Medieval medicine - 1250 - 1500 Flashcards
Why was there little change in the medieval period?
Doctors lacked scientific knowledge to explain the causes of disease as medical training only involved reading Church approved texts such as Galen’s books.
Church didn’t allow anyone to contradict Galen. However, the invention of the printing press around 1440 would lead to more rapid change in the Renaissance Period.
Where would you go if you were ill and wealthy?
Wealthy people went to a physician (university trained doctor) who learned from lectures and debates and believed in Hippocrates and Galen.
What were the different methods used to treat illness?
Balancing 4 humours
Praying or whipping themselves
Use of herbs
Pilgrims to shrines to be miraculously cured
What were the methods used to prevent illness? (3)
Keeping the air free of miasma by spreading herbs such as lavender.
Praying.
Fasting.
How did the church stop medical progress?
They approved texts mostly only written by Galen, and they banned people from questioning his work.
Stopped dissections.
Explain the influence of the church on medicine.
It taught that illness was sent as a punishment by god for sinful behaviour.
Also, controlled universities.
Banned human dissection, restricting knowledge of anatomy.
Didn’t allow anyone to contradict Galen.
Recommended pilgrims to shrines so they could be miraculously cured.
Yet also ensure 700 hospitals were set up between 1000 and 1500.
Explain the supernatural explanations for disease at this time.
Alignment of the planets - looking when the patient was born and then when they fell ill to help provide a diagnosis.
Disease is a punishment from God.
Explain the rational explanations for the cause of disease.
Miasma (the belief that rotting matter caused disease)
Theory of the four humours.
Explain the function of hospitals in the Middle Ages.
Mainly a place for people to rest, recover or die, rather than treatment.
Name typical medieval medical surgical procedures.
Bloodletting, amputation, cauterisation (using a hot iron to stop blood flow out of a wound), trepanning (drilling a hole into someones skull). Anaesthetics included mandrake root, opium and hemlock though too much could kill a patient.
What were the main public health problems in medieval towns?
Most towns had poor sanitation; since the cause of disease was unknown. Cesspits could overflow into the roads and rivers. Butchers dumped waste blood and guts into rivers.
What caused the Black Death in England?
Began in Asia and came to England through trade routes. Combination of bubonic plague (spread by rats and fleas) and pneumonic plague (spread by coughing and close contact)
How was the Black Death explained at the time? (5)
Caused by Jewish people
Punishment from God
Imbalance of 4 humours
Miasma
Astrology
Why did the Black Death spread so rapidly?
Dirty streets encouraged rats. Very few regulations.
How did they try to prevent the spread of the BD? (5)
Monarch ordered the Church to organise processions asking for God’s forgiveness.
Flagellants whipped themselves.
Posies and herbs were carried.
Quarantine was attempted.
There were orders to clean up streets.
