What was the most important factor preventing improvements in public health in the period 1250-1500?

Question 1

How did believing in God affect people’s health?

Answer 1

People relied on God to make them better instead of medicine.

Question 2

How did monasteries help people’s health?

Answer 2

The monks and nuns served local people by providing food, shelter, and care to those in need.

Question 3

How many people lived in the countryside?

Answer 3

90%

Question 4

What were the most powerful machinery of the day?

Answer 4

Water mills, wind mills, blades for digging and ploughing.

Question 5

What are the four humours?

Answer 5

Blood, phlegm, yellow bile, black bile.

Question 6

How did the idea of the four humours impact people’s health and how did the church supporting this Greek idea impact people’s health?

Answer 6

This could be very harmful, as Medieval people had no way of knowing this was wrong. For example, if someone had a fever, the doctors would open a vein and let a person bleed. This definitely would not help the patient.

However, with the support of the church and therefore God, the deeply religious society would not have been willing to challenge these ideas.

Question 7

How did England’s famous wool trade impact people’s health?

Answer 7

As it led to a greater economy, so followed the growth of many English towns. More people living in tighter spaces would lead to a greater chance of disease. However, a greater economy would lead to a greater quality of life, resulting in better health.

Question 8

How was ergotism caused?

Answer 8

In damp conditions, a fungus grew on rye (which the poor used to make bread), which caused the disease.

Question 9

Why was ergotism named ‘St. Anthony’s Fire’?

Answer 9

The disease caused its sufferers to ‘go mad’, therefore Medieval people believed this to be the work of Demons and that the Christian Saint Anthony would heal its unfortunate victims.

Question 10

What were the common foods in the Medieval times?

Answer 10

Fish that had been caught in streams/ponds.
Pottage - peas, beans, onions, sometimes animal bones.
Nuts, honey, cheese, milk, eggs.

Question 11

How did farmers using the contents of cesspits and rubbish tips to fertilise their fields affect people’s health?

Answer 11

The waste would have carried disease, which would have infected the ground and the water supply. This would have led to much disease and death.

Question 12

What did young peasants do from a very early age?

Answer 12

Hard, physical labour in the fields.

Question 13

What do we know from records of accidental drownings?

Answer 13

The peasants bathed in the same streams that they used for water in the summer months.

Question 14

What did most villagers drink and what was it made of?

Answer 14

Cider (apples), mead (honey) and ale (barley). These were very nutritional in their diet and a lot safer than the dirty water from streams.

Question 15

When was the Great Famine?

Answer 15

1315-1316

Question 16

How many people died in the Great Famine?

Answer 16

About 10% of the population.

Question 17

What was fulling?

Answer 17

The textile industry: making clothes and cloth.

Question 18

What impact did fulling have on people’s health?

Answer 18

Fullers pounded cloth in a mixture mainly made up of human urine, which could have passed on many diseases. The clothes were pounded, which made a horrendous noise, resulting in loss of hearing. Fulling in the countryside also polluted many streams, some of which were used as drinking water. This would have also passed on disease.

Question 19

How did clean water transported through lead pipes impact people’s health?

Answer 19

This would have greatly improved people’s health, as the clean water would have been a lot safer than the water from streams. However the lead in the pipes may have poisoned the water, and these pipes were originally solely used for acts of worship in the church, meaning the water wouldn’t have been available to everyone.

Question 20

Why did town dwellers keep flowers?

Answer 20

To purify the air. This was stemmed from the belief of miasma (dirty air caused by bad smells and sins).

Question 21

How long could people leave rubbish on the streets without being fined?

Answer 21

3-4 days.

Question 22

What is a conduit?

Answer 22

A water fountain or a spring, usually kept in the middle of the town.

Question 23

What were rakers?

Answer 23

After market days, the streets would be full of waste, therefore the council employed people - rakers - to clear up the mess. The rubbish would often be used as fertiliser on farmer’s fields.

Question 24

How did thatched roofs impact people’s health?

Answer 24

Many lice, insects, mice and rats lived here, which spread countless disease.

Question 25

Who paid for the public latrines in 1423?

Answer 25

Richard Whittington.

Question 26

What were tanners?

Answer 26

They scraped hair from animal hides and used natural acid to make them soft. This left pollution.

Question 27

What were brewers?

Answer 27

They made ale, but left large deposits of barley husks.

Question 28

What were washerwomen?

Answer 28

They created large quantities of soapy water to keep people clean.

Question 29

What were lime burners?

Answer 29

They made lime wash paint that stopped rainwater from destroying the walls of buildings. This industry also used sea coal, that made a terrible smell.

Question 30

Why did people usually warm water first and how did this impact people’s health?

Answer 30

This came from the belief of the four humours, as they believed warming it would balance them. However, although boiling the water would help destroy bacteria and germs, warming it did non of this and therefore did not help people’s health.

Question 31

What were gongfermers?

Answer 31

When a latarine was full, a gongfermer would clear it out. The took away the cess at night, sold it to farmers for fertiliser, or dumped it in the stream. This would have had a bad impact on people’s health, as the germs would have got into the water and food that people consumed.

Question 32

What were carters?

Answer 32

People that collected waste from butchers and fishmongers, as they always left a lot of rubbish.

Question 33

When did the Black Death first reach England?

Answer 33

The summer of 1348, at Melcombe, a port on Dorset.

Question 34

How was the plague spread?

Answer 34

Through a germ called yersinia pests, that lived in the guts of fleas, that lived on rats, that travelled on ships.

Question 35

What are the three types of plague?

Answer 35

Bubonic, septicemic, pneumonic.

Question 36

What were the symptoms of the Bubonic Plague?

Answer 36

From a flea bite, which caused painful swellings (buboes) in the armpits and groin, and intense fever, blisters all over the body.

Question 37

What were the symptoms of the Septicemic Plague?

Answer 37

When the infection reached the bloodstream, the victims would bleed freely and the nose, fingers and toes would turn black and rot away.

Question 38

What were the symptoms of the Pneumonic Plague?

Answer 38

From breathing cough droplets of those infect: the victim would violently cough up blood and be dead within two days.

Question 39

What did the Medieval people think the Black Death was?

Answer 39

A punishment from God, spread by miasma (bad air), humours being out of balance and an unusual movement of the planets.

Question 40

How did people respond to the Black Death?

Answer 40

Camomile lotion to relieve inflammation of the skin.
Letting blood freely run from a vein to balance the four humours.
Burnt candles and prayed for healing due to their belief in God.
Flagellants would whip themselves as repentance.
People would confess their sins, special services were held, lots of praying.
Burning rosemary - this stemmed from the belief that miasma (bad air) caused the Black Death and that the scent of rosemary would make the air ‘good’ and expel the Black Death from it.

Question 41

How many people died from the Black Death between 1348-50?

Answer 41

About 30-45% of the population, though in some villages, 80-90% of the population died.

Question 42

Why did the London authorities build a jetty out in the Thames in 1393?

Answer 42

To dump animal carcasses onto boats, instead of onto the streets.

Question 43

Why were the public baths temporarily closed in 1417?

Answer 43

The Black Death - though, ironically, the baths actually helped prevent the spread, due to bodies being cleaned.