Case Study - The Black Death

You need to know about the Black Death as a case study and you should reflect on how this tell us more about what we have learnt do far.  However, I am not going to write this up.  Instead go to the links below and see what you can find.  The Dan Snow link is a video.


The BBC

History. com

If you feel like a challenge - History Today

Filthy Cities by Dan Snow


A Black Death Documentary

Who Treated the sick during the Middle Age?

There were a variety of people who might treat the ill.

Physics or Doctors

Firstly, if you were rich you might see a physic or a doctor.  A physic is the old name for a doctor.  They were highly educated, especially in the classical ideas of Hippocrates and Galen.  Most of their training was theoretical and based on reading books and studying at University.  Because they were University Educated they were all men; women were not allowed to go to university.

Apothecaries

Today we would call Apothecaries chemists and a doctor could well send you to one for treatment.  They mixed remedies and potions to treat illnesses/they were mainly herbal remedies, but they would also prescribe poisons.  Most apothecaries were trained as apprentices and had to join the guild when they qualified.  The guild regulated how they traded.

Surgeons

Surgeons or barber surgeons were not as important as doctors, this is very different from today.  Barbers were trained to do minor operation and dentistry as well as cut hair. Like apothecaries they were trained as apprentices and in sometimes could be women.

Midwives and wise-women

Midwives were important for helping women through childbirth and were licensed by the local Bishop.  Wise-women were not formally trained or licensed but were taught, often by their mothers and their ideas were handed down through the generations.  Also like today for most people, the first point of medical contact was Mum who would use tried and tested family treatments.

Hospitals

Hospitals is an interesting one; hospital or hospitality is really to do with giving someone board and lodgings for a night and not medicine.  Hospitals were often attached to monasteries and were places for travellers to stop.  However, during the Middle Ages they started to develop  into places for treating the sick.  They were often small and were run by religious groups so a main form of treatment was to pray for you.  The famous London Mayor, Dick Whittington set up for unmarried pregnant women St Thomas's Hospital for unmarried pregnant women; which is still going today. Lepers were sent to Lazar houses often called Leper Colonies.

Finally; I advise you try to find out about the Regimen Sanitatis - have a look at it and see if you think much of it is still good advice.

Medieval Treatments

There were a variety of ways disease could be diagnosed and treated.  We have already looked at the role of the Church and of the Four Humours.

During the Middle Ages urine charts were also a popular way to diagnose illness.  The patient would give a doctor a sample of urine.  The doctor would examine it, by looking at it, smelling it - even tasting it!  The urine would be compared to a chart and the doctor would diagnose the illness.  Again this is basically a good idea and testing urine is still done today, but it is not used to diagnose illness on its own.

Astronomical charts were also used to diagnose disease and offer treatments.  By examining the stars and using your birthday or star sign doctors would prescribe different treatments to different people.

There were also Humoural treatments, or treatments designed to get your humours back in balance.  The most common was bloodletting; this could be done by using leeches, by cupping or by cutting veins.  The word for blood letting is phlebotomy.  Find out more by linking to the Science Museum.

Purging was another way to get the humours in balance; purging was a way of making you be sick or  vomit.  It was also a way of making you open your bowels - in other words give you diarrhoea.  An emetic was given to make people sick and a laxative to make them go to the toilet.  These treatments were often a mixture of herbs or even poisons.

Medieval Beliefs about Medicine

What did Medieval People think caused disease?

The ideas of Hippocrates and Galen influenced strongly the thinking of Medieval Doctors, this was partly because there were few alternative ideas but also because if the role of the Church.  During the early Medieval period books had been largely handwritten by Monks and stored in Church libraries. The Church also controlled many aspects of education and licences doctors, midwives, apothecaries and surgeons.  The development of the Design Theory of creation also meant the Church promoted  Hippocrates and Galen's ideas.  The complexity of the human body  was seen as evidence that man must have had a creator and that creator was God.

This then meant that many people started to believe that serious illnesses and plagues were the work of God or the Devil.  They were supernatural acts that were sent to test peoples' faith, to punish people for sinful lives or were the work of Satan who was simply causing harm and trouble.

