Medicine through time: Causes, Prevention and Treatment

Question 1

What were the beliefs around Causes of illness between 1250-1500?

Answer 1

They mainly believed in God being the cause of disease:
- Small tithes, Punishment of a village via famine, weak faith so God punished, Leprosy may have been used to seclude a person from society as a punishment.
- Astrology, the alignment of stars were consulted when a new disease came about.
- People believed miasma was a cause due to the bad smell.
- Jews were blamed for causing the Black Death in 1348-9.
- People also believed in imbalance of the four humours being the cause of illness.

Question 2

What were the beliefs around Causes of illness in 1500-1700?

Answer 2

• People still believed that miasma caused illness like the great plague but its popularity had decreased.
• They still believed in God causing illness as a punishment
• Imbalance of the four humours was still believed to be a cause of illness
• People still used astrology as a cause for illness like the Great Plague

Question 3

What were the beliefs around Causes of illness in 1700-1900?

Answer 3

• Due to society’s secularisation people’s beliefs of the supernatural being a cause for illness shifted to more scientific thinking
  with the germ theory
• Still some belief of miasma being a cause
• Later on in the period vaccines and newer thinking caught on

Question 4

What were the beliefs around Prevention of illness in 1250-1500?

Answer 4

• People believed treating God with respect like praying, giving tithes and having a strong faith would stop him from punishing you.
• They use of sweet smelling things like posies were used to prevent being infected by miasma
• People tried to ensure they had a balanced diet to keep their humours balanced

Question 5

What were the beliefs around prevention of illness in 1500-1700?

Answer 5

• People continued to use posies and sweet smelling herbs to prevent being infected by miasma.
• They ensured they were respectful to God to prevent him punishing them
• People still ensured they had a balanced diet to keep their four humours balanced.

Question 6

What were the beliefs around prevention of illness in 1700-1900?

Answer 6

• Early in this period (1700+) people continued to believe in religious preventions like showing respect to God.
• Later on in this period once science had taken over preventions shifted to: sanitations (germs) and vaccination.

Question 7

What were the beliefs around treatment of illness in 1250-1500?

Answer 7

• People believed that praying to God to heal them was a way of treatment
• Medical treatments like blood letting, purges and herbal remedies were thought of as treatments to rebalance the humours.
• Churches provided care for the sick

Question 8

What were the beliefs around treatment of illness in 1500-1700?

Answer 8

• Medical Treatments like bloodletting and purging were still used.
• Herbal Remedies were used to help imbalanced humours.
• Barbers performed low level surgeries on people.

Question 9

What were the beliefs around treatment of illness in 1700-1900?

Answer 9

• Secular treatments became more popular with improved surgery and more hygiene towards the end of the period.