Treatment of illness - the community

• Treatment of illness - the community


  • Majority of people unable to afford to visit a physician
  • Relied on various people in the community for treatment
• Four humours


  Four bodily fluids - yellow bile, black bile, blood and phlegm - used in ancient times to analyse and describe people's state of health
• Bloodletting


  1. Cutting into a vein

  2. Using leeches

  3. Placing heated cups over a cut or scratch
• Laxative


  A medicine or mixture used to loosen the bowels and make the patient go to the toilet
• Galen's ideas


  • If an ill person was believed to have too much phlegm, they would be given a treatment that was hot and dry
  • If they were believed to have too much yellow bile, they would be given a cold treatment
• Barber surgeons


  • Carried out basic surgery, such as bloodletting, sewing up wounds and removing growths from the outside of the body
  • Learned their skills from watching others and reading books about surgery
• Family traditions and treatments


  • Most people treated by female family members
  • Traditions and treatments passed down from one family member to the next
  • Some women viewed as particularly knowledgeable about treatments and remedies, known as 'wise women'
• Herbal treatments


  • Made from herbs, minerals, plants and animal parts
  • Books contained instructions on how to mix the ingredients and specified prayers to be said at the same time
  • Successful treatments for infection included honey and linseed
• Traditional medieval remedy for the treatment of gout


  • Take an owl and pluck it clean and open it, clean and salt it. Put it in a new pot and cover it with a stone and put it in an oven and let it stand till it be burned. And then stamp [pound] it with boar's grease and anoint the gout therewith.
• Apothecaries


  • Understood both the healing and poisonous properties of plants and herbs
  • Mixed together ingredients for herbal treatments
  • Learned how to mix these treatments from other apothecaries