Medicine Flashcards
What were medieval (believed) causes of illness?
Imbalance of the Four Humours God Miasma (bad smells) Everyday life The supernatural
Medieval cause of illness - Four Humours
Widest held belief by doctors - you were ill when you had too much or too little of the Four Humours: blood, yellow bile, black bile, phlegm. Each Humour associated with an element.
Medieval cause of illness - God
Religion was a huge part of people’s lives and they believed God sent an epidemic/plague whenever society was sinful.
Medieval cause of illness - Everyday life
Death for children below the age of 7 and the death of women at childbirth was common. This made medieval people believe it was inevitable. War and famine was also frequent which led to disease and death too.
Medieval cause of illness - Bad smells (miasma)
Death and disease was higher in towns than in the countryside due to everyone living close together with their filth. The bad smells associated with towns led people to believe the bad smell caused the disease and illness.
Medieval cause of illness - The supernatural
Used to explain sudden disease and illness. For example, people became ill when the planets moved out of line or the moon’s influence on fluids caused disease because the Earth was made from fire, earth, water and wind same as the body so everything needed to be in balance.
Medieval treatments
Urine charts, bloodletting, whipping, zodiac charts, getting rid of bad smells, prayers, herbs, purging/vomiting, pilgrimages, amputation, trepanning, cauterisation, anaesthetics
Where did ordinary people go to get treatment?
Medieval
They went to the apothecary who sold medicines, herbs and spices.
They could also go to the local wise woman that made homemade medicines and were specialised in supernatural causes.
Where did rich people go for treatment?
Medieval
They could go to a trained doctor who was specialised in the 4 Humours with 7 years training or they could go to a barber surgeon for smaller operations such as bloodletting and tooth extraction.
Why was Hippocrates significant?
First doctor to use clinical observation and looked at issues with reasoning and made medical records.
Suggested the body should be looked at as a whole instead of individual parts.
Believed in Four Humeurs and that they needed to be balanced in order for someone to be healthy.
Believed illnesses had natural cause and not supernatural.
Why was Galen significant/insignificant?
Worked as a doctor in gladiator school so he could investigate anatomy.
Performed dissections on pigs and monkeys as he believed they were similar to humans and dissection on humans was against the law.
Church encouraged his work.
Why did the Church encourage Galen’s work and what did the Church do?
Galen believed in one God that he referred to as the ‘Creator’ which fit with Christian ideas in a Pagan time (Rome).
Anything written against him would have been seen as a criticism of the Church.
His ideas spread rapidly across Europe as the Church taught his ideas in universities.
What were Christian ideas about health?
Sickness was punishment or test of faith from God so they did not try to cure patients as it would have been challenging God - only cared for patient.
Prayer was most important treatment and they believed in miraculous healing through pilgrimage, relics and shrines.
Respected Galen and Hippocrates’ and thought they were correct and copied their textbooks.
How were sick treated by Church and hospital conditions?
Hospitals were places of rest where people recovered in quiet and in clean conditions.
700 hospitals started between 1000 and 1500.
Some small with space for 12 people and without doctors, only monks and nuns.
Depended on patrons, Church and charity.
Monasteries had infirmaries.
How did the Church help medical progress?
Trained doctors after 1200.
Controlled universities as medicine was most studied after religion.
How did the Church hinder medical progress?
Taught ancient knowledge to doctors in universities with no new discoveries.
Couldn’t challenge Galen as Church believed his ideas so no new ideas could be brought forward.
Doctors didn’t heal but predicted symptoms, duration and reason for illness.
What ideas did Islam have about health?
Scientists encouraged to discover cures because the believe Allah give a cure for every disease.
Peace and order provided by Calpihs for medical progress.
Didn’t view mental illness as punishment from God.
How did Islam treat the sick
Provided care for people with mental illnesses instead of viewing it as a punishment from God.
Caliph set up hospital in Baghdad with medical school to provide care for everyone.
Permanently present doctors at hospitals that treated everyone.
Cared and cured patients.
How did Islam help medical progress?
2 Muslim doctors (Rhazes and Avicenna) brought their own discoveries to Europe and translated their books (for example Canon of Medicine) into Latin and spread through Europe and used up until 1700 in Europe and Islam.
Their books, drugs and equipment reached England through trade.
Medieval beliefs on causes of Black Death
Alignment of stars and planets.
Miasma, bad air from privies.
Poisoning of wells by Jews.
God punishing them for their sins.
Difference between bubonic plague and pneumonic plague
Bubonic plague spread by fleas and caused buboes to form with a lower death rate.
Pneumonic plague infected lungs and had a higher death rate spread by blood or breath.
Actual cause of Black Death
Bacteria in fleas that fed on rat blood. The fleas moved to humans after.
People were malnourished due to high food prices so they couldn’t fight the disease.
People didn’t practice cleanliness and bodies were dug up by
animals.
How did people try to prevent the Black Death?
Though flagellation hoping God would spare them.
People fled to other towns and villages.
Local councils quarantined infected places.
Impact of Black Death
Killed at least 1/3 of population of England.
Caused food shortages because peasants that normally ploughed fields had died and farm animals escaped without owners.
Lords started to farm sheep instead as it requires less people to manage which contributed to food shortages and inflation of food prices.
Lords desperately needed workers and encouraged peasants to work for them but didn’t allow them to return to their own village.
