Health and the people

• Medieval Medicine (c.1250 ‐ 1500)
• Renaissance Medicine (c.1550 ‐ 1750)
• Industrial Medicine (c.1750 ‐ 1900)
• Modern Medicine (c.1900 to present day)
• Ideas on the cause of disease in the Middle Ages showed significant continuity, based on ancient ideas from the Greek and Roman periods and the power of the church.
• During the Middle Ages, no progress was made towards understanding the cause of disease.
• People knew nothing of the real causes of disease.
• A lack of progress during the Middle Ages was due to a respect for tradition, a lack of education and scientific knowledge, and the power of the church.
• Hippocrates, a Greek doctor and teacher, created the theory of the Four Humours, which stated that the body contained four humours (black bile, yellow bile, blood and phlegm).
• If you are healthy, the humours are balanced, but if you are ill, you have imbalanced humours (too much of it).
• Hippocrates believed you saw evidence of this when you were sick, for example, you would have a nosebleed if you had too much blood.
• To cure this illness, you needed to get rid of the humour that was unbalanced, for example, you would need to use leeches or cups to remove the excess blood.
• Harvey added to the voice arguing for more dissection and experimentation, showing it worked.
• The most significant change in prevention efforts during the Great Plague was the increased effort by people and the government.
• Quack Doctors, untrained individuals who sold medical cures/advice, were popular during the Great Plague.
• Treatments for the Great Plague were similar to those used against the Black Death, with some new ideas from the Renaissance period.
• Bleeding and purging, herbal remedies, transference, and prayer were all treatments used during the Great Plague.
• Astrology, God, miasma, the four humours, and the belief that the disease could be passed from person to person were all theories about the cause of the Plague.
• Many physicians of London fled to the countryside themselves to avoid getting ill during the Great Plague.
• Quack Doctors wore waxed cloaks with bird shaped beak like masks filled with sweet smelling herbs to ward off the miasma.
• During the Great Plague, the most common advice was to avoid catching it in the first place.
• The Black Death (1348) and the Great Plague (1665) shared similarities in cause, beliefs about the cause, and treatments.
• Harvey's work was vital to anatomy, encouraging the later improvements in surgery and blood transfusions.
• Harvey had proven Galen wrong on blood circulation.
• The 1848 Public Health Act established the National Board of Health and set up a system where the government could force some town councils to improve water/sewerage, collect taxes to pay for public health improvements, and appoint medical officers.
• Edward Jenner was the first to make a discovery that successfully prevented people from catching the deadly disease, smallpox.
• Cowpox is a mild version of smallpox, caught from cows.
• The 1875 Public Health Act required city authorities to provide clean water, sewers, public toilets, street lighting, and public parks for exercise.
• The first breakthrough of the Industrial age that started huge improvements in the prevention of disease was the creation of the first vaccine by Edward Jenner.
• Public Health officers were appointed to inspect lodging houses, the building of new homes, and check the quality of food sold.
• Edward Jenner created the first vaccine, a method to prevent disease.
• Inoculation is the process of putting a low dose of a disease into the body to help it fight against a more serious attack.
• The government’s attitude to public health changed over time and after several epidemics of diseases such as cholera they began to realise that they must take further responsibility for public health.
• In 1852, the government made the smallpox vaccination compulsory but they only enforced it from 1872.
• Vaccination is the name given to Jenner’s method of injecting patients with the disease.
• By 1979, the World Health organisation announced that smallpox had been wiped out.
• When working class men got the vote from 1867, politicians now had to appeal to voters who wanted better living conditions.
• Galen, a Roman doctor, developed the Four Humours by creating the ‘Theory of Opposites’, stating that if you had too much of a humour, you needed to cure it with the opposite.
• There was no progress on what caused disease during the Middle Ages due to the power of religion.
• Barber surgeons used basic anaesthetic (opium) and antiseptic (honey) to treat the wounded during and after surgery.