History of medicine: Medieval Flashcards
What were the supernatural ideas about causes of disease?
Disease was sent from God to punish the sins of man
Not keeping you or your house clean angered God and would make you more likely to be cursed with illness
Astrology - People believed that if certain planets or stars were out of line it would cause illness
What were rational ideas about causes of disease?
Miasma - Belief that fumes in the air caused disease
Contagion - People had hunches that diseases, although “sent from God”, could be caught
Four Humours - an imbalance in the humours would lead to physical and mental illnesses
Why were supernatural ideas more prevalent?
The Catholic Church was very powerful at the time and controllled all ideas, so any idea that challenged the existence of God or suggested other ideas that weren’t related to God weren’t allowed to exist
Why did the Church allow the theory of the 4 Humours?
Hippocrates, who theorised the 4 Humours first, believed in God and linked God into many of his ideas, so the 4 Humours was allowed to exist as an idea
What were the 4 Humours?
Black bile, yellow bile, Phlegm, Blood
Who came up with the theory of opposites?
Galen, who suggested an imbalance in the humours needed to be diagnosed as to which humour was out of balance and then this would be rebalanced somehow with treatment
Who treated the sick?
Barber surgeons, apothecaries, physicians and care in the home
How did barber surgeons operate at the time?
They had no training and worked with rusty old tools that hadn’t been cleaned
Carried out basic things like bloodletting, pulling teeth and lancing boils (on top of cutting hair)
Would sometimes try amputation (though it was rarely successful)
Cost less than a physician
How did apothecaries work?
Received training but no medical qualifications
Mixed medicines and ointments based on their knowledge or directions of a physician
Made herbal remedies mainly, with the help of Materia Medica
Cost money, but less than a physician
How did physicians work?
Medically trained at university and passed exams
Diagnosed illnesses and occasionally gave treatments, or sent patients to an apothecary or barber surgeon
Expensive, so mainly used by the wealthy
Very few of them, and female physicians were incredibly rare
What did physicians actually do?
Physicians observed a patients symptoms and checked their pulse, skin colour and urine
They consulted urine charts in their handbook
They consulted zodiac charts to help diagnose illness and to work out the best time to treat the patient
They then either treated patients themselves (which was rare) or sent them to a barber surgeon or apothecary
How did care in the home work?
Most ill people at the time were treated by a female family member at home
The village ‘wise woman’, often the Lady of the Manor, would also tend to people in their homes for free
What were hospitals like at the time?
It was a place for recovery and rest, not treatment
Patients would get a bed (mostly shared), plenty of good food, and everything was kept very clean
Many were run by the Church so were focussed on God and healing souls
Many were used by travellers and pilgrims as places to stay on their journeys
What kind of people were not accepted into monasteries?
People with terminal illnesses or contagious illnesses, people deemed insane and pregnant women
This is because the Church wanted to use monasteries to prove the healing power of God, so wouldn’t accept those who couldn’t be healed
Who ran monasteries?
Religous men (monks) and women (nuns)
