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Medicine: The Middle Ages
Wine was used to clean wounds during the Middle Ages.

Medicine: The Middle Ages

Medieval medicine mixed religion, tradition, and simple observation. This quiz explores how doctors, monks, and ordinary people tried to understand and treat illness in the Middle Ages.

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Fascinating Fact:

Astrology influenced diagnosis and treatment. Doctors used star charts to decide when to bleed patients or carry out procedures.

In GCSE History, the study of medicine in the Middle Ages focuses on how ideas from the Church, ancient writers, and Islamic scholars shaped diagnosis and treatment. You will look at the four humours, the role of prayer, the work of monasteries, and the slow growth of more practical, observation based approaches.

  • Four humours: Medieval theory that health depended on the balance of blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile in the body.
  • Physician: A trained medieval doctor who used books, observation, and theory rather than mainly practical surgery.
  • Monastery infirmary: A small hospital area in a monastery where monks cared for the sick using herbs, rest, and prayer.
What were the main ideas about disease in the Middle Ages?

In the Middle Ages many people believed that disease was sent by God as a punishment for sin. They also used the four humours theory and blamed bad air, called miasma, for some illnesses.

How did the Church influence medicine in medieval Europe?

The Church controlled most learning and encouraged ideas that fitted Christian teaching, such as illness being linked to sin. Monasteries ran infirmaries, copied medical books, and sometimes limited dissection and criticism of Galen.

What treatments were commonly used in medieval medicine?

Medieval treatments included herbal remedies, bleeding and purging to rebalance the humours, prayer and pilgrimages, and advice on diet and exercise. Some physicians also timed treatments using calendars and star charts.

1 .
Which of the following European cities was famous for its university medical faculty from the thirteenth century?
Padua
Avignon
Bordeaux
Turin
It was common for students from one country to study in another before returning home to practise
2 .
Surgeons were, for a long time, combined with another profession. Which one?
Barbers
Butchers
Fishmongers
Lawyers
The prevalence of warfare encouraged developments in surgery
3 .
Which city in Southern Spain became a major centre of Islamic scholarship, including the study of medicine?
Granada
Seville
Ronda
Cordoba
Much of Spain was under Muslim control until the fifteenth century
4 .
Which of the following "causes" of the plague is the most plausible?
Caused by microbes in infected water
Caused by infected fleas from the coats of black rats
Caused by dog bites - in the manner of rabies
Caused by unhealthy air in medieval houses
Ignorance of the precise causes of the Black Death explains to a large extent the huge death toll
5 .
The French and English monarchs were believed to have curative powers when they touched subjects ("touching for the King's Evil"). Which skin ailment was this practice said to cure?
Leprosy
Psoriasis
Psittacosis
Scrofula
The practice survived into the eighteenth century, but it was not followed in Scotland. James I was taken aback by it when he travelled down to London to claim the English throne in 1603
6 .
Which Roman medical scientist of Greek extraction was influential in medieval Europe, on account of his numerous published works, and his theories on the need for clinical observation, dissection and the need to maintain a balance among the four humours?
Vesalius
Hippocrates
Galen
Socrates
The books were widely translated, and remained standard texts for centuries
7 .
What proportion of Europe's population was killed by the Black Death from 1348-1349?
One half
One quarter
One third
One tenth
There was no cure for the plague. Most of the remedies applied from time to time were either useless or downright harmful
8 .
When the Romans left Britain around 410 AD, medicine suffered a severe setback. Villas were often covered up by the remaining Ancient Britons. What was the main reason why they did this?
They believed that villas contained ghosts and evil spirits
They were unable to operate Roman central heating systems
They misunderstood the need for clean drinking water
They could not operate Roman sewers
Three of these possible reasons concern water supply and sewerage systems, a speciality of the Romans that was lost for centuries after their downfall
9 .
Christianity had its own explanations for illness. What advice did priests typically give the sick?
To make offerings to the Church in order to counteract the influence of the Devil, who was responsible for all illness
To pray to God, as any sickness could be a punishment from Him
To give away all of their worldly goods
To promise to embark on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem via Canterbury
The advice of the Church rarely involved doctors or medicine
10 .
Which drink was used as an antiseptic in the Middle Ages, especially in the cleaning of wounds?
Beer
Mead
Wine
Gin
The application of strong drink was painful, but medical practitioners swore by it
Author:  Edward Towne

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