Pages 4-5 of Medicine A5 booklet (Factors for change and Being Ill in Medieval Britain)

Question 1

What are the 7 key factors for change?

Answer 1

War
Superstition and Religion
Government
Communication
Science and Technology
Individuals
Chance

Question 2

What did life expectancy and survival depend on?

Answer 2

• Being rich or poor
• Town/country x2
• Children/adults
• Winter/summer

Question 3

How did being rich or poor affect life expectancy?

Answer 3

The poor couldn’t afford doctors.

Question 4

How did living in the town/country affect life expectancy?

Answer 4

• More chance of finding medicine in towns

- Towns were dirtier and deadlier than in villages

Question 5

How did being a child/adult affect life expectancy?

Answer 5

The young were more at risk of catching diseases.

Question 6

How did it being winter/summer affect life expectancy?

Answer 6

Both season could kill you for different reasons.

Question 7

During the Medieval Times what were the main killers?

Answer 7

Famine and war were the biggest killers and bad harvests due to drought and flood meant malnourishment for many and malnourished people caused diseases.

Question 8

What was Saint Anthony’s disease?

Answer 8

Caused by a fungus growing on rye in damp conditions. Once it was made into bread it caused rashes and even death.

Question 9

Which diseases accounted for 10% of England’s deaths?

Answer 9

Dysentry, typhoid, smallpox and measles

Question 10

What % of children died before the age of 7?

Answer 10

30%

Question 11

What did the best practitioners do?

Answer 11

Copied the methods of Hippocrates.

Question 12

How did they cure rheumatism?

Answer 12

Wear a donkey skin

Question 13

How did they cure asthma?

Answer 13

Swallow young frogs.

Question 14

How did they treat ringworm?

Answer 14

Wash hair in male urine.

Question 15

What was Bald’s Leechbook?

Answer 15

A 10th Century medical text.

Question 16

What did Bald’s Leechbook suggest as a cure for an eye problem?

Answer 16

Take cropleek and garlic, pound them together well, take wine and bullock’s gall, mix with leek, let it stand in a brass pot for 9 days. Ring it through a cloth and put it in a horn and apply it at night time with a feather to the eye.

Question 17

What did microbiologists discover when they recreated the recipe from Bald’s Leechbook?

Answer 17

They found that it was just as effective at treating the Superbug MRSA as modern medicines.

Question 18

What did Medieval people not understand?

Answer 18

They didn’t understand the causes of most diseases, so focused on trying to cure the symptoms instead.