Medieval: 1250-1500

• Physician


  Person who practices medicine
• Barber surgeon


  Cut hair / carried out blood-letting
• Apothecary


  Mixed herbal remedies
• Remedy


  Cure for an illness
• Four Humours

  Liquids in body which must remain in balance for good health
• The Church was hugely powerful: Belief in heaven / hell, No education, so people learned from church, God punishes sinners, Disease is a punishment sent by God
• Astrology


  Idea that the position of the stars affects our lives
• Hippocrates (a Greek physician and philosopher) first put forward the idea of the Four Humours
• The universe is made up of four elements; and the body is made up of four humours (liquids)
• If these humours are in balance the body will be healthy, when they are unbalanced you become ill
• Galen (Roman physician) developed the idea with theory of Opposites. For example, if you had a phlegmy cold, this should be balanced by eating something hot eg pepper
• Miasma


  Bad smelling air thought to be harmful – so corpses, rotting matter, swamps thought to cause disease
• Religious/supernatural treatments


  • Prayer; saying mass; fasting; going on pilgrimage
• Some believed disease because punishment was sent by God, you should not try to treat
• Humoural Treatments

  • Bleeding and purging; bathing (only available to rich); remedies (made from herbs and spices)
• Prevention


  • PRAY!
  • Practice basic hygiene (as recommended in the Regimen Sanitatis)
  • Purifying bad air (eg carry a sweet-smelling "posy"; some measures were taken to keep towns clean, like clearing animal corpses)
• Who cared for the sick

  • Physician (university educated, expensive so only available if you were rich)
  • Apothecary (mixed the herbal remedies)
  • Surgeon (performed basic operations and bleeding)
  • Hospitals (approx. 1,100 by 1500, 30% run by Church, provided clean place to rest and eat well, many were places for travellers to stay)
  • Most people cared for at home (kept clear, fed, herbal remedies), generally considered to be a woman's role
• Bubonic Plague


  Spread by fleas on rats
• Pneumonic Plague


  Spread by coughing
• Ideas about cause of Black Death

  • Punishment from God
  • Imbalance of four humours
• How Black Death was dealt with

  • Prayer / fasting / flagellation (whipping)
  • Light fires / carry posies to ward off miasma
  • Local governments tried to control by building new cemeteries, close Parliament in 1349, enforcing street cleaning in cities, but this often didn't happen
• Consequences of the Black Death: Fewer workers, demand higher wages and had more freedoms