Health and Medicine
Middle Ages
Cause of illness
Cause of illness unknown
Doctors and physicians lacked scientific and medical training
Could be caused by evil spirits living in someone
Could be a result of sin
Treated through repent and prayer
influence of the church
Roman Catholic Church was the main influence
It was encouraged that illness and disease was a punishment from god rather than finding cures
Galen supported the ‘design theory’ which meant that God created everybody to be perfect and that nothing could go wrong with them unless they sinned
Dissection outlawed
Disagreeing with Galen meant going against the church
Diagnosis and treatment of illness
Doctors and women healers used herbs to treat illness
Balm was made from honey and herbs to treat breathing problems and eye infections
Some doctors used Almanacs which were a type of calendar including information about the position of stars and planets to diagnose patients
Hippocrates and Galen
Hippocrates created the ‘four humours’ idea which was popularised by Galen
Blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm
An imbalance can cause illness
Treatments involved: blood letting, purging, leeches etc
Liked by the church as their ideas were in favour of god
Galen dissected pigs which made his work unrepresentative of humans
Both wrote books which became the backbone of general knowledge on medicine
Miasma
Galen added the theory of opposites
The theory that bad smells caused disease
Islamic Medicine
More developed than Christian treatment
Muhammad said that for every illness that Allah has created, he has also created a cure
In 805 Caliph Al-Rashid set up a hospital in Baghdad with a medical school, they had the intentions to treat the patients
Ibn Sina was a doctor and astronomer who wrote ‘The Canon of Medicine’ in 1025
It listed the medical properties of 760 different drugs
Had chapters on medical problems such as anorexia and obesity
Al-Razi distinguished measles from smallpox for the first time and wrote over 150 books
He encouraged his students to improve on the work of their teacher
Many Islamic medical documents were translated into different languages and used around the world spreading the idea of curing instead of caring
Making new discoveries
Abulcasis
Wrote Al-Tasrif where he described amputations, removal of bladder stones, dental surgery
Proved Galen wrong
Avenzoar described the parasite that caused scabies going against the idea that illness was caused by god
Another Islamic doctors suggested that the blood flows from one side of the heart to the other via the lungs, Galen said the blood flowed across the septum
Ideas were not recognised until 20th century
Treating Disease
Thought it was punishment, did flagellation where they’d wip themselves
Doctors carried posies and oranges when treating patients in an act to protect themselves from disease
Physicians were male doctors when trained at university for at least seven years, in 1300 there were less than 100 in England and they were expensive
Hospitals and Surgery
Most run by churches
Main purpose was to care for the sick rather than treat them
Hugh of Luca and his son Theodoric began to soak their bandages in wine as it kept out infection after noticing it by chance
Italian surgeons
Noticed puss wasn’t a healthy sign
Conditions in towns
Most towns small after Black Death
Overcrowding issues
In 1388 the government ordered to keep the streets clean of waste
York and London built latrines over rivers so that sewage could be carried away