What was health like in the middle ages

They treated eye cataracts , ulcers, and various types of wounds. Records show they were even able to surgically remove bladder stones. At this time, Europe started trading with nations from all over the world. This improved wealth and and living standards, but it also exposed people to pathogens from faraway lands. The plague of Justinian was the first recorded pandemic.

Lasting from into the s, historians believe it killed half the population of Europe. The Black Death started in Asia and reached in Europe in the s, killing 25 million. Medical historians believe Italian merchants brought it to Europe when they fled the fighting in Crimea.

Historians say the Mongols catapulted dead bodies over the walls of Kaffa, in the Crimea, to infect enemy soldiers. This is probably the first example of biological warfare. This may have triggered the spread of infection into Europe.

This brought new challenges and solutions. Girolamo Fracastoro — , an Italian doctor and scholar, suggested that epidemics may come from pathogens outside the body.

He proposed that these might pass from human-to-human by direct or indirect contact. Guiaiaco is the oil from the Palo Santo tree, a fragrance used in soaps.

William Harvey — , an English doctor, was the first person to properly describe the systemic circulation and properties of blood, and how the heart pumps it around the body. Avicenna had begun this work in C. Paracelsus — , a German-Swiss doctor, scholar, and occultist, pioneered the use of minerals and chemicals in the body. He believed that illness and health relied on the harmony of man with nature.

Rather than soul purification for healing, he proposed that a healthy body needed certain chemical and mineral balances. He added that chemical remedies could treat some illnesses. Paracelsus wrote about the treatment and prevention strategies for metalworkers and detailed their occupational hazards. Leonardo Da Vinci — , from Italy, was skilled in several different fields. He became an expert in anatomy and made studies of tendons, muscles, bones, and other features of the human body.

He had permission to dissect human corpses in some hospitals. Working with doctor Marcantonio della Torre, he created over pages of illustrations with notes about the human anatomy. Da Vinci also studied the mechanical functions of bones and how the muscles made them move. He was one of the first researchers of biomechanics. He was the royal surgeon for four French kings and an expert in battlefield medicine, particularly wound treatment and surgery.

He invented several surgical instruments. However, he ran out of oil and treated the rest of the second group with turpentine, oil of roses, and egg yolk.

The following day, he noticed that those he had treated with turpentine had recovered, while those who received the boiling oil were still in severe pain. Laborers must have had multiple problems, such as accidents, osteoarthritis, and fractures.

Kidney disease, dental problems, hemorrhoids, and heart disease would have been common. Battle-related injuries were frequent and often fatal. The most important exemplar for any healer was Jesus himself. The Gospels recount that Jesus healed the blind, caused the paralyzed to walk, cast out devils from the possessed, healed a woman with an issue of blood, and even raised the dead. The healing touch was appropriated by English and French kings, and many miraculous cures were attributed to the royal laying-on of hands.

Prayers to Christ, the Virgin, and saints were always considered the most efficacious form of help. Saint Margaret was invoked for help in childbirth Pilgrimage to a shrine might also lead to miraculous healing. Often these sites and the relics they displayed were related to specific diseases and to specific saints. Objects associated with the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket attest to the importance of Canterbury as a pilgrimage site where many sick people received miraculous cures.

Canterbury seems to have been a particularly important pilgrimage destination for people suffering from bleeding disorders—perhaps because of the blood shed by Thomas at his martyrdom Pilgrims arriving at their destination would be able to touch the relics and even carry home with them secondary relics—perhaps a piece of cloth that had been applied to a reliquary, or an ampulla of liquid that had been poured over a tomb These secondary relics could then be used to heal those who were too ill to make the journey.

Ultimately, the power of faith was potent medicine for the sick in the Middle Ages. Goldiner, Sigrid. Bagnoli, Martina, et al. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, Caviness, Madeline Harrison. Princeton: Princeton University Press, Gottfried, Robert S. New York: The Free Press, McVaugh, Michael R. Medicine before the Plague. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, It is hardly surprising that disease thrived in medieval towns.

The Shambles in York was once a street of butchers. Some houses still have hooks outside where meat was displayed. Contrary to popular opinion, most medieval people realised the importance of personal hygiene. However, cleanliness was a luxury few could afford. Most people washed in cold water unless they were rich and could afford to have it heated.

No monastic garden would have been complete without medicinal plants. The sick went to the monastery, local herbalist, or apothecary to obtain healing herbs. Most monasteries developed herb gardens for use in the production of herbal cures, and these remained a part of folk medicine, as well as were being used by some professional physicians. Books of herbal remedies were produced by monks as many monks were skilled at producing books and manuscripts and tending both medicinal gardens and the sick.

However, works of this period simply imitated those of classical antiquity. Headache and aching joints were treated with sweet-smelling herbs such as rose, lavender, sage, and hay. A mixture of henbane and hemlock was applied to aching joints. Coriander was used to reduce fever.

Stomach pains and sickness were treated with wormwood, mint, and balm. Lung problems were treated with a medicine made of liquorice and comfrey. Cough syrups and drinks were prescribed for chest and head-colds and coughs.

Wounds were cleaned and vinegar was widely used as a cleansing agent as it was believed that it would kill disease. Mint was used in treating venom and wounds. Myrrh was used as an antiseptic on wounds. There was no experimentation to test the efficacy of a particular herb treatment on ailments.

If successful, it was ascribed to their action upon the humors within the body and the belief that such natural herbal remedies must have been intended for such purpose by God.

The use of herbs also drew on the doctrine of signatures , a philosophy shared by herbalists from the time of Dioscorides to Galen and which stated that herbs that resemble various parts of the body can be used to treat ailments of that part of the body. For example, the spotted leaves of lungwort, which was used for tuberculosis, bear a similarity to the lungs of a diseased patient.

The medieval Christian Church provided a theological justification for this philosophy by reasoning that God had provided some form of alleviation for every ill, and these things, be they animal, vegetal, or mineral, carried a mark or a signature upon them that gave an indication of their usefulness.

This of course is regarded as superstition since there is no scientific evidence whatsoever that plant shapes and colors help in the discovery of medical uses of plants. One of the most devastating pandemics in human history was The Black Death. It is thought to have started in China or central Asia before spreading west. It swept through the Mediterranean and Europe in the 13th and 14th centuries. It took years for Europe's population to recover.

The plague reoccurred occasionally in Europe until the 19th century. The aftermath of the plague created a series of religious, social, and economic upheavals which had profound effects on the course of European history. The Black Death arrived in Europe by sea in October when 12 Genoese trading ships docked at the Sicilian port of Messina after a long journey through the Black Sea.

The people who gathered on the docks to greet the ships were met with a horrifying surprise: Most of the sailors aboard the ships were dead, and those who were still alive were gravely ill. They were overcome with fever, unable to keep food down, and were delirious from pain.

However, they were not equipped for the horrible reality of the Black Death. The Black Death was terrifyingly contagious. When people who were perfectly healthy went to bed at night, they could be dead by morning. How did the people of the Middle Ages cope with such a horrible disease? No medical knowledge existed at the time to deal with the infection. Bacteria and contagion were unknown. Doctors tried every possible cure and prevention. Physicians relied on crude and unsophisticated techniques such as bloodletting and boil-lancing practices that were dangerous as well as unsanitary and superstitious practices such as burning aromatic herbs and bathing in rosewater or vinegar.

So, bells were rung, guns were fired, and birds were released to fly around rooms. In the absence of medical understanding of such a frightful disease, people turned to prayers and pilgrimage.