Health and the People Flashcards
Who could you be treated by in Medieval England?
Barber surgeons in towns did bloodletting and minor surgery, wise men/women in the village gave herbal remedies, travelling healers in markets and fairs extracted teeth.
What beliefs of causes of diseases did medieval treatment become based upon?
Natural, Christian church approved Galens ideas, four humours and clinical observation.
Supernatural, anything not treatable by Hippocrates and Galen were explained by the position of stars, praying and charms for treatment.
What was the four humours?
A person became ill if the four humours were not in balance, and the doctors job was to restore the balance.
How did Christianity affect Medieval medicine positively?
Good to look after the sick. Monks preserved and copied ancient medical texts. Hospitals were set up and funded by the church. 700 were set up between 1000 and 1500.
How did Christianity affect Medieval medicine negatively?
Praying was better treatment than drugs. Illness was a punishment from god and curing that would challenge god’s will. Mainly cared never cured people. Ancient Greek medical ideas were approved and taught in universities, old books weren’t to be questioned, no new research.
How did islam have an influence on medieval medicine?
786-809: al-Rashid made Baghdad the centre of translation of greek manuscripts to Arabic.
805: al-Rashid set up a major new hospital with a medical school and library.
813-833: al-mamum made al-Rashid’s library into the study centre for schools.
How did Islamic medical knowledge spread?
Arrived in Italy in 1065 through the Latin translations of a merchant, Constantine the African.
Universities in Padua and Bologna in Italy were the best places to study medicine in medieval Europe. Reached England through trade.
What are some Islamic ideas about medicine?
Mental illness were treated with compassion. Valued the books of Galen and Hippocrates, learned from them. Bimaristans were meant to actually cure people not just care for them.
What is a Bimaristans?
Muslim hospital
Who are some important Islamic doctors?
Rhazes: distinguished measles from smallpox.
Avicenna: wrote “Canon of Medicine”, the combination of Islamic and Greek medicine.
Ibn al-Nafis: Found out that Galen was wrong about how the heart worked.
What is bloodletting?
Cutting a person to let them bleed to restore the four humours in them.
Limitations of Medieval surgery?
Operated without painkillers
No clue dirt carried disease
Thought pus in a wound was good
Couldn’t help with deep wounds
What is trepanning?
Drilling a hole into the skull to let the demons out for epilepsy.
What is cauterisation?
Burning a wound to stop the flow f blood using heated iron.
What was used as an anaesthetic in medieval times?
Opium, hemlock and mandrake root, too much would kill the patient
Who was John the Arderne?
Famous English surgeon that produced a “Guild of Surgeons” in 1368.
Who was Abulcasis?
Muslim surgeon that wrote a 30 volume book, “Al Tasrif”, in 1000, made cauterisation popular and made 26 new surgical instruments and new procedures.
How was public health unhygienic in medieval towns?
Water: rivers were used to dispose of waste.
Sewage: cesspits could overflow onto roads and rivers.
Rubbish: toilet waste and household waste filled with the streets with a stink.
Tradesmen’s waste: butchers dumped blood and guts into the rivers.
How was public health hygienic in medieval towns?
Water: clean from springs or wells.
Sewage: money in wills paid for privies in towns and cesspits collected the waste.
Rubbish: laws were passed to keep their front of their houses tidy and clean.
Tradesmen’s waste: councils encouraged them to keep in certain areas and keep them clean.
Why was it difficult to keep medieval towns clean?
Growing population meant it was hard to cope.
Rivers were used to drink from, transport and to remove waste.
Thought “bad air” was to blame whereas it was actually germs that lead to disease and infection.
Why were conditions better in monasteries due to wealth?
Money spent on cleaner facilities.
Land and money was left to them in order for prayers to be said for them.
Monks made lots from sheep.
Why were conditions better in monasteries due to knowledge?
Monks understood books.
Separated waste and clean water for toilet and wash areas.
Followed the Ancient Roman routine of a good diet, sleep and exercise to balance the humours.
Why were conditions better in monasteries due to rules?
Monks obeyed the abbot strictly, lead simple lives and kept clean.
Why were conditions better in monasteries due to location?
Near water so that they could function the mills and kitchens, and the isolation helped to protect monks from epidemics.
What were believed causes of the Black Death in 1348?
Bad air
Wells poisoned by Jews
Punishment from God
Position of stars
What were the actual causes of the Black Death?
Bacteria
Fleas
Malnourished people were more vulnerable
Remedies against the Black Death? PUMA?
Prayer
Unusual remedies, drinking mercury
Moving away if they thought a plague was coming
Avoiding contact with people who might be infected, quarantined areas
Social impact of the Black Death?
Whole villages wiped out
Political impact of the Black Death?
Higher wages contributed to the peasants revolt (1381) and the weakening of the feudal system.
Religious impact of the Black Death?
Damage to the Catholic Church because experienced priests died; others ran away.
Economic impact of the Black Death?
Food prices went up
Sheep farmers meant less workers, more unemployed
Farm workers demanded higher wages
How many people of Europe died to the Black Death?
Half of the population in Europe died of the Black Death
What was the Renaissance in the 1400s?
Began in Italy, people were payed to investigate the Greeks and the Romans. It was a rebirth of learning as more and more people came out and criticised the original ideas. The printing press in 1451 made books cheap and quick to produce around the world.
What were the consequences of the Renaissance?
New lands, learning, inventions, art and printing. It was moving away from the church and Greek/Islamic ideas.
What did Vesalius do?
Dissections we’re done to prove Galen, never challenge, he wrote “The fabric of the human body” (1543) and corrected Galen. Medical students should learn from him.
What was the reaction to Vesalius?
Criticised heavily, yet his contribution in England was noticeable, his dissections were used in a surgeons handbook.
What were Paré’s contribution to medical progress in England?
Used a cream instead of an oil on wounds, soldiers seemed to heal better.
Used ligatures for less pain but were slow and not used on the battlefield.
Included drawings of false limbs in his books.
William Harvey’s contribution to medical progress was?
He dissected human hearts and found out that blood was circulated around the body one way.
What were reactions to Harvey’s discovery?
Went against Galen and people said he was mad but doctors accepted it. Went against the bloodletting in four humours. 4 years after he died, in 1661 a microscope found veins and arteries.
