Medieval medicine

God...

• Made them ill because he was either displeased with them or was testing their faith
• TMT people believed that was no need to for other explanations for disease - held back medical research, few new ideas about the causes of disease appeared

Astrology...

• Alignment of planets and stars was thought to cause some diseases
• Astrology used to diagnose patients
• Increased use during this period

Church's control...

• Most of what people learned was from the Church - also set up and ran universities where physicians were trained
• Discouraged dissection, disapproved of people going against authority - authority over investigation and observation
• Monks and priests were the only people who could read / write - most books kept in monasteries 
• TMT the church was in charge of what book were read
• Approved of traditonal explanations for disease e.g. Galen's theories fitted with Christian beliefs (body had a soul and all parts had been created by God to work together)
• Taught people to follow Jesus' example and care for the sick - hospitals were hooused in monasteries and nunneries

Four Humours 

• Ancient Greek theory - believed people became ill when their humours had become unbalanced (blood, phlegm, yellow and black bile) 
• Tried to balance the humours to cure people
• Theory used during the Middle Ages
• Developed by Hippocrates

The Theory of Opposites

• Developed by Galen, a Greek doctor
• Treatment designed to balance the humours - e.g. bleeding, purging
• Giving the patient the 'opposite' of their symptoms

Galen

• Greek doctor 
• Ideas were the basis of medical training in the Middle Ages
• Developed Hippocrates' ideas - theory of Opposites
• Drew detailed diagrams of the body using knowledge gained from dissecting mostly dead animals 

Hippocrates

• Ancient Greek doctor 
• Dismissed the idea that God caused disease - believed there was a physical reason
• Most treatments were based on diet, sleep and exercise
• Hippocratic Oath - doctors swore to respect life and prevent harm
• Clinical observaions - studying symptoms, note taking, comparisons - basis of the approach used today

Four Humours

• Bloodletting - using leeches, cupping, cutting a vien - generally done by barber surgeons / people with no medical training
• Purging - either by taking laxatives or emetics ( making them vomit) - made by apothecaries / wise women

Religious and supernatural

• Living a Christian life - praying, going to church, etc.
• Carrying charms / amulets
• Chanting incantations
• Self-punishment - flagellation - to cleanse yourself of your sins
• Fasting
• Going on pilgrimage

Rational methods

• Keeping streets clean
• Purifying air
• Exercise
• Not overeating
• Washing
• Avoiding stress
• Herbs / remedies - made by apothecaries

What was it?

• Bubonic plague - carried by fleas living on rats, carried from country to country on ships
• Passed on to humans when they are bitten by an infected flea, disease enters blood
• Killed 1/3 of the population
• Symptoms - buboes on the skin, fever, headache, vomiting, diarrhoea

What people thought caused it

• Religion - God sent the Plague as punishment
• Astrology - alignment of the planets / stars
• Miasma - bad air / smells caused by decaying rubbish
• Volcanoes -poisonous gases from volcanoes and earthquakes carried through the air
• Four Humours
• Outsiders - strangers / witches, Jews poisoning the water

Prevention

• Praying, fasting - to apologise to God for their sins
• Clearing rubbish from the streets
• Lighting a fire, ringing bells, having birds fly around the room to keep air moving
• Carrying herbs / spices to avoid 'bad air'
• Quarantine of infected hosues

Treatments

• Praying
• Lucky charms
• Cutting open buboes to drain pus
• Holding bread against buboes
• Eating cold things, cold baths (balancing four humours)

People who treated the sick

• Barber surgeons - no training, carried out basic surgery / bloodletting, popular because were cheaper than physicians
• Care in the home - treated at home by female family member / village wise women - free
• Apothecaries - training but no medical qualifications, mixed medicines based on own knowledge, cost less than physicians
• Physicians - trained at uni, diagnosed illness and gave treatments / sent patients to apothecarieS, expensive - very few of them

Hospitals

• The infected, pregnant or insane were rejected
• Many were places for travellers to stay on their journeys
• Mostly run by the Church - emphasis on God and Christian ideals
• Kept very clean
• Place of recuperation instead of cure for disease
• Given  food, warmth and rest
• Lepor houses built specifically for people with leprosy