possible route (MMTT) Flashcards
ideas about causes of disease
- punishment for sin.
- test of faith.
- abandonment of God (B. Plague).
ideas about causes of disease
- positioning of planets & stars (astrology).
- other superstitious beliefs e.g., witches.
ideas about causes of disease
- unpleasant air that corrupted the body’s four humours (miasma).
- imbalance of the four humours.
ideas about treatment of disease and illness
- praying e.g., asking for forgiveness, accounting/admitting the sins you have committed (repentance).
- fasting.
- pilgrimages to holy relics (touch them).
- burning candles at the length of the diseases area.
supernatural:
ideas about treatment of disease and illness
- saying spells/carrying amulets.
- bathing with a dead fox to heal paralysis (fox’s stealth and speed will flow through water and go into person’s body).
- physicians used horoscopes to diagnose and treat patients.
ideas about treatment of disease and illness
- purging/sweating.
- bleeding/leeches (bloodletting).
- treated at home by family female members.
- eating a particular food that contrasts the sickness.
- taking herbal remedies.
ideas about prevention of disease and illness
- praying.
- fasting.
- wearing blessed charms.
- paying for a special mass (tithes).
ideas about prevention of disease and illness
- wearing charms to ward of bad spirits & miasma.
ideas about prevention of disease and illness
- improved and better lifestyle, hygiene, and diet (regimen sanitates - only available to rich people).
how was care ‘carried’ out on patients?
f. family members: vast majorities cared by them - cost no money (they made restorative foods + mixed herbal remedies).
physician: diagnosed illness and recommended treatment - awfully expensive due to few numbers (they rarely treated the patient)
apothecary: mixed herbal remedies with a good knowledge on them - cheaper that phys. (not the best as they sometimes prescribed poison).
barber surgeon: performed small surgeries and haircuts - some surgeons highly trained (could perform large surgeries e.g. set a broken limb, remove an arrow)
how hospitals acted towards disease and illness
- many hosp. didn’t treat the sick but showed hospitality to pilgrims + travellers.
- 30% of hosp. were owned + run by church (run by monks and nuns).
- medieval hosp. were places of rest + recovery (kept clean and tidy) - successful for those who weren’t terminally ill.
↳ those who recovered were proof that
prayer worked. - infectious or terminal patients often rejected as prayer + penance could not help them (pregnant and insane patients often rejected too).
- lazar homes or isolated island communities for lepers
ideas about cause of the Black Death
religious: God punishing the people for their sin, abandonment of God, test of faith.
supernatural: position of planets + stars (alignment of Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn).
rational: miasma from volcanoes/earthquakes, bad diet + lifestyle, jews (in Europe not in England).
outbreak occurred in 1348
approaches to treatment of the Black Death
religious: prayer (confess sins/ask for forgiveness).
rational: bleeding, purging, sniffing strong herbs, fires lit to remove bad air.
outbreak occurred in 1348
approaches to prevention of the Black Death
religious: praying, fasting, pilgrimages, making offerings, self-flagellation (to show how sorry you are).
rational: wearing posy of flowers/fragrant herbs to ward of miasma, avoid bathing (believed water would open skin pores to corrupted air), escape the plague, doing joyful things, avoided family members who caught the plague and their houses.
government: new quarantine laws (people new to an area had to quarantine for 40 days in case they had plague), considered banning religious processions (stop large crowding) but not enough power to do so - rich people roamed freely and the church run as normal, stopped cleaning streets (believed foul stench would ward of miasma.
outbreak occurred in 1348
