History - Britain: Health & the People

Question 1

In Medieval England, what did people think caused disease? (3)
And how did they work to treat them? (3)

Answer 1

1. Punishment from God for people’s sins. - to cure was through prayer and repentance.
2. Some thought that disease was caused by evil supernatural beings such as demons and witches. - many people were tried as witches and executed.
3. Evil spirits living inside someone. - members of the Church would perform exorcisms, using chants to remove the spirits from the person’s body.

Question 2

Why did then control and how did they control

How did the Church have a big influence on medieval medicine? (3)

Answer 2

1. They would make sure people believed that disease was a punishment from God which prevented people from trying to find cures for diseases, if it was a punishment from God, all you could do was pray and repent.
2. The Church made sure that scholars of medicine learned the works of Galen because his ideas fit the Christian belief that God created human bodies and made them to be perfect. It also stopped anyone from disagreeing with Galen.
3. The Chruch outlawed disssection, this meant that medieval doctors couldn’t discover ideas about human anatomy for themeselves, they instead had to learn Galen’s incorrect ideas.

Question 3

1. What 2. Who?When 3. How

How was astrology used to diagnose diseases? (3)

Answer 3

1. The movement of the plantes and stars had an effect on Earth and people. Astrologers beleived that the movements could cause disease.
2. It was a new way of diagnosing disease, first developed in Islamic medicine and brought to Europe between 1100 and 1300.
3. A type of calender called an almanac included information about where planets and starts were at a given time, which was used to predict how patients’ health could be affected. Where different star signs were thought to affect different parts of the body.