There were other ideas about the causes of illness, for example a popular idea was miasma. Miasma was a believe that illness was caused by foul air that had harmful fumes.  In many ways this was a sensible and logical idea - however, we now know it is not true.

Astrology was another common belief for illness.  Some believe that disease was caused by the alignment of the planets and the stars.  Although this might seem silly to us now - in many ways it was an early attempt to be scientific and rational.

Check out BBC Bitesize here.  Check out Medieval Medicine here.

The Influence of Ancient Learning

Although our course focuses on the development of Medicine in Britain from the Medieval period to the present day, you have to know some background knowledge on the the Ancient Greeks and Romans.  The BBC Bitesize pages are a useful place to find out more information.

Two key characters are Hippocrates and Galen because their ideas influence most of the medical understanding in the Middle Ages.

Hippocrates in many ways is thought to be the founder of modern medical ideas.  Doctors still take the Hippocratic Oath where they promise to best serve the needs of their patients.  Hippocrates believes that medicine should not be explained by superstitious ideas or by claiming people were sick because Gods were unhappy with them.  He believed that all illnesses had a natural explanation and that things could be explained through careful observation.  Through careful observation and carefully recording his findings he was able to diagnose illnesses and explain how the illness would develop.  However, he was not so good at developing cures for the problem.

Hippocrates developed the theory of the four humours; blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile.  the word humour comes from the Greek word humon which means fluid.  He linked the four humours to the seasons and to human characteristics.  In many ways the idea was sensible; if you had a cold you had an excess of phlegm and this was most likely to happen in winter when it was cold and wet.

THINK: Think about other illnesses - image you are Hippocrates; how would you explain the illness using the four humours.  You can use the following links to help you.

Science Museum
BBC Learning
Greek Medicine.net

The Roman doctor Galen developed Hippocrates's ideas.  You might like to try to find out more about Galen's life story.  He developed the Theory of the opposites.  Galen thought that if you had a cold and you had too much phlegm then you needed to take something hot like pepper to dry you out and reduce the amount of phlegm in your body.

THINK: Using your work on diagnosis of illness using the four humours - imagine you are Galen and try to suggest some cures.

Some sites to help you are:  History Learning Site, Mr Nelsons The History of Medicine and Public Health site and the BBC again.

Galen also introduced the idea of dissection.  His pig experiment is particularly famous.  Through this he tried to show how the body was constructed and show what the different part of the body did. Like Hippocrates, Galen recorded his findings and wrote lots of books.  However, he did not always use human corpses to work with and this led to several inaccuracies.

THINK:  How do you think Galen's work influenced medieval medicine?  What would be good and what problems would there be. Remember you are speculating so your ideas do not have to be correct; but it is a useful thing to do.

Welcome to Medicine in Britain: circa 1250 to the present day

Welcome to GCSE History.  This blog is intended to support and supplement your learning.  It will not replace lessons but is a useful site if you miss any lessons or want to explore things in greater detail.

Firstly some key information about the History course.  We study AQA GCSE History and the exam board have made some key changes to the qualification.  The course will last for two years, there are no longer any controlled assessment tasks and all units are assessed through a formal exam at the end of the course.  The exams will take place in May or June.

There are four units of study:

1. Medicine in Britain c.1250 to present day - this is worth 30% of your final mark
2. Weimar and Nazi Germany, 1918–39  - this is also worth 30% of your final mark
3. The reigns of King Richard I and King John - this is worth 20% of your final mark
4. Superpower relations and the Cold War - this is also worth 20% of your final mark

The exam will test you on how much Historical knowledge you have learned as well as testing your historical skills.  As well as knowing lots of key facts you have to think about how things change over time and what stays the same.  You need to think about the factors that drive change and you have to be able to analyse the odd source.  So it is important to make sure you keep really neat and detailed notes.  The best revision guide you can have is your exercise book because we will tailor the course to your specific exam; most revision guides cover several different exam boards and are therefore a bit general in their information.

So throw yourself into the course; work hard, be interested, try to enjoy it and most importantly - ask lots of questions.