Medicine in Britain: 1250-Present Day

Communication, attitudes to change, chance etc

Slurred speech, pus-filled buboes, purple-looking skin swollen lymph nodes

Punishment from God, astrology (alignment of the planets), T4Hs and miasma

prayers and superstition

bloodletting and purging

The Church-they controlled many aspects of people’s lives

Blood, black bile, yellow bile and phlegm

Hippocrates and Galen

diagnosed illnesse and offer courses of treatment

7-10 years

1. They would take a urine, feces and blood sample from the patient
2. Consult astrological charts which determined their birth and when they got sick
3. Based on this, they would create many courses of treatment

Only the rich and wealthy could as physicians were expensive

3 million people

1348

1,100

they provided care rather than curing disease

The Church

The Church still controlled what medical info was shared and promoted the works of Galen, doctors were taught the works of Galen and Hippocrates and were discouraged from experimenting, the ideas of Galen and Hippocrates made sense in practice as they gave good advice and new ideas couldn’t spread as the church controlled what info was shared

improved communication- the invention of the printing press by Wilhelm Röntgen in 1440; when it came to Europe in the 1500s this allowe new ideas to spread quickly and took away the Church’s control

Similarities: still believed that miasma caused plague, still used herbs to purify air and prayer was still used
Differences: government was involved (1665), hired officals (1665), infected were seperated (1665) and people were less prepared (1348)

He introduced the idea of observation in medicine and grouped diseases like animals and plants; his work encouraged students to observe patients for symptoms and look for remedies which laid the foundation for a more scientific based approach