Medicine Through Time Part 1: Medieval Britain

• why was galen hard to challenge

  lack of scientific evidence because church disallowed dissection
• What were the most common supernatural explanations of causes of disease in the medieval period?

  Punishment from God

  Illness was a test of faith

  Demons or evil spirits living inside peoples bodies

  Witches

  Astrology - the way the stars and planets aligned caused disease
• Why did people have supernatural explanations about the causes of disease?

  Religion and the catholic church had a lot of influence over peoples lives. there was also a lack of scientific knowledge leading to people believing in supernatural reasons for disease
• What were the main supernatural beliefs for treatment of disease in medieval medicine?

  Prayers

  Pilgrimages to religious shrines or tombs

  Horoscopes
• Why did the Church prevent medical advancements in the medival era

  The Church encourages people to believe disease was a punishment from God rather than having natural causes, stopping people from trying to find cures to diseases because all you could do is pray and repent.
• The church's influence over medieval medicine meant that there was ____ change in ideas about the cause of disease until the ____ - the church and its messages were so influential that people were unable to question them


  very little, renaissance
• what medical teaching did the church favour and why

  Galen's ideas - it fit the belief that there was only 1 God and He created human bodies and made them to be perfect
• why was the church supporting galen make it difficult for medical advancements

  it stopped people from disagreeing with galen
• what did the church outlaw

  dissection
• why did the church outlawing dissection stop medical advancements

  it means medical doctors couldn't discover ideas about human anatomy for themselves - instead they had to learn galen's incorrect ideas
• when did astrology become a new way of diagnosing disease

  developed in Islamic medicine and was brought to europe between 1100 and 1300
• what did medieval doctor use to check information about where particular planets and starts were

  almanac
• theory of four humours made by

  Hippocrates
• what was the hippocratic oath


  hippocratic oath to promise to follow a set of ethical standards to treat their patients well and to cause no harm
• what was the 4 humours theory

  to be healthy you need to have balanced humours. if unbalanced, it causes disease
• what were the 4 humours and what were they linked to

  yellow bile, black bile, phlegm, blood - linked to the 4 seasons and 4 elements
• yellow bile


  hot and dry, summer, fire
• blood


  hot and wet, spring, air
• phlegm


  cold and wet, winter, water
• black bile


  cold and dry, autumn, earth
• how to balance yellow bile

  doctors would purge patients - making them vomit or changing diet
• how to balance blood

  bloodletting
• how to balance phlegm

  breathing steam, eating veg filled with water
• how to balance black bile

  laxatives, eating more veg
• who made the theory of opposites

  galen
• what did galen encourage

  clinical observation

  monitoring a patients pulse or taking a urine sample
• what is the theory of opposites

  diseases could be treated using opposites - different foods, drinks etc had humours which could balance the excessive humour causing the disease
• Why was the Theory of the Four Humours important?

  it became the basis of how patients were treated for 1,400 years

  appeared to include all illnesses - physicians would deliberately manipulate what they observed to fit it

  lack of scientific knowledge at the time stopped people challenging the theory or providing alternative treatments
• what natural explanations explained disease?

  Miasma theory

  Four humours theory
• what is the miasma theory

  bad air causes disease - galen supported this
• why was the miasma and 4 humours theory important

  they both assumed that disease had a natural cause and suggested people werent powerless against disease and could act against it
• when did miasma theory last until

  1860s - when germ theory came about
• why did galen make mistakes in his ideas

  galen only performed dissections on animals - animal and human bodies are different - so some of his ideas about anatomy were wrong. and medieval doctors were not allowed to do their own dissections
• what mistakes did galen make

  believed the jaw was made up of 2 bones

  didnt understand blood circulation and the blood was made in the liver and absorbed by the body

  said that men has one fewer pairs of ribs than women
• hippocrates and galens ideas were regarded ___ texts by the ___ church

  important, roman catholic
• Why were Galen's ideas supported for so long?

  galen had the support of the church

  lack of alternatives to his ideas and little opportunity to question them
• how did people try to prevent illness

  religion

  purifying air

  diet

  regimen sanitatis
• how did church try to prevent illness

  telling people to not commit sins, pray regularly and paying tithes to the church
• how did people prevent miasma

  purifying air and cleaning streets

  physicians carried oranges or posies w them when they visited patients so they dont catch the disease

  during the black death juniper, myrrh and incense were burned
• how did people use diet to prevent illness


  if you ate too much it could cause and imbalance so they purged themselves to treat this