Medieval Medicine

• Causes of medieval medicine (5th-14th century)


  • God/religion
  • Church and monarch were the most powerful institutions
  • Church taught disease was a punishment from God
  • Church controlled other institutions
  • Dissections were banned
  • Mostly animals used for dissection
  • Traditional ideas continued to be taught in universities
• Theory of the 4 humours

  Body was made up of 4 humours - blood, phlegm, yellow bile, black bile - which must be in balance to avoid disease
• Miasma


  Poisonous vapour believed to cause disease
• Astrology


  God controlled the planets, astrological position can affect health
• Medieval hospital treatment


  • Home treatment by women with herbal remedies
  • Hospitals controlled by church and monasteries, provided care not treatment
• Medical professionals


  • Physicians - elites, expensive, diagnosed but rarely treated
  • Barber surgeons - least qualified, performed surgery
  • Apothecaries - used herbal remedies, accessible but unqualified
• Treating disease using the 4 humours

  1. Theory of Opposites - give opposite humour to balance

  2. Bathing to dissolve blockages

  3. Purging to balance humours

  4. Bloodletting
• Religious treatments

  • Praying
  • Self-flagellation
  • Paying for special mass
  • Pilgrimage to saints' tombs
  • Touching relics
• Herbal remedies

  • Made by apothecaries and wise women
  • Theriaca was a common remedy
• Preventing disease through miasma

  • Purifying air with herbs
  • Carrying herbs in jewellery
  • Authorities kept towns clean
  • Fining for excess rubbish
  • Burning herbs
• Preventing disease through religion


  • Praying, confessing, making offerings
  • Pilgrimage, special mass, touching relics
• Preventing and treating disease through lifestyle

  • Physicians' prescriptions for prevention and treatment, e.g. recommending peace and quiet
• The Black Death (1331-1353)

  Carried by rats on trading ships, spread by fleas biting humans, 3 types - bubonic, pneumonic, septicaemic
• Symptoms of the Black Death

  • Black/purple blotches on skin
  • Developed buboes
  • Sweating and fever
  • Coughing blood
• The Black Death had a very high fatality rate, killing 1/3 of the European population
• Causes of the Black Death

  • Religion - punishment for wickedness
  • Miasma and 4 humours - imbalance
  • Astrology - unusual planetary alignment
• Treatments for the Black Death

  • Religious - confessing, self-flagellation, offerings
  • Miasma - burning herbs
  • 4 humours - bleeding and purging
• Prevention of the Black Death

  • Religion - praying, fasting, offerings, self-flagellation
  • Miasma - leaving town, burning herbs, cleanliness
  • Astrology - wearing charms and amulets
  • 4 humours - healthy lifestyle
  • Quarantine