Medicine 1250 - 1500

Question 1

what did astrology have to do with cause of disease in the medieval age

Answer 1

the alignment of planets and stars was thought to cause diseases
astrology was oftentimes used to diagnose patients

Question 2

what are the four humours

Answer 2

created by Hippocrates and was the idea that humans had four humours in their bodies that made people ill when they were unbalanced 
blood
phlegm
yellow bile 
black bile

Question 3

what is the theory of the opposites

Answer 3

Galen developed the theory of four humours futher more, as well as bledding , purging he reccommended balanceing the humours by giving the opopsite of thier symptoms

Question 4

give an example of the theory of opposite

Answer 4

if they had too much phlegm (linked to water and cold) they’d be given a hot pepper

Question 5

what are the four humours linked to

Answer 5

phlegm - water and winter (wet, cold)
blood - air and spring (wet, hot)
yellow bile - fire and summer (hot , dry)
black bile - earth and autumn (dry, cold)

Question 6

what was miasma

Answer 6

bad air that people thought carried disease, was related to God because bad smells = sins

Question 7

why was Galen important on middle age medicine

Answer 7

he drew detailed diagrams of the human anatomy using the knowledge he gained from operating on wounded gladiator and carrying out dissections (on animals)

Question 8

why did Galen dissect only animals bodies

Answer 8

because the church was against dissecting humans bodies so he had to dissection animals

Question 9

name two rational treatments during the medieval ages in connection to the four humours

Answer 9

bloodletting - to balance humours was done by cutting a vein , using leaches or cupping, occasionally preformed by physicians but mostly barber-surgeons or non-medical persons

purging - to re-balance humours involved making patient vomit or go to toilet to remove food from body, emetics (enemas) or laxatives mixed by apothecaries or wise women

Question 10

name four methods of preventing illness by religious/supernatural methods

Answer 10

1) carrying lucky charms or amulets
2) chanting incantations
3) self-punishment (flagellation)
4) living Christian life (praying, going to church and obeying the commandments

Question 11

name six rational methods of preventing illness

Answer 11

1) purifying the air (bon fires, lighting candles)
2) bleeding and purging
3) not overeating
4) exercising
5) bathing and washing
6) trying to keep streets clean

Question 12

what was the most common type of remedy

Answer 12

herbal remedies which were to be drunk, sniffed or bathed in, made by apothecaries

Question 13

name some religious treatments

Answer 13

praying
fasting
going on pilgrimages
praying for a special mass to be said

Question 14

name some supernatural treatments

Answer 14

they included specific ideas for certain illnesses e.g. hanging a magpie beak around your neck to cure toothache

Question 15

named the four people that treated the sick

Answer 15

1) barber-surgeons
2) apothecaries
3) physicians
4) care in the home/ women

Question 16

what qualifications did barber-surgeons have to treat people

Answer 16

barbers with no training who performed bloodletting, pulling teeth and lancing boils also cut hair
did basic surgery like amputation (very low success rate)
cost less than physicians

Question 17

what qualifications did apothecaries have to treat people

Answer 17

people who received training but no medical qualification, mixed medicine and ointments based on own knowledge or direction of a physicians
cost less than physicians

Question 18

what qualifications did physicians have to treat people

Answer 18

medically trained at university and passed exams
diagnosed illnesses and treatments, or sent patients to the apothecaries or barber-surgeons , expensive, so mainly used by wealthy people
very few of them, with women physicians incredibly rare

Question 19

how did people get treated at home

Answer 19

village ‘wise woman’, often times the lady of the manor would also tend to the sick in her homes for free

Question 20

what did physicians do

Answer 20

observed patients symptoms and checked pulse, skin colour and urine (for both colour and taste) and consulted urine charts in handbooks
consulted zodiac charts to help diagnose the illness and work out best time to treat and either treated patients themselves or sent them to barber-surgeons or apothecaries

Question 21

what were medieval hospitals, give an example

Answer 21

places for travellers and pilgrims to to stay on journeys,they were a place for recovering , for old people and those that couldn’t look after themselves rather then the sick run by the church e.g. St Bartholomew’s in London

Question 22

when did the black death breakout

Answer 22

1348

Question 23

what percentage of England did the black death kill

Answer 23

40%

Question 24

what was the black death

Answer 24

the bubonic plague carried by fleas living on the back of rats which is passed to humans when an infected flea bites them and the diseases enters the blood

Question 25

name three ways people thought was how the black death happened

Answer 25

religion: God sent the plague as a punishment for people’s sins
outsiders: strangers or withes has caused the diseases
miasma: bad air or smells caused by decaying rubbish

Question 26

name three ways people try to avoid the black death

Answer 26

praying and fasting: because people believed that God had sent the diseases, it made sense to show God they were sorry by punishing themselves
not letting unknown people enter the town or village
clearing up the rubbish from the streets, carrying herbs and spices to avoid breathing the ‘bad air’

Question 27

what the symptoms of the black deaths

Answer 27

swelling of the lymph glands into large lumps filled with pus
fever and chills
headaches
vomiting, diarrhoea, and abdominal pains

Question 28

what were the treatments fro the black death

Answer 28

praying and holding lucky charms
cutting open the buboes to drain the pus
holding bread against the buboes, then burying it in the ground
eating cool things and taking cold baths