Homework Overview for Topic 1 – Greek, Roman and Medieval medicine

Week Taught Content Knowledge Organiser Homework Class Test Questions

1 Greek and Roman Medicine A Questions on Greek and Roman medicine.

2 Medieval towns – conditions/problems with health and hygiene/ideas about the causes of disease

B Questions on Greek and Roman medicine and Medieval towns - conditions/problems with health and hygiene.

3 Medieval doctors/ healers/treatments for the rich and poor

C Questions on Medieval towns, Medieval doctors, healers, treatments and monasteries.

4 Role of the church and monasteries

D Questions on Medieval doctors, healers, treatments and monasteries and the Black Death.

5 The Black Death

E Questions on the Black Death and Islamic Medicine.

6 and 7 Islamic Medicine/Review of Medieval topic/going over practice source and essay questions linked to Medieval period

H Preparation/revision for first practice question will be attempting.

GREEK MEDICINE

Hippocrates

-He believed that diseases could be treated in more

natural/scientific ways without using long-standing techniques

of magic or praying to Greek Gods.

-He developed the idea that the body had four humours

(liquids) - phlegm, blood, yellow bile and black bile and that

when these were out of balance people became ill.

-He shared his ideas in a book called The Hippocratic Collection,

enabling other doctors such as Galen to use his ideas.

-He encouraged doctors to observe their patients and record

these observations. This would help them decide on an

appropriate treatment.

ROMAN MEDICINE

Galen

-He took Hippocrates’ ideas further through the Theory of

Opposites. For example, he said that if you had too much

phlegm during cold weather, a hot bath would put this

humour back into balance.

-Galen’s ideas were spread throughout Europe by the

Christian Church, which controlled education in Europe.

The church admired Galen’s ideas as he believed that the

body must’ve had a creator – a God – who’d fitted it

together perfectly.

-Unfortunately, this meant that in Roman and Medieval

times, nobody dared challenge Galen’s ideas despite

the fact they weren’t all correct!

-In Rome, Galen was only allowed to dissect animals as

human dissection was banned there under Christian rules.

Therefore, some of his ideas were wrong. He falsely claimed

that the humans had two separate jaw bones and one

kidney higher than the other.

-After the Roman Empire collapsed, Roman inventions like

aqueducts, toilets, public baths were lost as libraries

containing blueprints on how to b____/repair them were

MEDIEVAL MEDICINE

Filthy cities

-Most people lacked access to clean drinking water

or a sewage system. Cities and towns became filthy

with human and animal waste.

-Medieval kings didn’t think it was their responsibility to

ensure people lived healthy and hygienic lives. Furthermore,

there weren’t enough officials in Medieval times to punish

everyone who threw waste onto the street.

Ideas about the causes of disease

-The influence of the Christian Church remained

strong even after the Roman Empire collapsed. Many

believed God made you ill and hadn’t fully realised

that living in filthy conditions would’ve done so.

-Some believed bad smells made you ill (a theory

called ‘miasma’) and constantly burned herbs

to purify the air if a deadly disease started to spread.

-The ideas of Galen and Hippocrates remained hugely

popular as the church promoted them as the only great

teachings on medicine. Dr Roger Bacon was even

imprisoned for challenging the church’s views on Galen!

Antiseptics and basic anaesthetics

-Wine was used by some surgeons as an antiseptic to clean wounds of soldiers during wars and surgeon John Aderne used pain-relieving

ointments on wounds of the poor at no cost

-Opium also began to be used as a basic anaesthetic to knock out patients for a short time so they could be treated without feeling pain during

operations.

Treatments for the rich

-Only the rich could afford to see a doctors. These were

trained at medical schools usually funded by the church.

-A Zodiac chart was used to find a safe date to treat

the different parts of the body. If a set of stars

representing a particular body part were in the sky,

then it was left alone at that time.

-Medieval doctors and the church believed in

Hippocrates’ Four Humours Theory and tried putting

them back into balance through several ways:

-Purging a patient (make them vomit) to get rid

of excess yellow bile).

