Medicine Stands Still

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Who treated the sick?

  • Barber Surgeons
  • Wise Women
  • Monks in monastries
  • Trained doctors
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Types of treatments.

  • Clinical observation
  • Balancing the four humours
  • Checking the position of stars 
  • Praying
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Obstacles

  • Lacking scientific knowledge
  • Medical training involved reading Church approved texts
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Influence of Hippocratates.

  • Emphasisis the importance of clinical observation
  • Therory of the Four Humours and the need to balance them.
  • Bleeding was a popular treatment.
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The Four Humours.

  • Blood
  • Phlegm 
  • Yellow Bile
  • Black Bile
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Influence of Galen

  • Dissected animals
  • Believed in design theory
  • Church banned people from questioning his work
  • Gladiator School allowed him to develop his techniques
  • He stressed the importance of of listening to a patients pulse
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Influence of the Church.

  • Taught that illness was sent as a punishment from God
  • Controlled universities
  • Banned human dissection
  • Recommended pilgramages
  • Arrested monk Roger Bacon for suggesting that doctors should do orignial research and not trust old books
  • Set up over 700 hospitals
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Function of Hospitals.

  • Mainly a place for people to rest and recover
  • Linked to monastries
  • Monks provided nursing care
  • Offered herbal treatments
  • Had phsyic gardens
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How Islamic medicine was more advanced than the We

  • Islamic doctors wrote medical texts- spread to Britain via crusaders and trade
  • Avicenna wrote the Canon of Medicine which remained as an important text
  • It listed the medical properties of 760 differnt drugs
  • Hospitals treated patients and trained doctors
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Medieval surgical procedures.

  • Bloodletting
  • Amputation
  • Trepanning
  • Cauterisation
  • Anasthetics included: mandrake root, opium and hemlock. Too much could kill
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John of Arderene

  • Famous surgeon
  • Surgical manual was based on Greek and Arab knowlege and his experience of warfare.
  • Specialised in anal absesses
  • Developed a painkilling ointment made from opium and hemlock- helped healing and stopped the need for cauterisation. 
  • Urged doctors to trust their own judement not rely on texts
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How warfare helped surgeons.

  • Enanled surgeons to seal wounds more effectively
  • Carry out quicker amputations
  • New tools. Arrow cup- remove an arrow head without further damage
  • Improved ointments like John of Arderne's painkiller
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Main public health problems.

  • Poor sanitation
  • Regulations tended to be very ineffective- not the job of the monarch
  • Streets were very dirty
  • Sesspits could overflow into the road and the rivers
  • Butchers dumped chemicals and wate blood into the rivers
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Signs of Progress.

  • Coventry became proactive in cleaning up their streets
  • Waste disposal sites were established outside of towns
  • Latrines were moved away from streams
  • Bath houses were introduced
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Why did monasteries have superior public health sy

  • Fresh water supplies were considered a priority when deciding the sites of monasteries
  • Fresh water was piped to wash rooms and sewers took away dirty water
  • Kitchens were built away from toilets
  • Monks had to bathe every month
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What caused the black death?

  • Began in Asia- travelled aloung trade routs reaching England in 1348
  • Combination of bubonic (spread by fleas and ratsa) and pneumonic plague ( spread by coughing and close contact)
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Believes of what caused the black death.

  • Miasma
  • Punishment from God
  • Caused by the alignments of the planets
  • Blamed on Jewish people poisoining the wells
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Why did the Black Death spread so quickly?

  • Dirty streats encouraged rats
  • Insufficent wate disposal
  • Very few regualtions and ignorance of germs
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Prevention methods of the black death

  • Flagellants whipped themselves
  • Church organised special services to ask for God's forgiveness
  • Normal people prayed
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Treatments for the black death

  • Cleaned up the streets
  • Quarantine was attempted 
  • Bleeding was used to treat victims
  • Some drank mercury which was poisonous
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Impact of the Black Death.

  • In Britain 1.5m died between 1348-1350
  • Thosw who did survive demanded higher wages and better treatments for their lords
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