Doctors and treatments in the Middle Ages
A visit to the doctor during the Middle Ages could begin in a way that would be surprising compared to what many might imagine: the patient would speak of their ailments, the doctor would take their pulse, and then carefully examine their urine.
Uroscopy was a common practice, and the color, appearance, or transparency of that sample could be used to try to discover what was happening inside the body, even without the advanced tests that exist today.
Doctors primarily followed the ideas of authors such as Hippocrates and Galen, and the theory of the four humors occupied a central place: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile had to be kept in balance, while an alteration could explain a disease, as well as certain character traits.
Blood was associated with active and cheerful people; yellow bile with a choleric temperament; phlegm with tranquility; and black bile with melancholy.
Treatment was chosen by attempting to restore that balance; the doctor might recommend rest, changes in diet, baths, exercise, or medicinal preparations.
And although the basis was usually similar, medicine was also marked by social differences: a nobleman could have a private physician, while a humble person might turn to an herbalist, a midwife, or someone in their community with experience in certain diseases, which led to very different treatments, even for the same apparent symptoms.
Medieval medicine was full of treatments that might seem strange today, but also of meticulous observations of the human body.
Amidst flasks of urine, medicinal plants, leeches, surgical instruments, and remedies passed down through generations, doctors and surgeons tried to face illnesses and injuries with the knowledge available in their time.
What remedies were used in the Middle Ages?
During the Middle Ages, plants were a true pharmacy within reach of many communities: sage, mint, fennel, garlic, chamomile, and other species were used to prepare infusions, syrups, oils, ointments, and poultices. Furthermore, different plants whose shapes were associated with organs and parts of the body were said to have effects on them, and were used to treat ailments associated with what their shape represented.
Honey also held great importance and could be used on certain wounds.
Even so, the recipes could be truly surprising; a medicinal preparation could combine various plants together with honey, wine, oil, or animal fat, and while some combinations had useful properties, others could prove ineffective or even dangerous.
Diet was also part of the treatment: doctors classified foods according to whether they were hot, cold, dry, or moist, and used those characteristics to decide what was suitable for each patient; thus, the same food could be recommended for one person and avoided for another depending on their state of health.
Knowledge was transmitted through medical texts and also through the experience of generations from master to apprentice, although monasteries also preserved medical knowledge and cultivated plants destined for preparing remedies, so their gardens could function as small vegetable pharmacies, with species selected to alleviate different ailments.
Bloodletting in the Middle Ages
Bloodletting was one of the most characteristic practices of medieval medicine and consisted of extracting blood from the patient because it was believed that certain diseases were related to an excess of this humor; thus, by removing blood, the doctor hoped to restore the organism to its balance.
To achieve this, they could make an incision, use cupping glasses, or place leeches on the skin, as these animals would adhere to the body and extract blood.
Regarding this latter method, its use was so enduring that leeches continued to be part of certain medical practices for many centuries.
The explanation for bloodletting was linked to a medical theory that seemed logical to those who used it, but the problem was that excessive extraction could leave the patient even more weakened, so a person who was already suffering from an illness could lose a significant amount of blood during treatment and worsen severely. Additionally, the lack of hygiene of the time could lead to consequences that were not considered back then.
In some medical traditions, especially in blood extraction, the position of the Moon and other celestial bodies was also taken into account to decide the right moment for certain interventions, so that medieval medicine combined observations of the body with beliefs that today belong to the history of medicine.
Barbers and wounds in the Middle Ages
The medieval barber could do much more than cut hair.
In various places, barber-surgeons performed bloodletting, extracted teeth, opened abscesses, and treated certain wounds. Their work required manual skill and experience, especially in procedures that required sharp instruments, something that was already indirectly linked to the profession...
However, during the Middle Ages, the interventions were as uncomfortable as they were dangerous.
A visit to have a tooth extracted could turn into a terrible experience, since modern anesthesia did not exist and the resources to control pain were very limited; thus, the patient had to endure a quick intervention while the barber tried to extract the tooth with his instruments.
Serious wounds presented an even greater danger, since although they could be cleaned and covered with linen cloths, and substances such as honey, wine, oils, or herbal preparations were used, disinfection and pain relief were still a rudimentary task, and even when a sword, spear, or tool caused a deep injury, the surgeon, or the barber in this case, could be in charge of also removing embedded fragments or damaged tissue... But the great enemy appeared afterward: infection.
No one knew about bacteria and antibiotics did not exist, so a wound that could be resolved today with medical attention could back then end in gangrene and cause death, which resulted in the fact that in the most severe cases, the surgeon could resort to amputation to try to save the patient's life.
