Medicines and ideas - Medieval

• Miasma


  Bad air caused disease and was caused by dirt and waste
• Hippocrates Four humours


  The body contains 4 humours: blood, black bile, yellow bile and phlegm. When they were imbalanced they made you ill. To cure this you had to get rid of the unbalanced humour.
• Galen Theory of Opposites


  If you had too much of one humour you needed to cure it with the opposite. e.g. too much phlegm = have something spicy
• Supernatural


  Astrologists blamed stars and planets being misaligned for illness. People also had superstitions eg. witches
• It was important to go through spiritual healing for illness. Religious healing included healing prayers and incantations, paying for mass, fasting. So even whipped themselves to beg God for forgiveness during the Black Death.
• People continued using ancient ideas by physicians using four humours and the idea of balancing them.
• Common methods for balancing humour?

  • bloodletting - cupping and leeching
  • purging
  • bathing
• What was given by wise women and apothecaries?


  Herbal remedies to drink, sniff, bathe in
• Herbal remedies:

  • Antiseptic - honey
  • small pox - red rose and bamboo juice
  • Infection - honey was put on wounds
  • Digestion - aloe Vera
• What was the main superstition?


  Barber surgeons ‘trepanned’ skulls to release demons making people ill