Medicine Revision - 1000-1500

Question 1

Who treated the sick from 1000 to 1500’s?

Answer 1

• Barber surgeons in towns (Bloodletting and minor operations)
• Wise women in villages (herbal remedies)
• Monks in monasteries (herbs, prayer and rest)
• Trained doctors (very expensive, used ideas of Hippocrates and Galen.)

Question 2

What were the different types of treatments offered by the doctors?

Answer 2

• Clinical observation (pulse and urine)
• Trying to balance the humours
• Positions of stars and prayers

Question 3

Explain the influence of Hippocrates on diagnosis and treatment.

Answer 3

Hippocrates (460-370 BC) emphasises the importance of clinical observation. His theory of hour humours and the need to balance them dominated medical thinking up to 1800’s. Bleeding was a very common practice to prevent or treat ilness.

Question 4

What were four humours?

Answer 4

-Blood
-Phlegm
-Black Bile
-Yellow Bile.
When someone was ill, the doctors thought that one of the humours were out of balance and they needed to be balanced for the person to be cured.

Question 5

Explain the influence of Galen on training and treatment.

Answer 5

-Galen dissected animals to improve knowledge of human anatomy. Since he believed in design theory (That God designed humans), the Church banned people from questioning his work. His work in a gladiator school allowed him to develop his techniques. He used the four humours theory and stressed the importnce of listening to a patient’s pulse.

Question 6

Explain the influence of the Church on medicine.

Answer 6

• The Church taught that illness was sent as a punishment from God for sinful behviour. The Church also controlled universities where doctors studied ( With a clear focus on Hippocrates and Galen)
• The Church banned human dissection therefore restricting the knowledge of anatomy.
• Recommented pilgrimges to visit shrines containing the relics of saints where hopefully miracle cures could be gained.
• The Church arrested one monk called Roger Bacon for suggesting that doctors should do original research and not trust old books.
• The Church esnured over 700 hospitals were set up between 1000 and 1500.

Question 7

Explain the functions of hospitals in the middle ages.

Answer 7

Hospitals were mainly a place for people to rest and recover. Many were linked to monasteries. Monks provided nursing care (Helped bu the often better sanitation) and also offered herbal treatments grown in their pyhsic gardens.

Question 8

Explain how Islamic medicine was more advanced than the West.

Answer 8

• Islamic doctors wrote medical text which spread to Britain via crusaders/trade. Avicenna wrote the canon of medicine which remained an important text for medical students until the 1700’s. In this were listed the medical properties of 760 different drugs.
• Islamic hospitals also treated patients and trained doctors, ands were not just places for caring unlike the west.