Peasants who survived believed that God had protected them so they demanded better lifestyle and wage.
Opinions of Church worsened because churchmen deserted their villages and priests died.
Positives of medieval public health
Towns had Roman aqueducts helped water transfer within towns.
Towns had privies and cesspits.
Pipes made from lead and wood were used to cope with increased demand of water in highly populated areas.
Streets outside houses of the rich were cleaned by servants.
Bath houses were built in towns were people could bathe.
Negatives of medieval public health
Privies and cesspits were unhygienic and seeped into wells and rivers if not cleaned.
Animals used for transport created lots of dung.
Open drains that ran down street centres to carry away water and waste overflowed.
Tanning (making leather) created smells and used dangerous chemicals in towns.
No rubbish collectors so waste was washed away by the rain or left to rot.
Shopkeepers sold off food instead of throwing it away.
People didn’t wash their bodies due to lack of water and also drank beer instead as water was probably contaminated.
Lack of sanitation due to no knowledge of germs.
Waste of butchered animals dumped into rivers.
Why was there poor public health in medieval era?
No knowledge of germs and linked illness to supernatural things.
Rich didn’t choose to help the poor.
How did monasteries help public health?
They were wealthy due to donations so they could create sanitation facilities.
Systems of pipes and filtering systems to remove impurities and had excellent washing facilities and waste water was dumped into rivers.
They had gardens where they grew herbs that they could treat patients with.
Often had hospitals or infirmities where patients could be treated with leeches.
Religious cleaning rituals meant they had bath houses and washed often.
They had access to medical books and had knowledge of herbs so they could live healthily and teach and treat.
Renaissance period time
1400-1700s
New discoveries in the Renaissance period
Printing press allowed many medical books to be published and ideas to be spread more rapidly.
Microscope invented so physicians and scientists could work more effectively.
Versalius
Belgian medical student that carried out dissections of humans and published the ‘Fabric of the Human Body’, an illustrated textbook which explained how different systems in the body worked.
Challenged Galen as he dissected humans, not animals.
Caused heavy criticism from Europe and didn’t lead to medical cures directly.
Similarities between medieval medicine and renaissance
Didn’t know how diseases were spread yet.
Barber surgeons, apothecaries and wise women.
Blood letting and herbal remedies.
Medical treatment depended on what you could afford.
Galen supported.
Ambroise Pare
French surgeon who dealt with wounds in battle and then became surgeon to French Kings.
Discovered cream could be used to soothe wounds when he ran out of hot oil.
Used ligatures in amputations instead of cauterisation as a less painful way of amputation. But they could introduce infection and took longer (in battle surgery speed is crucial).
Designed false limbs for amputees.
Translated Versalius’ writings into French from Latin since most surgeons didn’t know Latin.
Clowes (surgeon to Queen Elizabeth I) admired Paré.
Paré’s cooks were read widely by British surgeons and they observed his new ideas.
John Hunter
Army surgeon, grave robber and surgeon. Trained many surgeons in large practice in the scientific approach.
Trained Edward Jenner.
Had radical approach which included giving himself gonorrhoea and syphilis to show they could exist exclusively.
Wrote books about theories that all surgeons needed to know which were translated into many European languages.
Proved gunshot wounds were not poisonous and you didn’t need to cut out the wound.
Had many specimens.
Became surgeon to King George III in 1776.
William Harvey
English doctor that studied medicine in Cambridge.
Blood flow caused by heart and moved in circles which challenged Galen’s theory that blood was made in the liver and ‘used up’ by the body - important theory regarding blood transfusions, blood tests and heart transplants.
Didn’t have some answers like why blood circulated so people didn’t believe him and called him a quack.
Contradicted Galen so was ignored.
Believed causes of the Great Plague (1665)
Miasma - smell of London due to the open sewers.
God - plague was punishment from God for abandoning faith.
Alignment of planets.
Stray dogs and cats - 40,000 dogs and 200,000 cats killed under order of Mayor.
Orders introduced by King of England and Mayor of London to prevent the spread of the Great Plague
Public entertainment stopped.
Animals not to be kept in city.
All dogs and cats caught and killed.
Rubbish to be cleared from streets.
Fires lit in streets to drive away bad air.
Houses containing plague victims sealed for 40 days and painted with a red cross.
No strangers let into city without certificate of health.
Bodies buried after dark.
Public prayers and weekly fasts.
Cures for the Great Plague
Patients bled with leaches.
People smoked to keep poisoned air away.
People moved away to countryside to avoid it.
People painted red crosses on their door asking for mercy from God.
Dogs and cats not allowed on streets.
Similarities between Great Plague and Black Death
Exact same disease (bubonic plague) that killed many.
Same supposed causes (religion and supernatural) which meant both sufferers asked God for mercy (flagellation and red cross on door).
Both councils attempted to fix the disease through controlling the infected (Black Death towns were isolated and Great Plague health checks and isolation).
Great Plague scientific approach
By observing that the plague killed more in dirtier areas, the king and mayor decided to place watchmen to stop people leaving infected houses.
How did the establishment of Royal Colleges improve the training and status of surgeons and doctors?
In 1800 Royal College of Surgeons examined all surgeons practising within seven miles of London.
In 1811 it became compulsory for all surgeons to attend a one year course in anatomy and in 1813 they had to work in a hospital for at least one year to qualify.
