Medieval medicine

• The sanitatis regimen was advice by physians on how to live healthy (taking baths, maintaining a good diet, etc). (prevention).
• Prevention methods in medieval period

  1. Hire people to clean up streets to prevent animals leaving trail of feces

  2. Make public wells through lead pipes to provide clean water, but not effective due to dirty water source

  3. Pass laws to make it illegal to litter and only remove waste outside city walls, effective for more hygienic streets

  4. Regulations to make private latrines lined with brick or stone to lower risk of leaking into rivers used for drinking and bathing, but still not 100% leak proof
• Wise woman

  • Treated most ill patients with range of remedies, mainly acting like midwives
  • Had licenses but couldn't become doctors or surgeons (because they were girls)
• Priest


  • Lots of sick people would just visit church to get care
  • Would just pray to god to ask for forgiveness
• Barber surgeon

  • Trained by observing others
  • Did many basic operations, bleeding, removing tumours, sewing up wounds
• Bleeder

  • Used a bleeding chart and showed best places to gain blood
  • A warmed cup was placed on the cut to draw out blood or a leech
• Apothecaries


  • Made their own medicine to sell to the sick
  • Most used animal parts, herbs, minerals
  • Also wrote many books with special herbal remedies
• The regimen sanitatis was only used by the very rich because it took a very long time to write up detailed set of instructions to every patients.
• Real cause of black plague:

  There was a ship that had rats with plague, the sailors on the ship got plague from those rats and spreaded it to everyone.
• Why people didn't didn't know the real cause of the black death at the time:

  They thought god was trying to punish them for their sins.
• Prevention methods used to avoid black death:

  • Marching through streets praying to god, begging for forgiveness.
  • Bathe in urine 3 times a day, or drink it once a day to protect you from harm.
  • Avoiding all plague victims.
  • Clean all filth from the streets (order by the king).
  • Avoid having sex too much because 'to much excitement can weaken you'.
  • Carry out falgellation (walking through streets and prayinng to god for forgiveness and whipping yourself).
• Treatments used for black death:

  • Pop open the buboes to release the disease.
  • Carry a posy of sweet smelling herbs and spices to keep away the evil sprits.
  • Drink a mixture of vinegar and mercury.
  • Attach a live chicken to the buboes to drive away from the disease.
  • Bleeding your self will release the evil inside your body.
• Ideas of cause of getting the black death:

  • Breathing in misasmas. (natural).
  • The position of the planets, some people thought position of the planets and the movement of the sun affected peoples health. (supernatural).
  • Looking at a victim, some people thought making eye contact caused disease. (supernatural).
  • Humours were inbalanced. (natural).
  • Divine intervention, church and others thought plague was a punishment from god.
  • Filth, some people made connection that filth caused disease but couldn't understand how or why it caised disease.
  • Pointed shoes caused plague. (supernatural).