medicine in britain set 1

Question 1

When was the ‘Medieval period’?

Answer 1

C1250-1500

Question 2

Give 5 key features of medieval

life. (5)

Answer 2

Rural communities – most people lived in the countryside.

Majority of population worked in fields growing crops on land owned by lords (NB feudal
system).

Not many towns and cities and the had crowded, dirty streets.

Catholic Church dominated all ideas including medical beliefs.

Limited scientific knowledge.

Question 3

What supernatural idea
dominated ideas about the cause
of illness? (2)

Answer 3

Disease was a punishment or test from God because of sin.

Question 4

Give 5 key effects on medicine of
the Catholic Church’s domination.
(5)

Answer 4

Controlled learning (including universities) and therefore controlled ideas.

Books produced and kept in monasteries and usually only monks and priests could read and
write = controlled what people read.

Supported Galen’s ideas as his ideas fitted with Christian beliefs that the body had a soul and
had been created by an all-powerful being ie God.

Discouraged dissection – only to show and confirm Galen’s ideas.

Encouraged CARE of sick. Hospitals housed in monasteries and nunneries.

Question 5

What natural/rational theory did
people have about the cause of
disease – and give 4 details about
the theory? (1+ 4))

Answer 5

Theory of the Four Humours: CAUSE

Hippocrates, an Ancient Greek doctor wrote that the body had 4 liquids (blood, phlegm, black
bile and yellow bile) and if out of balance it could cause illness.

To keep healthy or cure illness the humours had to be balanced – based on a diet, exercise &
rest but also bleeding and purging to get rid of excess humours.

Question 6

What other natural idea about the

cause of illness was popular? (1)

Answer 6

Miasma or bad air.