-Bleeding them to get rid of bad blood. Tools or

leeches were used in this process.

Treatments for the poor

-The poor visited barber surgeons to be bled or to

have their limbs amputated as these individuals

had the tools available to do so and were cheap.

-Some made pilgrimages to religious sites in

the hope that God would be grateful to them for

doing so and cure them of their illness.

-Some used herbs which had been used by their ancestors

or visit an apothecary to get herbs from them. Women

couldn’t become doctors, though some became

wise women who provided cheap herbal

treatments to the poor.

-Some bought treatments off quacks – conmen who

sold mixtures that often didn’t work as described!

These usually contained alcohol and opium which helped

reduce pain, but rarely cured them.

Evidence the church DID HELP medicine progress – education

-It established schools of medicine at Universities throughout

Europe.

-The oldest medical school in Europe was founded at Salerno.

-At lectures, student doctors were taught the ideas of Galen and

Hippocrates which meant there remained at least some interest in

scientific ideas about the causes of disease.

Evidence the church DID HELP medicine progress – establishing

hospitals

-Looking after the sick was an important part of the work of the

church.

-As most people often gave money to the church, it had funds

available to build hospitals.

-Between 1205 and 1300, the church founded 160 hospitals which

were usually attached to monasteries and run by nuns and monks

who used treatments such as:

-Praying for them to get better.

-Herbs.

-Trying to putting the humours back into balance.

-Crucially, unlike the towns, monasteries often had fresh water supply

lines built running from reservoirs to them as they could afford to have

private water lines built.

-They also had pipes built to empty sewage into nearby rivers.

Evidence the church DID NOT HELP medicine progress

-It demanded that all doctors follow the ideas of

Hippocrates and Galen. Both sets of ideas, especially those

of Galen, weren’t entirely correct.

-It forbade dissection of bodies to occur in much of Europe,

meaning new discoveries couldn’t be made about the

anatomy.

The Black Death in the 1300s

-The Black Death arrived in Europe in 1348. -Was referred to as the ‘great pestilence’. -It travelled through trade routes in Europe when rats carrying infected fleas boarded ships and got off them at cities where the ships stopped. -As few believed that disease was connected to filth, there was little attempt to clear filth from the streets and rats were widespread. -Fleas on rats would fly off and bite a human, giving them bubonic plague. -Pneumonic plague could be transmitted from an infected person to a healthy person easily due to overcrowding.

Ideas about what caused the Black Death

The most widely believed causes of the Black Death in Medieval times were that: -It was a punishment from God for sins they’d committed. -It was caused by bad smells in the air. -It was the position of the planets at that particular time. -The humours in the body were out of balance. -Jews were poisoning water supplies.

Ideas about treating the plague

The most common methods to try to treat the plague in Medieval times were: -Praying to God regularly. -Putting fresh herbs on fires to purify the air and get rid of bad smells. -Flagellants whipped themselves and moved town to town doing so to others who asked for the same treatment in the hope God would pity them and end the plague. -Making themselves bleed and vomit to put the humours back into balance -Murdering Jewish people.

Basic attempts to bring the plague under control

-Although Medieval kings had long felt it wasn’t their duty to ensure people lived healthy lives, by 1372 King Edward III felt there must’ve been a connection between filth and disease and passed an order stating anyone who left waste outside their house could be fined four shillings. -Gong farmers were employed to clear waste from the streets and sell it to farmers in the countryside. -However, these methods alone were nowhere

near sufficient to stop the spread of plague.

ISLAMIC MEDICINE

-Muslim doctors in the Middle East such as Avicenna saved the books of Hippocrates and Galen following the collapse of the Roman Empire. These were eventually passed on to Western Europe, helping to ensure there remained an interest in scientific ideas about disease. -Avicenna also wrote a medical encyclopaedia - Canon of Medicine - which encouraged doctors to record the symptoms of their patients and the effects of various treatments. -Islamic hospitals in places such as Baghdad also contained lecture rooms and libraries to help educate surgeons and promoted cleanliness.