medicine through time

• The church had set up universities where doctors could be trained
• Monasteries


  • Controlled education, priests and monks were the only people who could read
  • Opened medical schools where the ideas of Galen were taught
  • Made an effort to provide clean running water and toilets
• The only libraries were in monasteries, church sometimes banned books they did not want people to read
• Medieval hospitals


  • Provided "hospitality" for visitors
  • Genuinely ill people were often turned away due to fear of disease spreading
• Galen's ideas were rediscovered
• Church leaders looked carefully at Galen's works and decided that they fitted in with Christian ideas because he referred to "the creator" in his works
• Doctors in the believed his ideas were correct and it was nearly impossible to improve his work
• Four humours theory


  Medieval doctors believed illness was caused by an imbalance of the four humours
• The theory developed into a more complex system, based on the position of the stars
• Although human dissection was carried out in medical schools, findings were interpreted as the theory of the four humours – although some later doctors began to challenge traditional understandings
• Doctors also believed the stars caused disease and relied on astrology when deciding on treatments
• Trained doctors were very expensive. Medicine practised amongst the most was provided by monasteries and housewife-physicians, using traditional cures and their experience
• Supernatural beliefs and treatments

  • The church believed that illness was a punishment for sins – they prayed to god if they became ill
  • Some believed that pilgrimages to holy shrines could cure illness
  • Doctors had superstitious beliefs, saying magical words when treating patients and consulting stars
• Black Death - 1348


  • Spread by coughs and sneezes or by black rat flea bites – black rats were carried overseas by ships
  • Arrived in Britain in 1348. Its victims were struck down suddenly and most died
  • Symptoms included exhaustion, high temperatures, swellings and difficulty breathing
• Ships were made to wait 40 days before landing – they were quarantined
• What did people think caused the plague and how did they treat it?

  • Miasma – carried sweet smelling herbs, sat between two large fires
  • God – tried to appease god by praying, or becoming flagellants (whipping themselves as a punishment)
  • Humours out of balance – use of opposites, purging, vomiting and blood letting
  • Poisoned water – blamed the Jews
• Doctors followed the ideas of Galen. They believed illness was caused by an imbalance in humours
• Believed that God and the Devil influenced health. Disease was seen as God's punishment for sins
• Astrology became important. Doctors studied star charts because they believed that the movement of the planets affected people's health
• Renaissance means rebirth. It began with close study of classic texts and was critical of old translations
• There was a greater interest in how the human body worked based on observation and dissection
• Artists attended dissections of human corpses and did wonderful illustrations for medical books
• Return of classical texts led to a renewed faith in the four humours theory and treatment by opposites
• Andreas Vesalius


  • Studied anatomy, became professor of surgery and anatomy at Padua
  • Was allowed to do dissections
  • Did his own dissections and wrote books based on his observations using accurate diagrams to illustrate his work. His most famous book was 'On The Fabric of the Human Body' written in 1543
  • He was able to point out some of Galen's mistakes. Vesalius said there were no holes in the septum of the heart and that the jaw bone is not made up of two bones
  • Vesalius encouraged doctors to dissect and look for themselves he corrected 300 of galens mistakes
• Ambroise Paré


  • Was a battlefield surgeon; this was still a low status profession
  • In battle, he ran out of boiling oil which was used for treating gunshot wounds. Paré made an old Roman ointment of roses, turpentine and egg yolk
  • Paré develops ligatures to seal wounds instead of using a cauterising iron
  • Carried out an experiment to disprove Galen by proving the bezoar stone isn't a treatment for position
  • Writes 'Notes on Surgery' and becomes the King's surgeon
• William Harvey


  • Discovers the circulation of the blood, disproving Galen's ideas
  • Identifies the difference between arteries and veins
  • Becomes doctor the King, his ideas are very influential
  • To spread his ideas he writes "An Anatomical Account of the Motion of the Heart and Blood" in 1628
  • However, bleeding operations still continue after Harvey as people are unsure of what else to do
  • Blood groups are discovered in 1901, which makes blood transfusions successful
• Great Plague of 1665


  • This was the worst of the reappearances of the Black Death. The death toll in London was about 100 000
  • Efforts were made to control the spread of disease. Households were locked in and red crosses were painted on their doors with the words, "Lord have mercy upon us."
  • Carts organised by the authorities roamed the city to the now infamous cry of "Bring out your dead!" collecting corpses for mass burial in "plague pits"
  • People realised disease was contagious, but they still didn't understand about germs causing disease
  • The Great Fire of London in 1666 effectively sterilised large parts of London, killing the plague bacteria
• Populations were beginning to increase in the towns and cities, placing more strain on the available clean water supplies and sewage disposal systems
• What factors affected progress in medicine during the renaissance?

  • The Printing Press – new ideas could spread more easily and rapidly now that books could be printed
  • The Weakening Power of the Church – people did not have religious beliefs about the causes of diseases, meaning that people started to look for natural causes. Doctors could now dissect
  • Artists Drawing from Life – medical drawings could be drawn and shared among doctors through medical books, new anatomy books were produced
  • Renewed Interest in Ancient Learning – people wanted to learn how to read, they began to challenge old medical ideas (e.g. Galen holes in the septum)
• New understanding of the body and Galen's descriptions were incomplete and sometimes wrong
• The invention of the water pump proved that Harvey's ideas were right
• Theory of the four humours no longer accepted. People initially thought that miasma, caused disease
• Doctors carried out dissections and used microscopes. Galen's books were no longer important
• Inoculation


  • In the 18th century, smallpox was a big killer. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu brought inoculation to Britain
  • She discovered that a health person could be immunised against smallpox using pus from the sores of a sufferer with a mild form of the disease
  • However, inoculation sometimes led to smallpox and death
• Edward Jenner


  • Jenner was a country doctor. He heard that milkmaids didn't get smallpox, but instead a milder cowpox
  • Jenner investigated and discovered people who had already had cowpox didn't get smallpox
  • In 1796 he took a small boy and injected him with pus from the sores of a milkmaid with cowpox. Jenner then injected James with smallpox. James didn't catch the disease!
• Opposition to the Smallpox Vaccination

  • Jenner could not scientifically explain how it worked
  • Inoculators were afraid of losing money
  • Many were worried about side effects; they worried about giving themselves a disease that from cows
  • Some members of the Church believed that vaccination was not natural
• Florence Nightingale


  • Brought discipline and professionalism to a job that had a bad reputation at the time
  • From a wealthy background, she became a nurse despite the opposition of her family
  • Went out to the Crimean War to sort out nursing care in the English camp
  • She made huge improvements in the death rate, due to improvements in ward hygiene
  • When she returns home, she writes a book 'Notes on Nursing' and sets up a hospital in London
• Mary Seacole


  • From a poor background in Jamaica. Seacole volunteers to help as a nurse in the Crimean War, she is rejected, but goes anyway self-financing her journey
  • She nursed soldiers on the battlefields and built the 'British Hotel'
  • Goes bankrupt when she returns to England – but receives support due to the press interest in her story and she writes an autobiography
• Scientists thought microbes were caused by disease and appeared because of illness. This was the theory of spontaneous generation. Instead of blaming microbes, people looked for miasmas
• Louis Pasteur


  • Was employed in 1857 to find the explanation for the souring of sugar beet used in fermenting industrial alcohol. His answer was to blame germs in the air
  • He proved there are germs in the air by sterilising water and keeping it in a flask that didn't allow airborne particles to enter. This stayed sterile – but sterilised water kept in an open flask bred microbes again