Zusammenfassung der Ressource
History of Medicine: Middle Ages Plague
- Black Death
- The Middle Ages
- Who treated the sick?
- Wise Women
- Travelling Quack
- Housewife Physician
- Physician
- Surgeon
- Apothecary
- Nuns
- UNLICENSED
- LICENSED
- What did they do?
- Basic surgery, but there is still no anaesthetic
- Ancient theories still widely believed
- The 4 Humors
- Theory of Opposites
- Some knowledge of working remedies
- Treatments passed down by word of mouth
- Or family traditions
- Some conned the ill out of money by not curing them at all
- What were hospitals like?
- Religious buildings
- Only poor people and elderly went there
- The rich were treated in their own home by a physician
- Patients expected to pray for recovery
- Nuns treat people
- Dead people prepared for burial in
view of other patients
- Some were not allowed in
- Contagious/infected
- "Lunatics"
- Pregnant women
- Attempts to Combat and Cure
- Herbal Remedies
- Enemas
- Praying to God
- Flaggelants whipped themselves and gave up possessions
- Lavender masks
- Galen's theory of opposites
- Suspected Cause
- Imbalance of Humors
- Religious Reasons
- Alignment of the planets
- Invisible fumes, miasma
- Contact with the infected
- Success?
- The plague took out nearly half of the UK Population
- Lavender Masks did prevent some spread of disease
- Occasional herbal remedies worked
- Flaggelants were less likely to catch plague due to isolation
- The Great Plague
- Post-Renaissance
- Who treated the sick?
- Trained and licensed healers started working in new hospitals
- What were hospitals like?
- Local authorities started taking over hospitals
- Many new ones opened
- Trained physicians, surgeons, and nursing sisters worked in them
- No longer ran by nuns
- Kept clean by volunteer helpers
- Most patients still poor and elderly
- What did they do?
- Patients were kept clean, warm and fed
- New understanding of treatment
- New understanding of anatomy from Vesalius
- New understanding of blood from Harvey
- Technology such as ligatures from Pare
- Suspected Cause
- Cats and Dogs, they were slaughtered
- Bad air (miasma)
- Much of the same as the Black Death
- Comet seen the year before over London
- Attempts to Combat and Cure
- 'Searchers' employed to find the infected
- Infected people were locked in their houses
- A red cross painted on the door
- Their whole family would be locked in with them
- To avoid spread of plague
- 'Watchmen' employed to stop people escaping their homes
- Pubs closed to stop it spreading
- Vagrants were moved on from the streets
- Fires were started to stop bad air
- Success?
- Anything to stop contact with others would have helped to reduce death
- Pub closures and locking people in houses
- Occasional herbal remedy may have worked
- Less people died than during Black Plague
- An estimated 15% of Londoners
- 100,000 people
- People argued less would have died if only
the infected had been locked up, not their
whole family
- However it took 5 days for symptoms to
be visible so it was a reasonable precaution
- What was the Plague?
- Symptoms
- Suspected to be Bubonic Plague
- Buboes on the neck and in armits and groin area
- Leaks pus and blood
- Symptoms occurred 5 days after lice bite
- Death after 6 days
- What Actually Caused It?
- Rats carrying gut infected lice
- Probably travelled to the UK on trade ships