Medical treatments in the Middle Ages

6.4A Who Healed the Sick in the Middle Ages

Learning Objective

• Identify the variety of medical treatments in the Middle Ages.

Keywords

• Wise Women/Men: Local people with knowledge of traditional herbal remedies.

• Apothecaries: A person who prepared and sold medicines.

• Doctors: Expensive and often a last resort.

• Quacks: Con artists who sold fake cures and took advantage of people's fear of disease.

• Supernatural: Above and beyond what is natural and explained by natural laws.

Main Ideas

• In the Middle Ages, people did not understand germs or viruses.

• Many believed disease was caused by:

  • Supernatural forces (e.g., God’s punishment or evil spirits).

  • Natural factors (e.g., bad smells or imbalance in the body’s "humours").

Popular Theories About Disease

• Movements of planets caused illness.

• Bad smells (miasma) caused disease.

• Imbalance of body liquids (humours) made people sick.

• God’s punishment or evil spirits caused illness.

Treatments

• Some treatments were helpful, but others were bizarre and dangerous.

• Examples of treatments:

  • Using live crabs for eye problems.

  • Killing animals and drinking their blood.

  • Applying strange mixtures like dog urine and mouse blood for warts.

Examples of Medieval "Cures" (Source B)

• For swollen eyes: Take a live crab, poke out its eyes and put it back in the water. Stick the eyes onto your neck.

• For wheezing and shortness of breath: Kill a fox and take out its liver and lungs. Chop them up and mix it with wine. Then drink the mixture out of a church bell.

• If you are bitten by a snake: Smear ear wax on the bite, then ask the priest to say a prayer.

• If you accidentally drink an insect in the water: Find a sheep, cut into it and drink the blood while it's still hot. Take good long gulps.

• For warts: Hold a live toad next to the skin, or rub a mixture of dog urine and mouse blood onto the warts.