Shwetha Srinivasan
Core 1
Medieval Medicine
Medicine in medieval times was not effective and very pointless, but is the main reason we have so much knowledge today. The middle ages was a time of desperation and darkness which eventually turned to light and rebirth. The knowledge in this time was snowballing. Medicine was the main part of that growth. Medieval medicine can be defined simply by its physicians, their discoveries, surgery techniques, and common diseases and treatments. Medical knowledge was scarce, but what little they had was contributed by these physicians and their curious minds. The ancient greek physician, Galen, concluded that all illnesses are caused by inner unbalance. Galen deduced that there are 4 bodily fluids
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When a person gets sick, it meant their humors were out of balance. This theory was widely believed and used. Avicenna, an Arab physician, wrote one of the very first medical encyclopedias called the Canon of Medicine. As time went on, and as advanced medical knowledge from Islam was shared, people started questioning Galen’s theory. That is when a Swiss physician named Paracelsus discovered that disease comes from external factors. He also started using chemical remedies made from mercury, iron, copper, sulfate and sulfur. Then comes the Renaissance, and the ban on dissecting bodies is lifted causing discoveries to bloom. Ambroise Paré, also known as the Father of Modern Medicine, revolutionized the treatment of the gunshot wounds. Instead of cauterizing, burning the skin, he placed ointment (so the wound can heal on its own) or tied off the …show more content…
So were burns and wounds. Also, rhinoplasties were used to cure syphilis.
Some might say surgeries were unsuccessful because of the lack of expertise. This is true, many of the surgeons were untrained barber-surgeons. Then in the Renaissance, a movement started to train more surgeons. Guilds of experienced barber surgeons started supervising their peers. This may have helped improve surgery but no matter, most patients died anyways from postoperative infection from lack of sterile instruments. Alright, we covered surgery but what if the patient wasn’t in a life or death circumstance? Physicians were only for royalty and the wealthy. Most common folk, if sick, would visit locals with medical knowledge they gained from ancestors or experience. If they did end up visiting a doctor, it would be one painful experience. Bloodletting was a very common procedure done in sickness and health. It was a procedure done to let out the ‘bad blood.’ It was done in 2 ways, leeching and venesection. Leeching was only used for royalty. The leech was placed on the most infected part of the body. Venesection is the act of directly opening the vein using a fleam, a long half inch blade, and catching the blood in a bowl to measure the amount of blood drained. Other common ones include burning a candle near your tooth for a toothache. If you have evil spirits in your head, then you would have a procedure called trepanning done, which involves cutting a hole in your skull to release
Beginning around 460 BC, the concept of humoralism emerged throughout the written works of Hippocrates. These early works, some of the only medical works of this detailed nature to survive this period, delineated one of the first ways scholars and physicians viewed the body and more importantly illness. Shaped by the Hippocratics’ version of humoralism and his own interpretations of their written works, Galen resolutely supported the fundamental four-element theory, the notion of the four humors, and the essential practice of healing by applying opposites by physicians. However, Galen’s education in anatomy proved an effective advance in his medical reasoning away from a non-ontological view of illness into a considerably more ontological and
———. "A surgeon's code of behaviour and ethics, c. 1376." English Historical Documents. Accessed December 8, 2013. http://www.historystudycenter.com/search/displaySuitemPageImageItemById.do?UseMapping=SuitemPageImage&QueryName=suitem&ItemID=10648&resource=ehd&imageNumber=4&scale=100.
people there so that over England as a whole a fifth of the men, women
In medicine there were many things that changed and some that stayed the same between 1350 and 1750. Initially I will be looking at medicine and treatment in the Ancient World as a prelude to its importance during the Renaissance period, and also the influence it may have had in the Middle Ages.
Furthermore, the basic knowledge all these doctors knew were: There are only four elements in the world,each element represented a humour, and all four humours are balanced in the human body. Humours are “natural bodily fluids. They correspond to the elements and have various qualities: cold, dry, hot, and moist.” (Ross) The four elements are: earth, air, water, and fire. The Humour for earth was black bile meaning melancholic or sad - black bile really is the foam off the top of blood. Air’s humour is blood meaning sanguine or lusty. Water’s humour may gross people out… it’s phlegm meaning phlegmatic or sluggish. Lastly fire’s humour is yellow bile meaning temperamental or angry - yellow bile is also choler (Ross). All four humours are supposed to be balance the cause of diseases were if one was out of balance (Alchin).
At the turn of the nineteenth century, medicine was hardly the enlightened profession it is today. Medical practices were often barbaric, employing methods that had been used for centuries, yielding little or no results and often killing the patient with a different affliction than the original ailment. Leeching (or blood letting), purgation, poor liquid diets, and cold water dousing were common practices as late as the 1850's. Even after newer, more effective methods of medical treatment had been introduced, many of the physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries hesitated to use them. Fearing the loss of their reputations, they hung on to superstitious beliefs, doubting the effectiveness of su...
