused on hospitality
Treatment was very limited because religious men were forbidden from cutting into the body
Infectious or terminal patients were often rejected
The home:
Women were expected to care for their families
Grow various plants with healing properties in the garden
Keep patient comfortable, prepare restorative foods and mix herbal remedies
The Black Death info
1348-49
Spread from the Far East, arriving in Sicily in 1348
Was an outbreak of the bubonic plague
Bacteria were carried in the digestive system of fleas a who arrived in England in rats by merchant ships
Symptoms included buboes, chest pains, fever and coughing up blood
Killed victims in 3-5 days
In London 200 people were being buried every day
A third of the population of England died
Causes of the Black Death
Punishment for sin
In 1345 there was an unusual positioning of the planets which was interpreted that something terrible was about to happen
Miasma
In Europe many people blamed the Jewish population
Treatments of the Black Death
Confess sins and seek forgiveness Blood letting didn’t seem to work Herbal remedies to drive off bad air Lanced buboes The lack of medical knowledge about what caused the disease meant it was impossible to know how to cure it
Preventing the Black Death
Pray, fast, pilgrimage, self-flagellation
Flee to escape the plague
Carry flowers and herbs to ward off bad air
Avoid bathing (opens pores to bad air)
Avoid those infected
Government action:
New quarantine laws put in place
People new to an area had to stay away from people for 40 days
Banned large crowds of people gathering (preaching and religious processions)
Streets stoped being cleaned - they through the foul stench would drive off the miasma causing the plague
