treatment Flashcards
(196 cards)
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- How have attitudes towards preventing illness and disease changed since the medievar
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period?
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Theme Three: How have attempts to treat illness and disease
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changed over time?
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3.1 Treatment in the medieval era - Who provided treatments?
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Look back at section 2.1 and the list of people responsible for preventing illness in the
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Medieval era.
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These would also be the people you would consult to cure your illnesses. However
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their
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cures were likely to be as effective as the things they did to prevent illness.
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Questions
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- Who would have been most able to provide cures that would help patients?
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- Why would these treatments have been effective?
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What were the treatments available?
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Supernatural treatments
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If the cause of illness was God
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then logically
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God could also cure the illness. People could
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cure illness by:
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Prayers and spells
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Paying for mass to be said
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Fasting (going without food)
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Pilgrimages (journeys to religious places)
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Charms and amulets
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Doing nothing - if God had sent the
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disease to clean the soul then it was
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important to let it run its course.
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Astrology was also used to diagnose illness
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and treatments varied according to the
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horoscope. The alignment of the planets was
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checked so many treatments were done at
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night time. Doctors had copies of 'zodiac man'
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Four Humours - Bleeding
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Phlebotomy (bloodletting) was the most
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common treatment
bad humours could be
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removed by removing some of the blood. It
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was usually carried out by barber surgeons or
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wise women. It could be done in different
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Cutting a vein: a vein was cut open with a
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sharp instrument. Phlebotomy charts were
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used to show points in the body were
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bleeding was recommended for specific
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Leeches were collected for those were
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traditional bleeding was too dangerous
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Cupping: the skin was pierced until it bled
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a heated cup was then placed over the cut
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to draw out the blood.
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Some patients died from blood loss but
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physicians were not held responsible.
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Uroscopy - the study of urine
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Many Medieval doctors carried with them a
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book of diagnoses and a urine chart.
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they examined the colour
smell and taste of
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the patient's urine
and made an on-the-spot
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guess as to what they might be suffering
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Herbal treatments & bathing
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Common ingredients included mint
camomile
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almonds
saffron
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these were expensive and difficult to find.
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Another common remedy was theriaca. This was a
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spice-based mixture that could contain up to 70
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ingredients. Galen had written a book on the use of
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these particularly looking at treating snake bites
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and poisons.
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Different foods were prescribed to balance the
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humours
e.g. chicken and almonds as the
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ingredients were warm and moist.
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Warm baths were often prescribed to dissolve
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blockages in the humours. Plants and herbs were
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added to the bath water. Sometimes they were less
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pleasant - for paralysis patients were advised to
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boil a fox in the water and bathe in it - foxes have
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quick and nimble properties.
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The Four Humours -purging
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It was believed that the humours were created from
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the foods eaten
a common treatment was therefore
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to remove any leftover food. This was done by
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giving the patients an emetic (to make them
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vomit) or a laxative to clear out anything left in the
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body. These were usually strong and bitter herbs
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often they contained poisons such as hellebore.
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Laxatives were very common and included things
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like mallow leaves and linseed.
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If more help was required an enema was given - a
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mixture of herbs and oils were squirted into a
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patient's anus using a greased pipe fixed to a pig's
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bladder
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Cures in action - How did people attempt to cure the Black Death?
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Bleeding
sweating and vomiting - These cures were linked to the idea that the disease was
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caused by the four body humours (fluids) becoming unbalanced. They believed the plague
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would leave the body through these liquids.
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Dried Toads -A popular suggestion among doctors was to put a dried toad onto the victim's
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plague boils.
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Lancing the buboes - This involved the buboes being cut open to allow the disease to leave
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the body. A mixture of tree resin
roots of white lilies and dried human excrement would
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then be applied to the places where the body had been cut open.
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Vinegar and rose water - This treatment required someone with the plague to be put to bed
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and washed all over with a mixture of vinegar and rose water.
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Live hens -There were some more superstitious attemots at cures. For example
putuny a
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live hen nest to the place of swelling to draw out the pectilence from the body. To aid
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live nen nect to the Diace of swellina to draw out the pestilence from the dody. lo dia
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recovery after this
victims were to drink a alass of their own urine every day.
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Questions
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1. What were the different types of plaque that made un the Black Death?
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2. Which of the responses above MIGHT have an effect on the Black Death? Why?
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3.2 Treatment in the early modern period
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There was not much change in the Early Modern period except;
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1. Women
particularly upper class women
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books of cures.
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2. Herbs - doctrine of signatures were used. If a plant looked like part of the body it
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in the brain.
