Health and the People: 1000-1500 Medieval

Question 1

When was the Medieval Period (dates)?

Answer 1

500-1500AD

Question 2

What key factors influenced health in the Medieval Period?

Answer 2

war, superstition, religion, ideas, individuals

Question 3

What were the main killers of the medieval period?

Answer 3

famine and war

Question 4

What was the average life expectancy for a medieval British man?

Answer 4

35

Question 5

Which Arab Physician wrote the canon of medicine?

Answer 5

Avicenna

Question 6

Who was Hippocrates?

Answer 6

The father of modern medicine an Ancient Greek doctor born 460 BC

Question 7

What were Hippocrates’ contributions to medicine?

Answer 7

• He regarded the body to be treated as a whole rather than individual parts
• He believed in the importance of observation, diagnosis and treatment
• He rejected the supernatural and believed in natural causes and treatments
• He develops the theory of the four humours
• He believed that and rest were important
• He introduced the Hippocratic oath to make people trust doctors

Question 8

What are the four humours and their associated elements?

Answer 8

blood (Air), yellow bile (Fire), black bile (Earth), phlegm (Water)
Hot & wet, Hot & dry, dry & cold, cold & wet

Question 9

How did the four humours control health?

Answer 9

to keep a healthy body the four humours needed to be in balance, pain or deceive occurred when there was more or less of one of the humours

Question 10

Who was Galen and what contributions did he make to medical progress?

Answer 10

A Greco-Roman Doctor AD130-210, extended the ideas of Hippocrates including the four humours and the theory of opposites, he practised dissection of animals and worked in a gladiator school

Question 11

Where was one of the first European medical schools universities?

Answer 11

Salerno, Italy

Question 12

Why did few people question the ideas of Hippocrates and Galen?

Answer 12

it was taught as medical orthodoxy, the church controlled learning and was the authority, Galen’s works mentioned a ‘creator’ so it was accepted as truth

Question 13

What was the doctrine of signatures?

Answer 13

God had created illnesses but had also created the right herbs and plants to treat them. If you matched them to parts of the human body.

Question 14

What were the supernatural causes of disease?

Answer 14

witchcraft, bad spirits, God, astrology

Question 15

What was a barber-surgeon?

Answer 15

somebody who carried out minor operations; pulling teeth, bleeding, performing enemas, trepanning schools, lancing boils, and cutting hair. Mostly found in towns and cities some travelled the country. They served apprenticeships and joined guilds with surgeons.

Question 16

What was an apothecary?

Answer 16

somebody who prepared and sold medicines herbs and spices from the shop. They served apprenticeships and joined guilds with physicians.

Question 17

What was a wise woman?

Answer 17

A local woman with wisdom and skills handed down by her family.

Question 18

What treatment would be used to remove blood and restore balance in the four humours?

Answer 18

bleeding/cupping or by using leeches

Question 19

What bodily fluid would a physician look at, smell, and sometimes taste to diagnose sickness?

Answer 19

urine

Question 20

What is astrology?

Answer 20

The belief that the movement of the stars and planets can affect people’s lives and health

Question 21

What is a zodiac chart?

Answer 21

A chart that would tell a physician which parts of the body were linked to which astrological sign. It would tell what to do, or what not to do, and when.

Question 22

What is a surgeon?

Answer 22

A Doctor who operates on people

Question 23

What is a physician?

Answer 23

A Doctor who diagnosed as patients and recommends further treatment with medicines or lifestyle changes

Question 24

What is cauterisation?

Answer 24

Burning a wound with a heated instrument to stop bleeding and prevent infection

Question 25

What supernatural cures did the church encourage?

Answer 25

prayer, indulgences, pilgrimage, relics, holy water, holy oil

Question 26

What was one way that the church helped medical progress?

Answer 26

• Care of the poor and sick through hospitals, 160 were set up on the 12th and 13th centuries many attached to monasteries
• Set up University schools to train doctors in the texts of Hippocrates and Galen
• Hand copied ancient texts in monasteries

Question 27

What was one way that the church limited medical progress?

Answer 27

• made it difficult to do dissections
• Insisted on ancient ideas of Galen and Hippocrates
• Focus on supernatural causes and cures

Question 28

Which Italian doctors recommended using wine as an antiseptic to clean wounds and disagreed with the idea of ‘praiseworthy pus’?

Answer 28

Hugh and Theodoric of Lucca

Question 29

What dangerous drugs were used as painkillers in the Medieval Period?

Answer 29

Opium and Hemlock

Question 30

What was an arrow cup?

Answer 30

A new tool designed to slide into a deep wound and surround the arrowhead so it can be removed without causing more damage

Question 31

Why was mortality higher in medieval towns than in the countryside?

Answer 31

crowded, limited sanitation, cesspools leaking into wells, contaminated streams, little access to clean drinking water, industry and housing together, no waste collection, animal dung, butchers waste, few public toilets, dirty clothes, no sewers

Question 32

How did monasteries help the sick?

Answer 32

cleaner environment, better access to clean water, waste water to remove waste, garden to grow plants and herbs, more money to spend on luxury goods, educated and skilled medical personnel (monks and nuns)

Question 33

When did the Black Death arrive in England?

Answer 33

1348

Question 34

What percentage of people were killed by the black death in England?

Answer 34

1 in 3 people, some whole villages were wiped out

Question 35

What did people think caused the Black Death?

Answer 35

Bad smells, four humours out of balance, and angry God, astrology, the Jews poisoned wells, bad spirits, blocked digestion

Question 36

What did people think would prevent infection by the Black Death?

Answer 36

prayer, avoid excess eating, avoid baths, avoid plague victims, clean streets, a posy of sweet smelling herbs and spices to keep away smells, bathe in or drink urine, lucky charms

Question 37

What are buboes?

Answer 37

swellings of the lymph nodes in the groin, under the armpits, on the neck

Question 38

What did people think would cure the Black Death?

Answer 38

pop the buboes, use a live chicken on the buboes to drive away the diseases, drink a mixture of vinegar and mercury, flagellation, bleeding, hot drinks, rub buboes with figs and onions then cut them

Question 39

What surgical technique used from prehistoric times was used to drill a hole in the patient’s skull?

Answer 39

trepanning

Question 40

What is pneumonic plague?

Answer 40

plague affects the lungs and is highly contagious, 100% mortality

Question 41

What do the words in endemic and epidemic mean?

Answer 41

Endemic - disease is regularly spread across a population in area or time (always there)

Epidemic - A widespread infectious disease across a specific time and area

Question 42

How did the Black Death spread across Europe?

Answer 42

It moved from central Asia where it is endemic in local rodent populations along the Silk Road and was thrown into the besieged city of Caffa by the Tarta army. From there it moved along Mediterranean trade routes by boat.

Question 43

What was the contribution of medieval surgeon John Arderne (1307-1392) to medical progress?

Answer 43

A 50% survival rate for surgery removing growths from inside a patient’s anus
Experience in amputations and battle wounds during the Hundred Years War.
He developed a pain relieving ointment from opium, Hemlock and Henbane rather than using cauterisation.
He wrote the surgical textbook, the practice of surgery in 1350 recommending calm practice and experience

Question 44

Which Arab physician wrote the first authentic description of the symptoms of smallpox?

Answer 44

Rhazes