Doctors believed the human body was part of the universe, so they used elements for each humour, “Yellow bile was the equivalent of fire. Phlegm was the equivalent of water. Black bile was the equivalent of earth and blood was the equivalent of air”(“Shakespearean and Elizabethan Medicine”). Also, because of their beliefs and lack of knowledge on serious medical conditions, most severe cases were not treated accurately. Some doctors believed if a person broke a bone, then it was never supposed to be used again because the accident was based from many sins of the soul (“Shakespearean and Elizabethan Medicine”). The doctors also believed in completely covering their body when treating a patient. It was thought that if they wore boots, gloves, masks and robes, then they would be protected from the diseases. They also wore an amulet around their waste, filled with dried blood and ground up toads (Alchin). Although this may seem out of the ordinary today, these precautions were something an Elizabethan doctor did not go
During this period a deep cut could lead to infection, and the only treatment for infections was amputation and cauterization. However, hospitals and medical instruments were hardly if ever sanitized, so one could often come out of the hospital worse than when one went in (Bloodwiki). It was not uncommon for a person to survive a surgery only to be set upon by diseases such as hospital gangrene and septicaemia (Youngson 29). Youngson describes hospitals as “dark and overcrowded, ill-run and insanitary. It was not uncommon to see in the same ward, at the same time, cases of, (let us say) typhoid fever, erysipelas, pneumonia, rickets, dysentery; nor was it uncommon to see two patients in the same bed” (Youngson 24). Anesthesia was not used in surgeries until 1846, so prior to that the patient was completely conscious when they operated on him or her, unless the patient passed out from pain. Patients were uneager to be cut into while they were awake: “Dragged unwillingly or carried from the ward to the operating theatre by a couple of hospital attendants (in Edinburgh a large wicker basker was used for this purpose) the patient was laid on the operating table and if necessary strapped down” (Youngson 27). The tools used in surgeries can be seen here.
Although he lived four centuries before the birth of Christ, a man named Hippocrates recorded the symptoms of diseases we still see to this day. Known as the “Father of Medicine” (Hippocrates), Hippocrates was an ancient physician who studied and recorded his observances of the body’s infections and physiology. He set forth the foundation for future physicians, and in doing so, is accredited for our knowledge of infectious diseases in earlier centuries. During this time however, many believed the earth and its inhabitants were composed of four general elements: air, water, fire, and dirt. They also believed that any one person who fell ill was being punished by the gods. As a foresighted thinker though, Hippocrates encouraged the idea that humans became ill due to natural causes. In that wisdom, he recorded all his observances of his patients and their illnesses, taking careful note of the bodily symptoms and their progression.
“Surgery.” Brought to Life Exploring the History of Medicine. Science Museum, London, n.d. Web. 23 Jan. 2014.
There were several aspects of the Renaissance where medicine improved greatly. Doctors began to study medicine from a scientific standpoint and artists like Leonardo Da Vinci actually dissected human corpses to see what they looked like inside the body. This cleared up much of the previous misconceptions about the internal organs.
Food during the medieval times was very different from the modern-day food that most people are accustomed to today. For example, drinking alcoholic beverages was as routine as drinking water today. Also, food was not only used to nourish yourself, food served as a measure of wealth and social status. Food with lots of herbs and spices was an indicator of affluence serving as a symbol, because the rich could afford herbs and spices. However, herbs and spices were not only used to determine social status, they had another very important use. Medicine during the medieval ages relied heavily on various types of foods such as but not limited to herbs and spices. These three aspects of food during the medieval ages exemplify the major aspects which
More medical discoveries and advances are occurring every day. Medical treatments and understanding of the human anatomy have come a long way. Though if it weren’t for certain Anatomists, we may have not have had the right comprehension of the human body which could have led to errors in surgery and more deaths while treating patients. The Renaissance period was a time where Anatomists searched for clearer understanding of the human body. During the Renaissance period, Anatomists questioning and experimentation led to great discoveries of the human body.
Although surgical operations were performed, they did not know about sanitisation and there were no anaesthetics. Most patients died from infection or shock.
Early Greek medicine was more of a divine matter. It was believed that the God Asclepius was the god of medicine. Priests would live at his temples and claimed they knew the ways of healing people. It was not until around 500 B.C., a Greek physician named Alcmaeon began to dissect animals to observe their skeleton, muscles, and brain. This was most probably the first ever to describe a phenomenon through objective observations. Through his observations, he believed that illness was due to an imbalance in the body. This idea prevailed for many centuries in the history of medicine.