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The surgical techniques and medicine from the 15th century.

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Contrary to what most modern day humans have come to believe people in the 15th century they actually did use anesthetics. On the downside it was more often than not poisonous. This substance was called Dwale, a herbal anesthetic native to England. The recipe for making it calls for a mingling of a few relatively inactive ingredients like local roots, lettuce, bryony, and the bile or gallbladders of neutered pigs or goats, as well as a hodgepodge of deadlier herbal counterparts like opium, hemlock, belladonna and henbane. ("Anthony Carter")

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With doctors drilling holes in patients head and administering deadly doses of anesthetics along with using something as simple as when you were born to decide what treatment you receive they actually did have a limit on what doctors could and couldn't do to a patient. According to Simon Newman, " Since the Church believed that everything was divinely provided by God they did not accept the practice of anything scientific. " I'm not kidding here, the only thing they didn't allow in the 15th century when it came to health was science. In the Progress of Medicine and Science. "Illness was indisputably caused by sin. The Bible said so, and so did Church Councils. The only alternative explanations given credence were diabolical possession, witchcraft and other satanic machinations. In Christendom, from AD 300 to around 1700 all serious mental conditions were understood as symptoms of demonic possession. Since illness was thought to be caused by supernatural agents, cures had to be essentially supernatural as well. Every cure was literally miraculous, and these miracles could be effected only by prayer, penance and the assistance of saints. To claim otherwise was heretical and blasphemous."

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Religion and medicine in the 15th century mixed just as well as medicine and technology mix today. Your zodiac sign could decide what your astrologer physician, another highly respect job of that time period, could recommend treatments based on the placement of the moon and stars in the sky at a particular moment in time.  According to Peter Morell "The influence of astrology also entered European medicine from the Arab countries. Basically it is no exaggeration to say that astrology dominated everything during that period and thus many systems of knowledge depended upon it, were symbiotic with it, or made reference to it in their worldview." ("HomePoint")

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Most medical related deaths in the world today is surprisingly medical errors. Back in the 15th century though it was infection that was the main problem with the fatality rates in hospitals. "Though it may not have been common, there is evidence to suggest that urine was occasionally used as an antiseptic in the Medieval Era. Henry VIII’s surgeon, Thomas Vicary, recommended that all battle wounds should be washed in urine. In 1666, the physician George Thomson recommended urine to be used on the plague. And there was even a bottled version: Essence Of Urine." ("Listverse.") This isn’t quite as insane as it seems. Urine is sterile when it leaves the body. Also in such dire times urine may have been a healthier substitute than most water that came with no such promise of cleanliness considering their bathroom etiquette.

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In the 1500s to the 1700s, people did invent things we view still now as important. Hospitals were built to place the sick to be treated with special tools and equipment. Cesarean sections or c-sections were another major advancements made in the 15th century with the first ever procedure being down by a farmer on his wife in the year 1500. Sadly, c-sections were usually only performed when the mother had already passed away or had little chance of survival.("Medievalists") Blood transfusions were also in its early stages at the time.  The first successful blood transfusion being done by  Christian Zagado to animals. (" History of blood transfusion") These doctors and this time didn't  really have much of a base to place their findings on though, most of them had only religion as the only excuse for allowing these surgeries to place.

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Interesting is one word in my opinion that can correctly describe the things that went on behind the curtains of old age hospitals. For burns and scalds they'd take a live snail and rub its slime against the burn and it will heal. Modern science now utilizes snail slime, under the heading ‘Snail Gel’, as skin preparations and for treating minor injuries, such as cuts, burns and scalds. So I guess middle age medicine got this one right. For a stye on the eye they would take the same amounts of onion/leek and garlic, and mix them well together. Then take equal amounts of wine and bull’s gall and mix them with the onion and garlic. Put the mixture in a brass bowl and let it sit for nine days, then strain it through a cloth. Then, about night-time, apply it to the eye with a feather.” Would this Anglo-Saxon recipe have done any good? The onion, garlic and bull’s gall all have antibiotic properties that would have helped a stye – an infection at the root of an eyelash.The wine contains acetic acid which, over the nine days, would react with the copper in the brass bowl to form copper salts, which are bactericidal. Despite its unpromising odor and appearance the recipe is now being tested as a treatment against the antibiotic-resistant MRSA bug, and it looks hopeful.The ancient apothecary was right about this remedy, but it was one that needed to be prepared in advance for sale over the counter. ("Historyextra") These surgeries were based off the idea that if something was wrong, get rid of it. This this ideology explains why they castrated men who were incontinent and cut off tongues if they were infected. They didn't understand the important of cleanliness.

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The tools used in the 15th century were very simple ones. Aside from the fundamental objects used in surgeries like the scapels and syringes. All the other ones sitting on the doctor's tray we used specially for certain tasks. Things like the Gorget to remove the patients bowels, the Trepan and Trephine for making channels through the skulls, and the ballista for extracting arrows. ("Kara Rogers") With all these tools and more being used who knows how often it probably wasn't unusaul for them to be reused without being sterilized properly. Another reason for the high level of infections in hospitals.

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The job of cutting hair and fixing brains 

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The job of cutting hair and fixing brains 

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One of the more unusual things about this time period was barber-surgeons. They spent their days not only providing grooming services but barber-surgeons regularly performed dental extractions, bloodletting, minor surgeries and sometimes amputations. According to Amanda Smith, "In particular, barber-surgeons had a major role in treating venereal disease, especially syphilis, which was rampant in 16th century Europe. Literally as well as figuratively, the doctors of the time didn’t want to touch syphilis. Barber-surgeons were also particularly known for bloodletting, which was thought to be necessary for maintaining good health." Most importantly though is that it was a common occupation to have them work and care for soldiers. This would make more sense since many  of the modern army doctors we have don't have much experience in the medical field either. They have to learn most things through basic training, which is most likely what barber surgeons did too.

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The times of Shakespeare were times of great artists authors and musicians. It was also a time of great fear and pain with deadly diseases spreading like wildfire throughout Europe. According to Constance Dauber Jones in Disease and Medicine in the Middle Ages, " In Medieval Europe, superstition and fear were dominant themes of everyday life, and the people were beset by sickness and pestilence on every side. " This in-depth and unavoidable kind of fear drove people to perform horrific surgeries on others to try and cure them. Wars like the hundred years wars also put a strain on Europeans, making them alienate themselves from other cultures.