1st September 2009 Zodiac Chart

1st September 2009

Aspects of Medieval Medicine

Zodiac chart An important aspect of healing and diagnosing in the Medieval times was Astrology. A lot of people believed strongly in the influence of stars and planets and charts such as the ‘Disease Man’.. On charts such as these different parts of the body would be associated with different zodiac signs. An example is ;Don’t treat the head while Aries is in the sky. Ancient studies of astrology were translated from Arabic to Latin and soon became a part medical practice in Europe. Urine chart Diagnosing disease by observing urine was also popular. Urinalysis was a method that was though to reveal the state of the liver. Doctors would use urine charts along with clinical observation and the theory of the four humors to identify different diseases by the state of one’s urine. Giles of Corbeil, a thirteenth-century medical writer, states that "thick urine, whitish, milky, or bluish white, indicates dropsy, colic, the stone, headache, excess of phlegm, rheum in the members, or a flux". Wound man It was imperative for every surgeon to have an image of a wound man to treat the injured from the battlefield. The wound man was a diagram that showed different injuries on the body of the ‘wound man’. There would be all sorts of injuries showed by swords, daggers, spears, arrows and other weapons in the body of the ‘wound man’. It was an indication to doctors of what they would expect to be treating. Role of Religion Religion played an extremely important role in the medical beliefs of the medieval people. A lot of them believed that disease was a punishment from God or a cause of the devil. They believed that sinning would cause disease and ways of repenting to God and curing disease included whipping yourself (Flagellants) or going on pilgrimages to shrines. Christians believed that everything was from God be it good or bad and everything was good no matter how one saw it. Their initial belief was that God’s creation should not be intervened with i.e. the ill should not be treated. However this slowly evolved to the belief that one should take care on one’s own body as it was a creation of God. This turned Christians towards medicine. Importance of Galen Galen was the most important physician of this period. He described the four symptoms of swelling and contributed significant knowledge to infectious diseases and pharmacology. His most significant work was in the knowledge of the form and function of the muscles and spinal cord. He held public dissections and mostly dissected pigs showing the people strange and amazing things. For example he showed that blood

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1st September 2009

Aspects of Medieval Medicine

instead of air, blood flowed through arteries by severing an animal’s artery in front of an excited crowd in Rome. The 4 Humours The theory of the 4 humors influenced many medical decisions. Doctors believed that there were 4 substances on the body: blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile. Disease was thought to be a cause of the imbalance or alterations in these Humours. For example if a person was thought to have more blood then his/her blood would be letted or leeched (leech’s used to suck blood) so that the blood would supposedly be in balance with the rest of the humors. Examples of surgery Medieval ‘surgeons’ ranged from all sorts of people who mostly picked up ideas and knowledge from other traveling surgeons. Most surgery included setting bones, dressing an ulcer, removing cataracts, blood-letting, cauterization and many more daring operations. They did not know about germs, hence not caring about things such as using the same knife or cleaning instruments. Example of surgery procedure: Removal of bladder stones "If there is a stone in the bladder make sure of it as follows: have a strong person sit on a bench, his feet on a stool; the patient sits on his lap, legs bound to his neck with a bandage, or steadied on the shoulders of the assistants. The physician stands before the patient and inserts two fingers of his right hand into the anus, pressing with his left fist over the patient's pubes. With his fingers engaging the bladder from above, let him work over all of it. If he finds a hard, firm pellet it is a stone in the bladder... If you want to extract the stone, precede it with light diet and fasting for two days beforehand. On the third day, ... locate the stone, bring it to the neck of the bladder; there, at the entrance, with two fingers above the anus incise lengthwise with an instrument and extract the stone"(Lindberg, pg. 341).

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