How was disease treated during the Medieval Period? Starter: Try to identify the two key events shown in emoji form below. 1. 2.

How were people treated? During the Medieval Period, the fight against disease and illness can be classified into three categories: Religious treatments (treatments based on the concept of God and the supernatural) Humoral treatments (treatments based on Hippocrates and Galen’s ideas) Preventative measures (strategies to prevent disease from occurring in the first place)

Humoral Treatments https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JONQpHJu34I Various remedies were used to drink, sniff or bathe in. E.g. aloe vera to help digestion. Others include mint, camomile, rose oil etc. Theriaca was very common – it was a spice mixture that had 70 ingredients including pepper, saffron and even opium. Bloodletting (aka phlebotomy), was the most common way of treating an imbalance of blood. The idea was it would drain the badness from your body. It was so common that physicians hardly performed it - it would be performed by a lesser trained barber surgeon. Three ways included cutting a vein, leeches and cupping. Some people died from this procedure as they lost too much blood. Average = 1 pint. Purging aimed to remove any leftover food from the stomach by making them sick using an emetic, or by encouraging a bowl movement with a purgative (laxative). Parsley, aniseed or even some poisons were used to encourage vomiting. Mallow leaves and linseed was used to encourage a bowl movement. Sometimes they would be administered using an enema (clyster). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JONQpHJu34I

Preventative Measures (Pray, wash, eat, clean air) The Church said to stay healthy you had to lead a life free of sin. Pray regularly and offer tithes to the Church. What and when you ate were very important in preventing an imbalance. Eating too much was seen as a cause of illness. Several kings during this period died as a result of eating too much, or having too rich a diet. For example, Edward I died of dysentery in 1307 whilst marching north to fight the Scottish king, Robert the Bruce. The Regimen Sanitatis were a set of rules for a physician to help a patient stay in good health. It was often tailored to the lifestyle of the patient. Advice included regular bathing in a public bath or river. People were told to wash their hands before and after very meal. Houses had to be kept clean and smelling nice.

Study tip! Word clouds are a good visual way of showing key words for a topic. If you want to make one, use the website: http://www.tagxedo.com/ Access this one on the weebly site and print it out to help your studying!

Histagram Collect the picture grid from your teacher. Identify what the image represents and make brief, bullet pointed notes on it. If your target is 9 to 7, try to identify whether it is humoral, religious or preventative measure. Also link it to a disease or an imbalance previously studied!