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would be used to treat that part of the body. E.g a walnut was used to treat problems
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3. New ingredients bought from round the world were used in treatment e.g rhubarb from
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Asia
tobacco from USA.
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4. New illnesses observed e.g mental illness was called 'melancholy'.
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Questions
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1. Why were treatments limited in the medieval and early modern eras?
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2. Explain how certain factors prevented the discovery of new treatments?
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3.3 Treatment in the Industrial era
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There were 3 main problems faced by a patient being treated by surgery.
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Pain
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There were a few ways of reliving pain (e.g. opium) but without
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anaesthetic there was no way of preventing the patient suffering
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excruciating pain. This could often send the patient into shock and made
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it difficult for the surgeons who had to work quickly on a moving patient.
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Infection
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Before the germ theory there was no idea of how infection spread. Even
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if a patient survived the operation then infection was likely to set in.
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Surgeries were not performed in a germ-free environment and often
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performed in the patient's own home.
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Bleeding
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Surgeons had to be quick as there was no way of replacing lost blood
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and this could quickly send a patient into shock. This remained a
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problem until blood groups made transfusions possible at the start of the
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twentieth century.
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Tackling Pain: The development of anaesthetics
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Before the 19th century there was no effective method at reliving pain during surgery; the
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patient was held down or tied down by the surgeon's assistants. They were given alcohol
told
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to sing hymns or to bite on a stick to stop them screaming! Surgery without anaesthesia had
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to be fast. Napoleon's surgeon amputated 200 limbs in 24 hours at the Battle of Borodino in
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1812
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In 1799 Humphrey Davy (who later invented the safety lamp for miners) discovered that pain
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could be reduced by using laughing gas
but this did not make the patient completely
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unconscious.
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Ether was later found to put patients to sleep
and was used successfully as an anaesthetic.
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However
it could cause the patient to cough or vomit
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them with a knife! It was also highly inflammable.
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James Simpson and chloroform
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James Simpson was a doctor at Edinburgh University. He had used ether but was hoping for a
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better anaesthetic. In 1847 he gathered a group of friends together and they inhaled the
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vapours of various chemicals to see what might work. After sniffing chloroform
they all
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Simpson realised it was an effective anaesthetic and within days starting using it to help
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passed out and Mrs Simpson discovered them under the table.
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their operations.
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women in childbirth. He wrote about his discovery and other surgeons started to use it in
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Why did people oppose chloroform?
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• The dose had to be carefully controlled - in 1940 14-year-old Hannah Greener died from
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an overdoes after having an infected toenail removed.
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• It also allowed surgeons to operate deeper into the body and take more risks- the led to a
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black period on surgery
when more people died as bleeding an infection became much
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bigger problems.
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Nobody knew what the long-term effects would be.
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The Victorians believed that pain relief was interfering in God's plan
particularly in
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childbirth
which was meant to be painful. The opposition was only overcome in 1853
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when Queen Victoria used it during the birth of her eighth child.
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Doctors were worried that patients were more likely to die if they were unconscious -
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rather than awake and screaming!
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Over time the use of anaesthetics improved
other chemicals were used to relax muscles as
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well as putting patients to sleep. New chemicals had fewer side effects than chloroform. Local
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anaesthetics were also developed - these took time but Simpson's discovery of chloroform
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was a turning point.
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1. When did James Simpson discover chloroform?
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2. How did he discover it?
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3. How did Queen Victoria help develop the use of anaesthetics?
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4. Why did some consider the development of anaesthetics a step backwards in
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development of surgery?
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5. How did anaesthetics help advance treatments of illness and disease?
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3.4 Infection: the development of antiseptic surgery
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Before germ theory was established there was a lack of understanding about germs.
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Operating theatres and surgeons themselves were dirty; in fact
the dirtier a surgeon's coat
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was - the more experience he had! Surgical tools were not washed and lots of people
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regularly watched operations. Gangrene was common and killed many patients after the
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operations.
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Joseph Lister
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Antiseptic - A substance preventing the growth of disease-causing bacteria
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Josenh Lister had started to look at Pasteur's suggested that microbes in the air were causing
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infections in humans. He started to look for a chemical that would clear bacteria - carbolic
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acid was commonly used in treating sewage and he realised if it treated the smell of sewage
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it might have the same effect on wounds. In 1865 he operated on a patient with a broken leg
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and used bandages soaked in carbolic acid to cover the wound. The operation was a success.
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From this he developed the use of carbolic spray
which was sprayed in the air during
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operations. He published his results in the medical journal
The Lancet
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reduced infections by 30%.
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