DBQ#2 Medieval Medicine & Surgery
How was medieval medicine different from today?
Medicine in medieval times was very different from
today. There was no knowledge of germs or bacteria
because microscopes weren't invented till the 17th
century. There was no penicillin and no knowledge of
antiseptics (used to kill germs) and anaesthetics (which
we use to dull pain or knock the patient out during an
operation). Comparatively little was known about the
human body as most studies of the body had been
conducted on animals up to this point as the church
forbade dissection on humans. They did not even know
the heart was a pump.
What did medieval people think caused disease if they didn't know about
germs?
Medieval peoples theory of what caused disease was an
idea invented by the Ancient Greeks more than a 1000
years earlier called 'The 4 Humours'. This theory stated
that the whole world was made up of 4 elements (Air,
Fire, Earth & Water) and that in human form these 4
elements were represented by 4 liquids (or humours)
which were:

Blood

Yellow bile

Black bile

Phlegm
These 4 humours (or liquids) had to be kept in constant balance with each other,
otherwise they could cause illness and disease. If you had a nosebleed for
example, they thought it was because you had too much blood in your body and
it was trying to escape out of you via your nose! If you had a cold it was because
you had too much phlegm.
Who would you go to if you were ill in medieval times?
Just like today there were different people you would go to if you were ill.
The Physician:
A physician was a medieval doctor, he went to
university and studied for many years. They would
study the well know medical texts and ideas of the
time. They were also required to learn such things as
mathematics, music, astronomy and even languages
like Greek or Latin so that they could understand the
texts. A physician would not operate on a patient
himself but would appoint a surgeon to do so. His main job was to diagnose what
was wrong with the patient and decide what the treatment should be. Women
were not allowed to be physicians. A physician would charge a lot of money for
his services so only the rich could afford to hire him.
The Apothecary:
An apothecary was a little bit like a modern day
chemist, except there were no paracetamol or
penicillin for sale. Instead he would sell herbs, exotic
spices and various other ingredients for medicine. He
would mix up medicine to sell for rich and for poor,
although the medicines of the rich would contain lots
of expensive and unusual ingredients which had to
be imported from abroad such as pepper, sugar (a
sugarloaf is pictured left) and even such things as
gold, silver or emeralds were used. The more
expensive something was the better they thought it
was for you. The apothecary had no university
training but would often try and sell his own
medicines which had not been prescribed by a
physician. The apothecary would make these medicines by mixing the herbs and
other ingredients together to make lotions, pills, poultices and many other types
of medicine.
The surgeon:
The surgeon would not have had university training,
he would have learnt what he knew from other
surgeons, from surgical texts or through operating on
soldiers injured on the battlefield.
The surgeon would have lots of surgical tools such as
a amputation tools, arrow pullers, cauteries (hot irons)
for stopping bleeding, bloodletting tools and much
more, like those in the picture on the right.
If the surgeon had to amputate a limb, he could not administer the modern
anaesthetics we have now which knock us out and make sure we feel no pain.
He was limited in what he could use. He may have used alcohol, opium or
mandrake to help sedate the patient.
You might have heard of mandrake if you've seen
Harry Potter. It's the plant they study in herbology
that screams and causes them to faint. This idea is
based on a true story that people in England used to
believe. We used to think that the mandrake was
alive and that it was like a little person (because the
root is slightly man shaped, the painting on the left is
a copy of a medieval painting of one). It didn't grow in
this country so the traders who sold it to us told us
that when you pulled the mandrake out of the ground
it screamed and the scream it made would kill you if
you heard it. So the traders said that they tied a dog
to it with a rope, then they'd run away, call the dog,
the dog would pull it out of the ground and die but the
trader would get his mandrake. Of course you'd get through a lot of dogs that
way so they could charge us a high price for supplying us with such a dangerous
plant. It was a complete lie, designed to extort money from us , but we believed
this right up until the 16th Century!
Every battlefield surgeon would have an image of a
wound man. The wound man was like a training
manual for the surgeon, a bit like the diagrams a
modern surgeon would study of the human body. It
showed a man with every kind of battlefield injury
which a man might receive. The wound man on the
right, has swords, daggers, spears and arrows stuck in
him. He even appears to have a cannon ball on his
head! I don't think he'd survive all these wounds do
you?! No one man would have all these wounds, it
was simply a way of showing the surgeon the kinds of
wounds he could expect to have to treat. Some wound
men are much more gruesome than this one with
hands falling off and various severed limbs!
The wise woman:
In every village you probably would have found a wise woman who was skilled in
the use of herbs. She would have learnt her knowledge of herbs through
generations of experience, where information of which herbs worked would have
been passed down through families. Most poor people would have gone to her
instead of the physician as she would have been much cheaper. She had no
training at universities, she was self taught. She would have gathered a lot of the
herbs she used from the local area or grown them in her garden.
Women were not allowed to be physicians. A few may have been apothecaries.
There were certainly women surgeons. A lot of women were healers or acted as
midwives at births. Most women in each family would have known a little bit
about which herbs to use to make medicines and would have grown them in their
own gardens. Just after the medieval period women lost the right to even be
surgeons or midwives and were restricted from such professions again until the
19th/20th centuries. The first woman in modern history to become a doctor was
in the late 19th C.
Why is medicine & healthcare important?
On average a medieval woman could live to be 36 and a man 37 before they
died. Modern life expectancy is 78 for a female and 72 for a male and rising all
the time. Medicine saves lives and prolongs life and without it we would all lead
much shorter lives.
Medieval Medicine & Surgery Question
1. What invention in the 17th century changed our knowledge of diseases?
2. What is the difference between an antiseptic and an anaesthetics?
3. Which would you rather have if you were getting your foot amputated?
4. Why did the people of this time period know very little about the inside of
the human body?
5. What did medieval people think caused disease if they didn't know about
germs?
6. How long had this theory been around for?
7. What four people could help you if were ill in medieval times?
8. Who would you go to if you were ill in medieval times?
9. Were physicians good surgeons?
10. What is an Apothecary?
11. What is penicillin?
12. How did the apothecary make his medicines?
13. Where did the surgeon learn his trade?
14. What are cauteries?
15. What did these surgeons use as anaesthetics?
16. How did the mandrake get its name?
17. What is the wound man?
18. What is the role of the wise moman?
19. How is she related to the apothecary and the physician?
20. Since medieval times how the average life span of a person change?