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many illnesses were spread

people of different religion (example. Jews) were blamed for diseases

hospitals were not common back then

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By David Morton

Medieval medicine: from hot irons for hemorrhoids to bloodletting for almost any ailment; meet ten of the most horrible treatments of middle age's medicine, presented by our guest author David Morton.

1 Surgery: Crude, blunt and horribly painful

Surgery in the Middle Ages was crude and blunt and ... PAINFUL!Surgeons had a very poor understanding of human anatomy, anesthetics and antiseptic techniques to keep wounds and incisions from infection. It was not a pleasant time to be a patient, but if you valued your life, there was no choice. To relieve the pain, you submitted to more pain, and with any luck, you might get better.Surgeons in the early part of the Middle Ages were often monks because they had access to the best medical literature - often written by Arab scholars. But in 1215, the Pope said monks had to stop practicing surgery, so they instructed peasants to perform various forms of surgery. Farmers, who had little experience other than castrating animals, came into demand to perform anything from removing painful tooth abscesses to performing eye cataract surgery.

But there were some great successes.Archeologists in England found the skull of a peasant man from about 1100 who had been struck in the head by a heavy, blunt object. Close examination shows the man had been given life-saving surgery called trepanning, where a hole was drilled and a section of the skull was lifted, allowing smashed bone segments to be removed. The surgery alleviated pressure on the brain and the man recovered.We can only guess how painful it must have been!(Photo by: Wikipedia)

2 Dwale: A crude anesthetic that could cause death in itself

Surgery in the Middle Ages was really only used in life/death circumstances. One reason is that there was no reliable anesthetic to dull the excruciating pain caused by the rough cutting and procedures. Some potions used to relieve pain or induce sleep during surgery were potentially lethal. An example was a concoction of lettuce juice, gall from a castrated boar, briony, opium, henbane, hemlock juice and vinegar. This was mixed with wine before being given to the patient.

The Middle English word used to describe an anesthetic potion was "dwale" (pronounced dwaluh).

The hemlock juice alone could easily have caused death. While the anesthetic might induce a profound sleep, allowing a surgery to take place, it might be so strong that the patient would stop breathing.

Paracelsus, a medieval Swiss physician, was the first to use ether for its anesthetic qualities. Ether did not gain wide acceptance and its use declined. It was rediscovered in America some 300 years later. Paracelsus also used laudanum, a tincture of opium, to alleviate pain.(Photo by: pubmedcentral)

3 Spells: Pagan rituals and religious penance as a form of cure

Early medieval medicine was often a mix of the pagan, religious and scientific. As the church gained more control, pagan "rituals" were made punishable offences. One such punishable offence might have been the following:

"When [the healer] approaches the house where the sick person lies, if [the healer] finds a stone lying nearby, [he turns] the stone over and looks in the place where the stone was lying [to see] if there anything living under it, and if [the healer] finds there a worm or a fly or an ant or anything that moves, they [the healer] avers that the sick person will recover." (From The Corrector & Physician).

Patients who had contracted the bubonic plague were told to perform penance - the practice of confessing one's sins, then performing a religious devotion prescribed by a priest - a common "treatment." They were told they might be spared death if they correctly confessed their sins.(Photo by: motv)

4 Eye Cataract Surgery: Painful procedure that rarely saved patients' sight

An early operation for removal of a cataract included inserting a sharp instrument, such a knife or large needle, through the cornea and forcing the lens of the eye out of its capsule and down to the bottom of the eye.

Once Islamic medicine became more widely followed in medieval Europe, cataract surgery improved. The syringe was used for the extraction of cataracts by suction. A hollow metallic hypodermic syringe was inserted through the white part of the eye and successfully extracted the cataracts through suction.

5 Blocked Bladders: Metallic catheters inserted into the bladder

Blockage of urine in the bladder, due to syphilis and other venereal diseases, was fairly common at a time when antibiotics were not available. The urinary catheter - a metal tube inserted through the urethra into the bladder - was first used in the mid-1300s. When a tube could not easily be passed into the bladder to relieve the obstruction, other procedures to enter the bladder were devised, some quite novel, though all probably as painful and dangerous as the condition itself.

Here is a description of the treatment of kidney 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."(Photo by: McKinney Collection)

6 Surgeons on the Battlefield: Pulling of arrows was a nasty business

Use of the longbow - a large powerful bow that could shoot arrows great distances - flourished in the Middle Ages. This created a real problem for battlefield surgeons: how to remove arrows from the bodies of soldiers.

The heads of war arrows weren't necessarily glued onto the shafts, but attached with warm beeswax. After the wax set, they could be handled normally, but once shot into something if the shaft was pulled, the head would come off inside the body.

One answer was the arrow spoon, based on a design by an Arab physician, named Albucasis. The spoon is inserted into the wound and attaches itself around the arrowhead to be drawn from a wound without causing further damage as the barbs rip out.

