History- Medicine

• What were the main ideas about cause of disease between 1250-1500?

  1. Supernatural- evil spirits, witches, demons
  2. God- disease was sent down as a punishment for your sins
  3. Astrology- the movement of the planets and the stars have an effect on the earth and people
  4. Four Humours Theory- black bile, yellow bile, phlegm and blood. If imbalanced would cause disease.(Hippocrates and Galen)
  5. Miasma- bad air
• What were the main treatments for disease between 1250-1500?

  1. Prayer and repentance
  2. Bloodletting and purging to balance the humours
  3. Purifying the air
  4. Natural remedies
• Who were the medical healers between 1250-1500?

  1. Physicians- males doctors trained at university who used clinical observations and handbooks to check patients conditions. Very expensive
  2. Apothecary- prepared and sold remedies and gave advice on how to use them. Trained through apprenticeships and very accessible.
  3. Barber surgeons- barbers with experience with knives that could perform minor surgeries when necessary.
• What were hospitals like between 1250-1500?

  The hospitals were set up and run by monasteries. They were very popular and highly regarded. Their main purpose was to care for the sick and elderly; not to provide a treatment.
• When did the Black Death first arrive in Britain?

  1348
• What were the symptoms of the Black Death?


  Headaches, high temperatures, pus-filled swelling, coughing up blood.
• What did people thing caused the Black Death? (1250-1500)

  1. Judgement from God
  2. Humour imbalances
  3. Miasma
  4. Alignment of planets
• How did people try and prevent the Black Death? (1250-1500)

  1. Bloodletting and purging
  2. Prayer and fasting
  3. Carried strong smelling herbs
  4. Carried diamonds and rubies
  5. Stay away from dead bodies
  6. Forms of isolation
• When did the Black Death reach London?

  November 1348
• What was the Renaissance era? 


  A rediscovery of knowledge from classical Greek and Roman times ad the emergence of science. People were encouraged to question old thinking.
• How did the medical knowledge of doctors improve 1500-1700?


  Doctors trained at the College of Physicians that was set up in 1518. New weapons and new world explorations meant new injuries and new medicines to expand knowledge. Dissections became more popular and people started to learn how the human body really worked.
• Who was Andreas Vesalius? 


  Vesalius was a professor who was able to perform dissections on criminals who had been executed. This led him study human anatomy more closely. He wrote books based on his findings with accurate drawings to illustrate his work. Vesalius's findings encouraged people t question Galen and experiment on their own.
• What books did Vesalius publish?

  1. Six Anatomical Pictures
  2. The Fabric of the Human Body
• How many of Galen's ideas did Vesalius disprove?

  Approximately 300
• Who was Thomas Sydenham?

  Thomas Sydenham was a renaissance physicians who believed in practical experience instead of theoretical knowledge. He made detailed observations of his patients and kept accurate records of their symptoms. He thought different types of diseases could be classified based on a patients symptoms.
• What was Sydenham famous for?

  1. Showing scarlet fever was different to measles
  2. Laudanum to relieve pain
  3. Treatments for malaria and anaemia
• What book did Thomas Sydenham write?

  Medical Observations- 1676
• Who was William Harvey?

  William Harvey worked at the Royal College of Physicians. He used dissections from both humans and animals to observe the heart in action. He made key discoveries about the circulatory system.
• What did people believe about the circulatory system before Harvey?

  Before Harvey, people thought that there were two kinds of blood and that they flowed through two completely separate systems of blood vessels. They also though that blood was continually made and 'consumed'.
• What did William Harvey prove about the circulatory system?


  From his experiments, he knew that too much blood was being pumped around the body to be continuously formed and consumed. Instead, he thought that blood must circulate around the body in a loop.
• Did Harvey's ideas have an impact?

  • Yes- changed how people understood anatomy and allowed for complex surgeries and blood transfusions to be attempted in the future.
  • No- Not everyone believed Harvey's theories and so people continued to use bloodletting as a treatment for disease. It took hundreds of years before surgeries or transfusions to became successful.
• When was the Printing Press invented?

  1470s
• How did the Printing Press accelerate the development of medicine?

  • New ideas could be spread and debated more easily
  • People could question existing ideas
  • Students in universities could learn from textbooks
• What was The Royal Society?


  The Royal Society was a prestigious scientific body founded in 1660.The society was important in spreading new scientific theories and getting people to trust new technology. The society wanted to encourage people to be sceptical and question scientific ideas.
• When was the Royal Society founded?

  1660
• Why did the Royal Society have high status?

  It was supported by King Charles II.
• What was the scientific journal that The Royal Society wrote in?

  Philosophical Transactions.
• What medical ideas stayed the same between 1500-1700?

  • Many still trusted and followed Galen's ideas
  • People still used old medical healers
  • People sought medical care from women at home
  • Hospitals were still basic
  • Idea of miasma
  • Religion in medicine
• When did the Great Plague arrive in London?

  1665
• What was London's death toll for the black death?

  100,000 - 20% of the city's population
• What treatment was used during the Great Plague? (1665)

  • Prayer and repentance
  • Lucky charms
  • Special remedies
  • Bloodletting
  • Sweet smells
  • Transference
• What methods of prevention were used during the Great Plague? (1665)

  • Quarantine plague victims
  • Crowed areas like theatres were closed
  • People tried not to touch other people
  • Bodies buried away from towns
  • Local councils payed for dogs and cats to be killed as they thought they carried the disease.
• What methods were used before vaccines were introduced?

  In the 1700s, inoculation was used to treat disease. This involved making a cut in a patients arm and soaking it in pus from someone with a mild form of the disease.
• What was smallpox?

  In the 1700s, smallpox was one of the most deadly diseases and in 1751 over 3500 people died of smallpox in London alone.
• Who was Edward Jenner? 


  Edward Jenner was a doctor in Gloucestershire. He heard that milkmaids who contracted cowpox didn't get smallpox. In 1796, Jenner tested this and injected a small boy with pus from someone with cowpox. Jenner then infected him with smallpox and the boy didn't get the disease. Jenner published his findings and went on to develop the vaccine.
• When did Edward Jenner publish his findings?

  1798
• Where does the word vaccination come from?


  The Latin word for cow, vacca.
• What Jenner successful?

  There was some opposition, doctors who used inoculation as their livelihood saw the vaccination as a threat to their livelihood and others had a problem with the fact it was a disease from a cow.

  However, Edward Jenner had the support from the government and it eventually became a compulsory treatment.
• How much money did Parliament give Jenner to open a vaccination clinic? 


  £10,000 in 1802 and a further £20,000 a few years later.
• When was the smallpox vaccine made compulsory?

  1853