Causes and treatments of disease

• Supernatural


  Things like planets being out of line. God- religion was significant and illness was seen as a punishment for sin
• Miasma


  The belief that Bad smells cause disease
• Four humours


  The belief that the body was made up of four fluids that had to be balanced
• Supernatural treatments


  • Remedies
  • Prayers
  • Charms
  • Astrology
• Four humours treatment


  • Bloodletting
  • Leeching
  • Purging
• Diagnosis


  1. Take pulse

  2. Colour, smell and taste of the urine
• Natural medicines


  • Plant products
  • Animal products
• Physicians


  7 years at the university of Cambridge or Oxford, learnt the work of Hippocrates and Galen
• Wise women


  Word of mouth, natural herbal remedies, first aid and supernatural treatments
• Apothecaries


  Red rose and bamboo juice, honey, bilberry juice, ordinary people used them for their medicines
• Barber-surgeons


  Apprentice to a surgeon for 7 years, tooth extractions, bloodletting
• Monks and Priests


  Care not cure, prayer as curing was seen as going against God