Wounds such as these were also treated with cautery, where red hot irons were applied to the wound so that the tissue and veins sealed over, preventing blood loss and infection. Cautery was especially used in amputations.

A famous illustration for surgeons was called, "The Wound Man," which showed the various kinds of wounds a battlefield surgeon might expect to see.

7 Bloodletting: A cure-all for almost any ailment

Physicians in the Middle Ages believed that most human illnesses were the result of excess fluid in the body (called humour). The cure was removing excess fluid by taking large amounts of blood out of the body. Two of the main methods of bloodletting were leeching and venesection.

In leeching, the physician attached a leech, a blood-sucking worm, to the patient, probably on that part of the body most severely affected by the patient's condition. The worms would suck off a quantity of blood before falling off.

Venesection was the direct opening of a vein, generally on the inside of the arm, for the draining of a substantial quantity of blood. The tool used for venesection was the fleam, a narrow half-inch long blade, which penetrates the vein, and leaves a small wound. The blood ran into a bowl, which was used to measure the amount of blood taken.

Monks in various monasteries had regular bloodletting treatments - whether they were sick or not - as a means of keeping good health. They had to be excused from regular duties for several days while they recovered.(Photo by: McKinney Collection and FM)

8 Childbirth: Women told to prepare for their death

Childbirth in the Middle Ages was considered so deadly that the Church told pregnant women to prepare their shrouds and confess their sins in case of death.

Midwives were important to the Church due to their role in emergency baptisms and were regulated by Roman Catholic law. A popular medieval saying was, "The better the witch; the better the midwife"; to guard against witchcraft, the Church required midwives to be licensed by a bishop and swear an oath not to use magic when assisting women through labour.

In situations where a baby's abnormal birth position slowed its delivery, the birth attendant turned the infant inutero or shook the bed to attempt to reposition the fetus externally. A dead baby who failed to be delivered would be dismembered in the womb with sharp instruments and removed with a "squeezer." A retained placenta was delivered by means of counterweights, which pulled it out by force.(Photo by: Wikipedia)

9 Clysters: A medieval method of injecting medicines into the anus

The medieval version of the enema was known as the clyster, which is really an instrument for injecting fluids into the body through the anus. The clyster was a long metallic tube with a cupped end, into which the medicinal fluid was poured. The other end, a dull point, which was drilled with several small holes, was inserted into the anus. Fluids were poured in and a plunger was used to inject the fluids into the colon area, using a pumping action.

The most common fluid used was lukewarm water, though occasionally medical concoctions, such as thinned boar's bile or vinegar, were used.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, the medieval clyster was replaced by the more common bulb syringe. In France, the treatment became quite fashionable. King Louis XIV had over 2,000 enemas during his reign, sometimes holding court while the ceremony progressed. (Photo by: CMA)

10 Hemorrhoids: Agony of the anus treated with hot irons

Treatment of many diseases in the Middle Ages included prayers to patron saints for possible divine intervention. A seventh century Irish monk, St. Fiacre, was the patron saint for hemorrhoid sufferers. He developed hemorrhoids from digging in his garden, one day, and sat on a stone which gave him a miraculous cure. The stone survives to this day with the imprint of his hemorrhoids and is visited by many hoping for a similar cure. The disease was often called "St. Fiacre's curse" in the Middle Ages.

In more extreme cases of hemorrhoids, medieval physicians used their cautery irons to treat the problem. Others believed that simply pulling them out with their fingernails was a solution, a solution that the Greek physician, Hippocrates suggested.

The 12th century Jewish physician Moses Maimonides wrote a seven-chapter treatise on hemorrhoids and disagreed with the use of surgery, instead prescribing the most common treatment used to this day: the sitz bath.(Photo by: McKinney Collection)
David Morton is a Vancouver-based blogger and writer, who is working on a novel about monasteries in the Middle Ages. He is also a teacher of English as a second language. You can read his blog at http://blog.dmorton.ca

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10 Excruciating Medical Treatments from the Middle Ages - Oddee

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By David Morton Medieval medicine: from hot irons for hemorrhoids to bloodletting for almost any ailment; meet ten of the most horrible treatments of middle age's medicine, presented by our guest author David Morton. Surgery in the Middle Ages was crude and blunt and ...

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-towns were dirty
-there were no (real) medical treatments
-people were unhygienic

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-Common diseases had no cures and spread
-Towns kept carriers of diseases out of the town far away from everyone
-Medieval doctors tried using herbs, "magic charms", and by opening patients' veins and applying leeches

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Medicine is one of the cornerstones of modern civilization-so much so that we take it for granted. It wasn't always the case that you could just waltz into a doctor's office to have them cure what ailed you. In medieval times, for example, things were a lot more dangerous, and a lot stranger.

