Med 1250-1500

• Ideas on the causes of disease

  The four humours

  Theory of opposites

  Miasma

  God

  Astrology
• 1250-1500 is

  Medieval period
• The four humours was in imbalance in

  Black bile

  Yellow bile

  Blood

  phlegm
• Example of four humours

  Nosebleed- too much blood
• four humours by

  Hippocrates
• Theory of opposites by

  Galen
• Theory of opposites

  Theory of if you had too much of a humour you need to cure it with the opposite
• Example of the theory of opposites

  Too much phlegm cold and wet given something spicy which is hot and dry
• Physicians also used urine charts linked to four humours to

  Check the colour smell and taste, White- too much phlegm
• Miasma

  Dirt and waste on the streets poisoned the air
• Miasma supported by

  Hippocrates

  Galen
• God

  Punishment for sin

  Test of their faith
• Astrology and witchcraft

  Stars and planets affected your health and caused disease
• Saturn and Jupiter were to blame for

  The Black Death 1348-1349
• why was there a lack of progress?

  Church controlled all medical knowledge

  church was very powerful so nobody desired to search for more

  lack of science
• Treatments

  Religious

  Four humours

  Herbal remedies

  Supernatural
• Religious treatments 


  Healing prayers and incantations

  Fasting

  pilgrimages
• Four humors- treatments

  blood letting

  cupping

  leeching

  purging

  bathing
• Blood letting

  Removing bad blood
• Cupping

  warmed cups onto opened cuts to draw blood out
• Leeching

  Using leeches to suck out bad blood
• Purging

  swallowing a mixture of herbs and animal fat to make you sick
• Bathing

  warm baths with prescribed herbs to draw out the humours
• Herbal remedies

  Drink sniff or bathe in herbs given by apothecaries or wise women

  honey in wounds fought infection

  aloe Vera for digestion

  stye in the eye- onion, garlic, bulls bladder and wine
• Supernatural

  Magpies beak around your neck

  Trepanning skulls
• Magpies beak around neck for

  Toothache
• Trepanning

  Barber surgeons trepanned skulls to let demons out making them ill but dangerous.
• Religious preventions of disease

  Flagellants whipped themselves to beg for forgiveness

  Fasted, made offerings and lit candles for forgiveness
• Regimen sanitis - Preventions

  Physicians promoted

  avoiding stress

  healthy diet

  bathing regularly
• Wore magic charms or amulets to

  Protect them from bad spirits or disease
• Herbal preventions

  Carried sweet smelling herbs and lit fires to move miasma

  Rich hung herbs in their houses and bathed in them
• Problem: waste and litter

  Streets were full of human waste and litter

  soloution: laws banned littering

  Toilets built in london
• Problem: animals

  animals butchered in the streets and left dung

  Solutions: 12 rakers employed to clean streets in 1370
• Problem: dirty water

  Water supply polluted with human waste

  Solution: aqueduct built to bring fresh water in Gloucester
• Problem: leaking latrines

  cesspits and latrines contaminating water

  Soloution: cesspits built with stone to stop leaks, night carts emptied the cesspits
• Wise women

  Local with experience

  herbal remedies

  charms and spells

  Helped with childbirth

  not allowed to be physicians
• apothecaries 


  like pharmacist or chemist

  mixed herbal remedies

  cheaper than physician
• Physicians 


  Trained at university

  used Hippocrates and Galens work

  100 male physicians in England

  diagnose and suggest treatment by apothecaries or surgeons

  clinical observations

  only rich could afford
• barber surgeon 


  Untrained but experienced

  performed basic surgery

  could remove teeth, let blood, lance boils and remove tumours

  low success rate

  cheap
• Church:management

  Run by the church and the monks and nuns

  focused on gods healing

  most had no doctor