Medicine

    Cards (72)

    • Barber surgeons
      Did bloodletting, minor surgery based on experience
    • Wise man/woman in the village

      Gave first aid, herbal remedies, supernatural cures with charms and spells based on tradition; based on word-of-mouth and trial and error
    • Travelling healers
      Extracted teeth, sold potions, mended dislocations or fractures
    • Herbalists in monasteries
      Used herbal treatments, bloodletting, prayer and rest in the infirmary based on the ancient knowledge of books like Pliny's Natural History, word-of-mouth, and experience
    • Trained doctors in large towns

      Treated using Hippocratic and Galenic methods from British textbooks such as Gilbert Eagle's Compendium Medicine (c1230) and Islamic texts such as Avicenna's Canon of Medicine
    • Very few doctors in Medieval England
    • Doctors
      Charged fees for services, Studied for at least seven years at universities controlled by the Christian Church
    • Beliefs about causes of disease
      • Natural
      • Supernatural
    • Natural causes
      Christian Church approved of the knowledge of the ancient Greeks and Romans, Galen, although he lived in Roman times, believed in one God which fitted with Christian ideas, Doctors used clinical observation, checking pulse and urine, four humours
    • Supernatural causes
      Many diseases that Hippocratic and Galenic medicine could not cure; for these diseases supernatural ideas influenced doctors treatments, Doctors checked position of the stars, recommended charms and prayers
    • Four humours
      Blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile, A person became ill when these were out of balance, Doctor's job was to restore this balance
    • The Christian Church believed in following the example of Jesus who healed the sick, therefore Christians believed it was good to look after the sick
    • God sent illness as a punishment (e.g. mental illness) or a test of faith, so curing an illness would challenge God's will
    • Monks
      Preserved and copied by hand ancient medical texts
    • Prayers
      Were the most important treatment rather than drugs
    • Christians believed in caring for the sick and started many hospitals; over 700 were set up in England between 1000 and 1500
    • The Church
      Believed in miraculous healing and the sick were encouraged to visit shrines (a pilgrimage) with the relics of a holy person, and pray to saints to cure their illness
    • The Church arrested the thirteenth-century English monk, Roger Bacon, for suggesting doctors should do original research and not trust old books
    • The Church approved the medical ideas of the ancient Greeks and Romans; their ideas were taught in the universities
    • Hospitals were funded by the Church or a wealthy patron; for example St Leonard's hospital was paid for by the Norman King Stephen
    • Hospitals concentrated on caring for the sick and not curing; many had a priest rather than a doctor
    • Who were hospitals funded by
      Churches or wealthy patrons. St Leonard hospital funded by Norman King stephen
    • In the Middle Ages, people followed the ideas of two ancient thinkers on Medicine: Hippocrates and Galen
    • Hippocrates' Theory of the Four Humours
      If these humours were imbalanced, you would get ill
    • Hippocrates started the Hippocratic Oath which is still used today, Doctors promise to help all patients to the best of their ability
    • Galen's Theory of Opposites
      For instance, if you were suffering from a cold you should be treated with something hot (like pepper)
    • What Medieval people thought caused disease
      • Punishment from God
      • Imbalance of the Humours
      • Miasma
    • Contributions of Medieval Islamic scholars
      • Ibn Sina preserved the Conon of Medicine which became the standard medical textbook in England until 1600
      • Al-Razi challenged the idea that the body was made of humours and made new discoveries such as allergies, hay fever and that there was a difference between measles and smallpox
      • Hospitals were established where patients were treated and medics tried to cure them
    • Did the Church help or harm medicine
      • It ran hospitals where nuns would look after the sick and treat them with herbs
      • Monks preserved Greek and Roman books about Medicine
      • The Church controlled medical teaching, which they used to persuade people that Galen was right, not to discover new ideas
      • The church banned the dissection of human beings, which harmed medical progress in surgery and anatomy
    • Medieval Surgery Techniques
      • Bloodletting
      • Amputation
      • Cauterisation
      • Anaesthetic
      • Trepanning
    • Public Health in Medieval Towns was pretty bad
    • Public health was better in Monasteries than Towns
      • Monasteries were cleaner as they were far away from towns
      • Monks used filtering systems to clean water
      • Monasteries had facilities for washing and used privies to store their waste rather than let it run into the river
    • Most medieval surgeons were barbers who would perform small surgical procedures as well as cut hair (but not at the same time)
    • Ibn al-Nafis discovered that blood is carried by arteries and not holes as Galen had said
    • John of Arderne used opium as part of a cream to heal a wound and prevent pain. It acted as an anaesthetic (pain relief)
    • The Black Death 1348-1350 killed nearly half of English people
    • To stop the spread and improve public health, the government quarantined ships coming into the country during the Black Death
    • The Black Death had the consequence that lots of peasants were killed, but the ones that survived could demand higher wages
    • The Reformation (began 1517) saw the creation of the Protestant Church, which weakened the power of the Catholic Church and led people to question the Church's beliefs on all sorts of things, including medicine
    • The Renaissance period 1400-1600 saw many changes occur in Europe, including the rediscovery of ancient Greek and Roman texts and the inspiration to observe, experiment and find out new things for themselves