Medicine In The Middle Ages

Question 0

Describe the conditions in the Middle Ages

Answer 0

Faeces in the street

Rotten air

Rats & flies

Butchers selling rotten meat

People threw rubbish out of their windows

Polluted water / rivers

Question 1

What years were the Middle Ages?

Answer 1

450AD-1500AD

Question 2

Which king noticed the link between dirt and disease?

Answer 2

King Edward III

Question 3

What did King Edward III do when he found the link between dirty water and disease?

Answer 3

1372- people could be fined for having filth outside their house

‘Gong farmers’ were employed to collect faeces off the floor and sell it to farmers

Became illegal for butchers to sell meat

Question 4

What year could be start to be fined for having filth outside their houses?

Answer 4

1372

Question 5

How well were King Edward III’s laws enforced.

Answer 5

Not well as there was no police force

Question 6

How did doctors treat illness in the Middle Ages?

Answer 6

Followed theory of 4 humours

Doctors looked things up in old medical books

Purged patients

Bleed patients (sometimes use leeches)

Question 7

How did doctors check for illness in the Middle Ages?

Answer 7

They would examine urine, blood, tongue, pulse, poo and more

Question 8

What did doctors think about urine in the Middle Ages

Answer 8

Every shade of urine had a definite meaning

Question 9

What were specialist medicine makers called in the Middle Ages?

Answer 9

Apothecaries and they worked in an apothecary

Question 10

How were surgeons viewed in the Middle Ages?

Answer 10

Viewed no better than butchers

Did not have to go to university but had to pass an exam to get a license

Question 11

What did barber-surgeons do?

Answer 11

Could perform treatments or cut hair

Pulled teeth, lanced boils, treated burns, broken bones and let blood

Question 12

What did military-surgeons do?

Answer 12

Dealt with battle wounds eg. Stab wounds & removing arrowheads

Question 13

Did people in the Middle Ages believe in supernatural medicine?

Answer 13

Yes, and they went on pilgrimages

Question 14

What is a ‘Quack Doctor’?

Answer 14

Fake doctors

Question 15

Did people still follow Galen’s ideas in the dark ages?

Answer 15

Mostly, but it was the first time people were starting to challenge his ideas
Eg. Galen believed pus was good in wounds when others though it wasn’t

Question 16

Who was the doctor that poured alcohol on wounds in the middle ages?

Answer 16

Henri De Mondeville

He didnt know it at the time but we now know that alcohol acts as an anti septic

Question 17

Were there hospitals in the Middle Ages?

Answer 17

Yes but most people didnt use them

Births and ills were sorted out at home

Question 18

Who funded the hospitals

Answer 18

The church

Question 19

Who were housed in hospitals?

Answer 19

The poor, pregnant and elderly

Question 20

Who acted as the nurses in hospitals?

Answer 20

Nuns - occasionally a professional doctor would come

Question 21

What remedies did hospitals use?

Answer 21

Natural & supernatural

Question 22

Why weren’t the most sick people allowed in hospitals?

Answer 22

It was too much effort to care for them

Question 23

What happened to lepers in the Middle Ages?

Answer 23

Viewed badly in society

Stayed in leper houses to keep them away from society

Leper houses provided no treatment but a bed & a meal

Question 24

What were almshouses?

Answer 24

Places were the pregnant and the elderly went to stay- no doctors there but priests helped

Question 25

Where were the main hospitals found?

Answer 25

In monasteries

They had doctors with Greek and roman medical books