Middle Ages
The actions and methods of medieval practitioners was very much a trial and error process. The Middle Ages was a time of strong religious revival, and those philosophies carried into the procedures and tools used during that time period. Much like the ancient civilizations, it was believed that illness was a punishment from God. Therefore, the illness was self-imposed, contracted as a result of one's behavior. Many different illnesses were treated by going everyday to worship, and repenting all sins in order for God to forgive. However, when that did not work, there were procedures in order to cure these ailments, many of them very painful.
Any ailment of the brain, physical or mental, was treated with trepanning, or drilling into the skull. A trephine, seen in the top left corner, was the contraption used to drill a hole into the skull. The trephine is comprised of a clamp that would secure onto both sides of the head, connected to a drill with a handle at the end. As you can imagine, this procedure was extremely painful, and due to the lack of knowledge about sanitation, usually resulted in serious infection or death.
Bloodletting was a common procedure in the Middle Ages, which is performed by cutting into a specific blood vessel in the body, and removing the blood that was there. It was thought that some ailments were caused by bad blood, and bloodletting would allow for the removal of it, cleansing the body of the sick blood. This method was used to treat the Bubonic Plague, or the Black Plague, that killed more than 1/3 of Europe. The Plague caused large lumps to appear on the neck, arms, and groin of victims. These lumps were filled with blood and pus, and thus many spots on the body that were deemed "bloodletting spots" were where these lumps appeared, in order to drain the body of the oozing sores.
The Black Plague was a violent disease that rapidly spread through towns, killing off entire villages in a matter of weeks. There were three variations of the disease, bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic. Bubonic was the typical variation that would involve large lumps on the body, the pneumonic was a different strain that included a nasty whooping cough, and the septicemic actually caused a poisoning of the bloodstream, stopping the heart, by far the most deadly strain. This disease was brought to Europe by fleas on merchants' boats sailing from Asia. The fleas would then infect Europe's rats, and the infected rats would infect food supplies, traded goods off the boats, and many other objects that would reach humans, and spread the disease. Not knowing the cause of this disease, or the way to go about curing it, many different procedures were performed, every one taking a shot in the dark in an effort to combat this disease. Plague doctors typically dressed in long robes, to prevent contact with fluid, much like doctors do today, but their mask that they wore resembled a bird's head, with a long, narrow beak. This "beak" at the end of the mask was filled with vinegar, and sweet oils, to mask the smell of the rotting flesh and body fluid that filled the air. These costumes are an older version of the bio hazard suits today when dealing with a deadly virus, such as Ebola. Although these costumes looked ridiculous, they were fairly helpful in keeping doctors from contracting the plague.
Any ailment of the brain, physical or mental, was treated with trepanning, or drilling into the skull. A trephine, seen in the top left corner, was the contraption used to drill a hole into the skull. The trephine is comprised of a clamp that would secure onto both sides of the head, connected to a drill with a handle at the end. As you can imagine, this procedure was extremely painful, and due to the lack of knowledge about sanitation, usually resulted in serious infection or death.
Bloodletting was a common procedure in the Middle Ages, which is performed by cutting into a specific blood vessel in the body, and removing the blood that was there. It was thought that some ailments were caused by bad blood, and bloodletting would allow for the removal of it, cleansing the body of the sick blood. This method was used to treat the Bubonic Plague, or the Black Plague, that killed more than 1/3 of Europe. The Plague caused large lumps to appear on the neck, arms, and groin of victims. These lumps were filled with blood and pus, and thus many spots on the body that were deemed "bloodletting spots" were where these lumps appeared, in order to drain the body of the oozing sores.
The Black Plague was a violent disease that rapidly spread through towns, killing off entire villages in a matter of weeks. There were three variations of the disease, bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic. Bubonic was the typical variation that would involve large lumps on the body, the pneumonic was a different strain that included a nasty whooping cough, and the septicemic actually caused a poisoning of the bloodstream, stopping the heart, by far the most deadly strain. This disease was brought to Europe by fleas on merchants' boats sailing from Asia. The fleas would then infect Europe's rats, and the infected rats would infect food supplies, traded goods off the boats, and many other objects that would reach humans, and spread the disease. Not knowing the cause of this disease, or the way to go about curing it, many different procedures were performed, every one taking a shot in the dark in an effort to combat this disease. Plague doctors typically dressed in long robes, to prevent contact with fluid, much like doctors do today, but their mask that they wore resembled a bird's head, with a long, narrow beak. This "beak" at the end of the mask was filled with vinegar, and sweet oils, to mask the smell of the rotting flesh and body fluid that filled the air. These costumes are an older version of the bio hazard suits today when dealing with a deadly virus, such as Ebola. Although these costumes looked ridiculous, they were fairly helpful in keeping doctors from contracting the plague.