AQA History GCSE Summary Notes Britain Health and the People, Medicine
Course
History
Institution
GCSE
AQA History GCSE Summary Notes Britain Health and the People, Medicine Summary Notes with Timeline and Key Dates and Notes, perfect for last minute revision
- Theory of 4 humours – since Hippocrates in Ancient Greece
- Hippocratic Oath – Doctors should ensure to do no harm
- Galen’s ideas were defended by the Christian Church but later proved wrong
- Examples of diagnosis and treatments include urine charts to test the colour, smell and taste of urine. Blood-
letting (purging) was removing blood by opening a vein or using leeches.
- Barber Surgeon – someone who cut your hair and often did minor treatment for the lower classes
- 1348: Black Death was brough to England. Over 40% of the population died during the plague. People
believed that it was a punishment from God for sin and also blamed humour imbalances (Hippocrates). They
believed it spread through bad smell (miasma).
- Impact of Black Beath: Food shortages due to a lack workers and sheep farming increased as a result
because it was cheaper and required less workers. The Black Death hindered progress as it killed many
possible doctors, without finding a cure for until much later in the 1800s.
- Cauterisation was a common method during Medieval Britain: sealing a wound by burning it shut.
- Islamic doctors: Al Razi – stressed the need for careful observation. Although he did follow Galen, he thought
it was important to improve his work as a student.
- Islamic doctors: Ibn Sina – wrote a great encyclopedia of medicine called ‘Canon of Medicine’, containing all
Greek and Islamic knowledge of medicine at the time. It was translated and shared across Europe although
strongly doubted by contemporaries at the time, largely down to the opposition by the Christian Church.
However, it became common practice and used to teach Western doctors until the 17 th century. It informed
on problems such as obesity and anorexia.
- John of Arderne: most famous English ‘doctor’. Wrote Practica in 1376 which contained treatments of
operations and instruments. Used opium to dull soldier’s pain. Was experienced in treating anal abscesses
which were common for knights.
- Frugardi: wrote a textbook on the Practice of Surgery in 1380 and warned against eh use of trepanning
which was a common method of the time.
Renaisaance
- Ambroise Pare: in 1537, ran out of boiling oil on the battlefield. Improvised using rose oil, turpentine and egg
white to smear over the wounds and it worked better. It was by chance that he had found this new
treatment.
- Another method that Pare promoted was the use of ligatures in amputations. This involved tying them
around blood vessels as recommended by Galen, which was more effective compared to the typical use of
cauterisation.
- Columbus founded America in 1492 which allowed for new ideas and also for European ideas to spread.
- Andreas Vesalius: Vesalius began to realise that Galen was wrong through his observations. One reason was
that Galen dissected on animal bodies rather than human ones. Vesalius’s most famous book is the Fabric of
the Human Body (1543). Vesalius’s work finally overturned Galen’s, despite initial rejection.
- William Harvey: Famous book called Motion of the Heart in 1628 which was countered more of Galen’s ideas
about circulation. Initially, it was rejected because he questioned Galen.
- Quacks: travelling salesmen who sold cure-alls that did not work
- Thomas Sydenham: Critical of Quack treatments and stressed for careful observation of symptoms and
recognized epidemic diseases like scarlet fever.
- The Great Plague of 1665 was attributed to miasma. Solutions: bringing bodies out at night when fewer
people were out and they were thrown into mass pits, red crosses painted on doors to highlight plague
victims, and those rich enough moved from the cities.
- Hospital Boom: Between 1650 and 1650, 5 new hospitals were built in London. Rich people started to fund
them as charitable gifts. For example, Guy’s Hospital was founded by Thomas Guy in 1724.
- John Hunter: Showed a great Talent for dissection and anatomical research. Became an army doctor in 1760.
- Lady Mary Worley Montague: 1721, saw the process of inoculation in Turkey and brought it back to England.
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