Medicine

• Black Death arrives in England

  1348
• Compendium Medicine


  • Comprehensive English medical textbook blending European and Arab knowledge of medicine
• William Harvey proves the circulation of the blood


  1628
• Guy's Hospital is founded in London


  1724
• Edward Jenner develops cowpox as a protection against smallpox


  1798
• James Simpson uses chloroform as an anaesthetic


  1847
• First Public Health Act is introduced

  1848
• Joseph Bazalgette begins building a network of sewers under London's streets


  1858
• Joseph Lister publishes a description of carbolic antiseptic in surgery


  1867
• Robert Koch's work on the identification of tuberculosis is publicised in Britain

  1882
• First of the Liberal social reforms - including free school meals for the poorest children, free medical checks and free treatment – is introduced


  1906
• Alexander Fleming discovers that penicillin kills bacteria


  1928
• NHS comes into operation

  1948
• Francis Crick and James Watson publish their research on the structure of DNA


  1953
• Human Genome Project is declared complete with the final sequencing of the entire human genome; this is a huge breakthrough in understanding how genes help determine who a person is

  2003
• There was a variety of different people you went to if you were ill in Medieval Britain - and an even greater variety of treatments
• People you went to if ill in Medieval Britain

  • Barber surgeons in towns
  • Wise men or women in the village
  • Travelling healers in markets and fairs
  • Herbalists in monasteries
  • Trained doctors in large towns
• Barber surgeons


  • Did bloodletting, minor surgery; based on experience
• Wise men or women in the village

  • Gave first aid, herbal remedies, supernatural cures with charms and spells based on tradition; based on word-of-mouth and trial and error
• Travelling healers in markets and fairs

  • Extracted teeth, sold potions, mended dislocations or fractures
• Herbalists in monasteries


  • Used herbal treatments, bloodletting, prayer and rest in the infirmary; based on the ancient knowledge of books like Pliny's Natural History, word-of-mouth, and experience
• Trained doctors in large towns

  • Treated using Hippocratic and Galenic methods from British textbooks such as Gilbert Eagle's Compendium Medicine (c1230) and Islamic texts such as Avicenna's Canon of Medicine
• Very few doctors in Medieval England
• Doctors charged fees for services
• Doctors studied for at least seven years at universities controlled by the Christian Church - the main religion in Western Europe
• Beliefs about causes of disease in Medieval medicine

  • Natural
  • Supernatural
• Natural


  Christian Church approved of the knowledge of the ancient Greeks and Romans; Galen, although he lived in Roman times, believed in one God; this fitted with Christian ideas
• Natural cures


  • Clinical observation - checking pulse and urine
  • Four humours
• Supernatural


  Many diseases that Hippocratic and Galenic medicine could not cure; for these diseases supernatural ideas influenced doctors' treatments
• Supernatural cures


  • Checking position of the stars
  • Recommending charms and prayers
• Four humours


  Blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile - a person became ill when these were out of balance, and the doctor's job was to restore this balance
• The Christian Church believed in following the example of Jesus who healed the sick; therefore Christians believed it was good to look after the sick
• God sent illness as a punishment (e.g. mental illness) or a test of faith, so curing an illness would challenge God's will
• Monks preserved and copied by hand ancient medical texts
• Prayers were the most important treatment rather than drugs
• Christians believed in caring for the sick and started many hospitals; over 700 were set up in England between 1000 and 1500
• The Church believed in miraculous healing and the sick were encouraged to visit shrines (a pilgrimage) with the relics of a holy person, and pray to saints to cure their illness
• Hospitals were funded by the Church or a wealthy patron; for example St Leonard's hospital was paid for by the Norman King Stephen
• Hospitals concentrated on caring for the sick and not curing; many had a priest rather than a doctor
• The Church arrested the thirteenth-century English monk, Roger Bacon, for suggesting doctors should do original research and not trust old books