Medieval ➡️c.500AD- c.1400AD Flashcards

1
Q

Define astrology.

A

Medieval people believed events and body affected by planets and stars-e.g: Zodiac Man.

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2
Q

Who was Avicenna?

A

a.k.a: Ibn Sina.

Suggested taking patients pulse.

Canon of Medicine➡️Compilation of Arabic and Galen’s ideas.

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3
Q

Who was Ibn al-Nafis?

A

Islamic surgeon.

Dissection was banned, so he observed during surgery.

Challenged Galen➡️Blood doesn’t pass through septum➡️Ignored.

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4
Q

What is the Qur’an and how did it influence Islamic medicine?

A

Religious book of Islam:

  • Knowledge was important➡️Medical study.
  • Hygiene important➡️Public Health e.g: public baths, piped water ➡️”Cleanliness is half of faith”.
  • Care important➡️Hospitals (60+ in Baghdad) and women cared for sick in family.
  • Dissection banned.
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5
Q

Who was Rhazes?

A

Islamic doctor.

  • Urine chart➡️Diagnosis on colour of urine.
  • Treatise on smallpox➡️Measles and smallpox different➡️Keep seperate.
  • Meat test➡️Hung meat around Baghdad➡️Meat taken longest to go bad= best place to build hospital➡️Based on miasmas.
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6
Q

What ideas did people have about the causes of illness in the Medieval times?

A
  • Continued belief in Four Humours & Miasmas.
  • Astrology and Stars.
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7
Q

What treatments were used in Medieval medicine?

A
  • Bleeding➡️Cuts or leeches.
  • Cautery Irons➡️Burn wounds closed.
  • New anaesthetics➡️Dwale= Wine, hemlock and henbane.
  • Trephining.
  • Improved public health following the Black Death.
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8
Q

Who provided medical care in the Medieval times?

A
  • Barber surgeons➡️Poorly trained with basic techniques: amputation, bleeding, dentistry and cauterisation.
  • Master Surgeons➡️Professionals trained at medical schools➡️Followed Galen without challenging.
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9
Q

How and why did medicine improve in the Medieval times?

A
  • Master surgeons needed a licence from the Guild of Surgeons.
  • First medical school set up 900AD in Salerno.
  • Specialist doctors➡️E.g: John of Arderne (anal specialist).
  • New ways to stop blood loss➡️Cauterization.
  • New surgical tools➡️E.g: cataracts.
  • War= key reason for progress➡️knowledge from Middle East passed on during Crusades.
  • Some challenges to Galen➡️E.g: Theodoric of Lucca (although his ideas were ignored).
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10
Q

How and why did medicine stay the same in the Medieval times?

A
  • Few Master surgeons and they were expensive.
  • Master surgeons followed Galen without challenging him.
  • Four Humours was still the basis for most treatments.
  • New anaesthetic wasn’t very effective➡️People still died from infection, blood loss and shock/pain.
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11
Q

How did the Church help medicine in the Medieval times?

A
  • Church promoted Galen, which helped because although some of his ideas were wrong, some were not far from the truth/true.
  • The Church helped people who were sick by keeping them warm, rested and fed.
  • The Church introduced the first medical school where dissection could be carried out, although students weren’t encouraged/meant to think of any new ideas.
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12
Q

What efforts were made in Medieval times to improve living conditions/public health in London?

A
  • 1343➡️Butchers were ordered to use a segregated area for butchering animals.
  • By the 1370s➡️At least 12 teams of gongfermers with horses and carts, removing dung from the streets.
  • By the 1380s➡️At least 13 common privies in the city.
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13
Q

Why did public health decline following the collapse of Rome?

A
  • Sewers and aqueducts were destroyed➡️Links to dirty water and health lost.
  • Constant warfare➡️Little money to invest and people huddled behind city walls.
  • Superstitious society➡️Few rational laws.
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14
Q

What were conditions likely to be like in a Medieval town?

A
  • Increasingley dark and crowded.
  • Filthy streets and houses.
  • Rivers used for drinking water and waste.
  • Open sewers in the streets➡️”Gardey Loo!”.
  • No town planning, could build anywhere.
  • Diseases rife➡️Typhus, cholera and typhoid.
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15
Q

Why were there some better features in Medieval public health?

A
  • Wealthy people continued to be clean➡️Symbol of status➡️Bath parties.
  • Religion➡️Desire to keep clean to please God➡️Monasteries had complex water systems.

After Black Death some attempts were made to clean up:

  • King ordered streets to be cleaned.
  • Gongfermers hired to remove waste.
  • “Gardey Loo” illegal by 1372 (although laws not always enforced).
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16
Q

What and when was the Black Death?

A

The bubonic plague was carried by black rats and passed on by their fleas.

It hit London in September 1348 and killed 40% of England’s population.

17
Q

What ideas did people have about the causes of the Black Death?

A
  • Church claimed that Jews had poisoned the wells➡️Staged trials and massacres of Jews.
  • Punishment from God for their sins➡️Flagellants.
  • Medieval doctors blamed a ‘pestilential atmosphere’ caused by positioning of planets or earthquakes/volcanoes.
  • Spread through the air (miasmas).
18
Q

What treatments were used for the Black Death?

A
  • Bleeding (four humours) or lancing buboes.
  • The Pope sat between two fires for the duration of the plague.
  • Encouraged to pray for forgiveness, some people called flagellants inflicted punishments upon themselves.
  • Louds noises to break ‘stiff’ air➡️Ringing church bells, firing canons and releasing birds into the room.
  • Burning incense and handkerchiefs dipped in aromatic oils.
19
Q

What and where was the House of Wisdom?

A

The House of Wisdom was in Baghdad and acted as ‘Islam’s Alexandria’.