Medieval medicine – mill drill
What was a popular medieval cure for toothache?
Wearing a magpie’s beak around your neck
What medicine did wealthy people take as a cure against the plague?
Crushed emeralds
One way of warding off the evil spirits that caused the plague was to whip
them out of your body. What were these people called?
Flagellants
Where would you go to get a tooth extracted in medieval times?
The barber-surgeon
What did medieval people eat to cure memory loss?
Ginger
According to many reports, what percentage of the British population died as
a result of a plague called the Black Death in 1348?
40%
What would happen if you threw rubbish in the streets of fourteenth century
London?
You’d be fined 2 shillings
What was the name of the most famous doctor in the Arab world in the Middle
Ages?
Avicenna
Which London mayor paid for one of the world’s first maternity wards?
Dick Whittington
What animals were often used by medieval doctors to suck blood from the
body of an ill person?
Leeches
How many loos are known to have existed in London by the end of the
fourteenth century?
13
What are buboes?
Painful swellings the size of onions in your armpits