Middle Ages Flashcards
What were the impacts of the fall of Rome?
- War destroyed the Roman public health systems and medical libraries.
- The rulers of small kingdoms built up armies rather than improving medical skills or public health.
- War disrupted trade so countries became poorer.
- Travel became more dangerous, reducing the communication between doctors.
- The wars meant there was more practice for surgeons.
- Without the Roman army there were no engineers with the technological knowledge to keep public baths, sewers and aqueducts working effectively.
What were positive impacts after the fall of Rome?
- The church had set up universities where doctors could be trained.
- Armies took trained doctors yo war with them where they gained experience as surgeons.
- Rulers were taken to clean up towns.
- Merchants and scholars were once again travelling around Europe, sharing ideas.
What influence did the Christian Church have on medicine in the Middle Ages?
- The Christian Church was stronger in the Middle Ages.
- Monasteries controlled education, priests and monks were the only people who could read. The Church opened medical schools where the ideas of Galen were spread.
- The only libraries were in monasteries, churches sometimes banned books they did not want people to read.
- Monasteries made an effort to provide clean running water and toilets.
How did Christians help care for the sick?
- They believed sickness was caused by God punishing those who have sinned.
- They prayed to heal the sick, asking for forgiveness from Jesus Christ and other saints linked to illness. For example, St. Apollonia who was a patron saint of toothache because her teeth got knocked out when she was murdered for her preligion.
- In hospitals, nuns fed the sick and gave herbal remedies and prayed for them. Priests also delivered mass 7 x a day which patients joined in with.
How did the Christians preserve knowledge?
- The Church (Christian) preserved lots of knowledge handed down from the Greeks & Romans.
- The monks in monasteries copied out: the bible, histories and other ancient medical books, like Galen’s. This helped spread out and keep existing beliefs about medical knowledge.
- However it hindered it as well as it prevented new ideas developing as Hippocrates and Galen were the heart of medical understanding so we’re not changed.
Why did Christians supportGalen in the Middle Ages?
-Galen’s books were the main books read by physicians because the Church (who controlled the Universities were trained physicians) believed that ancient writing, e.g. Galen’s books didn’t go against the Christian belief that God created human beings - as Galen said each part of the body has a specific purpose.
What were medieval hospitals like in the Middle Ages?
- Medical care for the poor came from hospitals set up by monasteries, and run by monks and nuns.
- They provided “hospitality” for visitors. E.g. Patients were fed and clothed, nuns changed their dressings and nuns cleaned the hospitals.
- They were forced to pray to God.
- The Church funded hospitals.
- Doctors was not a profession back then, nuns and butchers were doctors.
- Genuinely ill people were often turned away due to fear of disease spreading.
How were doctors trained in the Middle Ages?
- They were forced to dissect.
- They translated Galen’s teaching.
- They followed the code of behaviour, e.g. Confidentiality.
What are some examples of treatments in the Middle Ages?
- Herbal Remedies.
- Four Hunours, -bleeding.
- Comparing people’s urine.
- Urine charts.
- Astronomical instruments based on planets.
- Praying for health.
- Fralgelating, - whipping themselves.
How did Galen’s and Hippocrates’ work return in the Middle Ages?
- Galen’s ideas were rediscovered as Church leaders looked closely at his work and decided they fitted in with Christian ideas as he referred to “the creator” in his works.
- Doctors in the Middle Ages believed his ideas were correct and it was nearly impossible to improve his ideas.
- Galen had a great influence on the doctors in the Arabic world and in medieval Christian Europe.
- Medical schools began to appear in Western Europe, starting with the one in Salerno, Italy. Translations of Galen’s and Hippocrates’ work were accepted as absolute truth in medical schools.
What was Arab medicine like?
- Islamic scholars picked up and developed ideas from the Greeks whom they greatly admired.
- Hippocrates’ four humours, Galen’s treatment by opposites and Hippocrates’ clinical observation (Hippocratic Oath) lived on.
- Books were written that brought together the ideas of Galen and Hippocrates. These books were important means by which these ideas got back to Western Europe.
- The attitude of Muslims towards the Koran/Qur’an me at that they were unwilling to criticise the works of Galen.
What did medieval doctors believe an illness was caused by?
-An imbalance of the four humours.
What were findings from dissection interpreted as?
-Although human dissection was carried out in medical schools, findings were interpret aged as the theory of the four humours - although some later doctors began to challenge traditional understandings.
What are some examples of some new developments in Medieval Medicine?
- More schools sprang up and human dissection was allowed and there were some doubts about classical texts (e.g. Galen’s/Hippocrates’ texts).
- New techniques involved diagnosis by urine samples which is a good aid to diagnosis and is still done today!
- Doctors also believed the stars caused disease and relied on astrology when deciding on treatments.
- Trained doctors were very expensive. Medicine practice was provided by monasteries and house-wife physicians, using traditional cures and their experience.
What were supernatural beliefs and treatments in the Middle Ages?
- The Church believed that an illness was a punishment for sins - they prayed to God if they became ill.
- Some believed that pilgrimages to holy shrines could cure illness.
- Doctors had superstitious beliefs, saying magical words when treating patients and consulting stars.
