Class notes summary of AQA GCSE Medicine: Medieval Medicine. These notes managed to get me a grade 8 on my AQA History GCSE in 2022. All notes have been made using class notes, teacher notes and AQA History guides. All notes that i have made are Dyslexia friendly, are colourful and easy to read!
Mediaeval Medicine
Treating the sick in mediaeval times
- Barber surgeons in towns- did bloodlettings and minor surgeries based on
their experience.
- Wise men and women in the village- gave first aid, herbal remedies,
supernatural cures with charms and spells based on traditions. Many were
based on word-of-mouth and trial and error.
- Travelling healers in markets and fairs- they extracted teeth, sold potions,
mended dislocations or fractures.
- Herbalists in monasteries- used herbal treatments, bloodletting, prayer and
rest in the infirmary. Based on the ancient knowledge of books such as
Natural History by Pliny, which was written off of word-of-mouth and
experience.
- Trained doctors in large towns- treated using Hippocratic and Galenic
methods from British textbooks such as Compendium Medicine (c1230)
by Gilbert Eagle as well as Canon of Medicine by Avicenna. However there
weren't a lot of doctors in Mediaeval England, they charged fees for their
services and they had to study for at least 7 years at Christian Church
controlled universities (West Europe’s most popular religion).
Mediaeval treatments- Natural
- Christian church approved of the knowledge of the ancient Greeks and
Romans; Galen. Althoughhe lived in Roman times, believed in 1 God; this
fitted with the Churches ideas.
- Doctors used: clinical observation (checking pulse and urine) and using the
four humours.
Mediaeval treatments- Supernatural
- Many diseases that Hippocratic and Galenic medicine couldn't cure; for these
diseases, supernatural ideas influenced doctors' treatments.
- Doctors checked: position of the stars,
- recommended patients' charms and prayers for their disease.
Mediaeval doctors based their natural cures on the Ancient Greek theory of illness,
which involved the equal balance of the body’s 4 humours- blood, phlegm, black
bile and yellow bile. They believed that a person became ill when one of these were
out of balance, and it was the doctor's job to help restore them.
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