Causes and Cures Knowledge Organiser: Medieval to 21st Century

Vocabulary flashcards covering the beliefs, individuals, and treatments of medicine from the Medieval period to the 21st Century.

Four Humours

The belief that the body is made up of Blood, Phlegm, Black Bile & Yellow Bile; imbalance in these led to illness.

Hippocrates

The individual who developed the work on the Four Humours studied by doctors in the Medieval period.

Galen

An individual whose medical ideas were accepted and supported by the church in the Medieval period.

Barber-Surgeons

Individuals who treated illness along with Monks, Nuns, Wise Women, Quacks, and Physicians across different historical periods.

Trepanning

A supernatural Medieval treatment involving the release of evil spirits.

Flagellation

A supernatural approach used to treat illness during the Medieval period.

Black Death 1348

A significant event occurring in the Medieval period (1000-1500).

Renaissance

A cultural movement where people questioned accepted truths, searched for evidence, and explored new ideas.

Miasma

The belief that illness was caused by bad smells or air, held during the Renaissance and the 18th-19th Century.

Significant Renaissance Individuals

Andres Vesalius (1514-64), Ambrose Pare (1510-90), and William Harvey (1578-1657).

Apothecaries

Individuals who treated illness during the Renaissance alongside Physicians and Barber-Surgeons.

The Great Plague 1665

A Renaissance event where treatments included scientific approaches like quarantine and supernatural approaches like the royal touch.

Spontaneous generation

The belief that disease caused microbes and that they would appear when something rotted.

Anti-contagionists

People who believed illness was caused when infection interacted with the environment, creating disease that attacked the weak.

Edward Jenner

The individual who published findings on the vaccination against smallpox in 1798.

Louis Pasteur

The scientist who discovered Germ Theory in 1861.

Magic bullets

Chemical cures for disease discovered by scientists following the development of Germ Theory.

Robert Koch

Scientist who identified Anthrax in 1876 and helped lead to the acceptance of Germ Theory in 1880.

NHS

The National Health Service, created in 1948, which made healthcare and pharmaceuticals available to all British citizens.

Alexander Fleming

The individual credited with the discovery of penicillin in 1928.

Florey and Chain

Researchers granted £25 by the British government in 1939 to research penicillin.

Mass production of penicillin

An effort begun by the US government in 1941 that saved 15% of soldier lives in WW2.

Alternative medicine

Modern treatments including Aromatherapy, acupuncture, homeopathy, and hypnotherapy.