Medieval Medicine

1. Medieval Medicine By Jared Metzger

2. Medieval Health • Everyone back then didn’t know what germs were and didn’t know what caused diseases. No one knew about hygiene • Poor health and disease were part of their daily lives. • Physicians were doctors and were expensive. • There were many theories of what caused diseases. Because there was no knowledge of germs, the church said that disease was God punishing you for your sins.

3. Surgery • Whenever people tried surgery, there was a plan. • Also, “surgeons” were unskilled workers such as barbers or butchers. • They never cleaned their surgical instruments. • It was no guarantee that a patient could recover from small operations. • Most people went to monasteries that had hospitals with them. • Potions used for sleep-inducing or pain-relieving were used for anesthesia.

4. Humors • People believed that the balance of four liquids in your body was essential to being healthy. • The humors are blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. • They had different ways to keep their humors balanced. • Bloodletting used leaches or dirty knifes.

5. Disease • The main two types of disease are leprosy and plague. • There were different plagues: the bubonic, pneumonic, and the septicemic plagues. • Leprosy was slow acting and caused a lot of pain to the victim.

6. Treatment • Most of the remedies were herbal. • People would turn to charms or spells to try get rid of their disease. • Surgeons sometimes had to try complex surgery to cure a patient.