10 Boar Bile Enemas

Enemas in medieval times were performed by devices called clysters. A clyster was a long metal tube with a cup on the end. The tube would be entered into the anus and a medicinal fluid poured into the cup. The fluid would then be introduced into the colon by a series of pumping actions. Although warm soapy water is used for enemas today, things were a little more earthy back then: one of the most common fluids finding its way into a clyster was a concoction of boar's bile.

Even kings were high up on the clyster. King Louis XIV of France is said to have had over 2,000 enemas during his reign-some even administered while he sat on his throne.

9 Urine Was Used As An Antiseptic

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.

This isn't quite as insane as it seems: urine is sterile when it leaves the body and may have been a healthier alternative than most water-which came with no such guarantee of cleanliness.

8 Eye Surgery (With A Needle)

During the Middle Ages, cataract surgery was performed with a thick needle. The procedure involved pushing the cornea to the back of the eye.

Of course, eye surgery changed rapidly once Islamic medicine began to influence European practices. Rather than a needle, a metal hypodermic syringe was inserted through the sclera (the white part of the eye) and then used to extract of cataracts via suction.

7 Hot Iron For Hemorrhoids

It was once believed that if a person did not pray to St. Fiacre (the "protector against hemorrhoids") they would suffer from, you guessed it, hemorrhoids. If you were one of those unlucky fellows, you'd be sent off to the monks-who would put a red-hot iron up your anus. Nasty, but the less painful alternative was equally less effective: they'd send you to go and sit on St. Fiacre's famous rock, the spot where the seventh-century Irish monk was miraculously cured of his hemorrhoids. It was for this reason that throughout the Middle Ages, hemorrhoids were called "Saint Fiacre's illness."

By the 12th century, things had changed. Jewish physician Moses Maimonides wrote a seven-chapter treatise on hemorrhoids calling into question the contemporary state of treatment. He prescribed a far simpler method: a good soak in a bath.

6 Deadly Surgery

Despite what blockbuster movies may have taught you, going under the knife without any anesthetic wasn't as common in the medieval period as some people claim. In fact, medicine throughout this time was quite progressive: as the world expanded and travelers came from far afield, doctors from two different cultures would often share notes, and new practices were constantly being put to use.

However, even if the will for better medical care was there, the knowledge of chemicals certainly wasn't. Although anesthetic was administered, analgesics, antibiotics, and disinfectants were a far cry from what they are today. As a result, many people died from infected wounds.

5 Poisonous Anesthetics

As stated above, anesthetics were far from the established science they are today. In fact, general anesthesia is only about 150 years old. Before these advances, a rather crude brew of herbs mixed with wine was used to sedate the patient instead. The most common of these herbal anesthetics was known as dwale.

There were numerous ingredients in dwale-from the innocuous, such as lettuce and vinegar, to the deadly, such hemlock and opium. Much like modern knockout drugs, mixing these ingredients incorrectly could result in the patient's death.

4 Trepanning

Trepanning involved boring a small hole into the skull to expose the dura mater, the outer membrane of the brain. The practice was believed to alleviate pressure and treat health problems localized within the head, though it was also thought to cure epilepsy, migraines, and mental disorders and were a common "fix" for more physical problems such as skull fractures. Needless to say, such exposure of the brain to airborne germs would often be fatal.

Trepanning as a practice has not been completely abandoned: it was performed as recently as 2000 when two men in the US used it to treat a woman suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome and depression.

3 Surgery On The Battlefield

In medieval times, battlefield medicine was about as grisly as it gets, and arrows were one of the main culprits. Arrowheads were commonly attached to the shaft with wax for one single purpose: so that when the arrow was pulled out, the tip would break off inside the victim's body. Purpose-built "arrow removers"-designed to pinch the tip and pull it from the body-were used to heal wounded soldiers. The wound was then cauterized with a red-hot iron to stop the bleeding and prevent infections.

While much has been forgotten about the medical capabilities of this era, research has shown that it may have been more effective than you might think. A set of bones from 500-700 AD discovered in Italy in 2011 showed that soldiers of that era could survive massive blows to the head. One of the remains even showed evidence that the individual had survived after suffering a five-centimeter (two-inch) hole to the head.

2 Medical Astrology

Back in medieval times, astrologers were so revered that many thought they were real-life magicians. The truth is, they were respected scholars who advised on increasing crop yield, predicted the weather, and informed a family-to-be what sort of personality their child would have. The latter would often have consequences for the child's medical care.

Doctors would refer to special calendars that contained star charts in order to aid with diagnosis. By the 1500s, the physicians of Europe were legally required to assess a patient's horoscope before embarking on any medical interference.

Astrology suggests that each body part is influenced by the sun, moon, and planets, and that each star sign presides over different parts of the body. Aries, for example, pertains to the head, face, brain, and eyes; whereas Scorpio represents the reproductive system, sexual organs, bowels and excretory system. After the patient's star chart was examined and the current position of the stars was taken into account, a person's ailment could be predicted and a diagnosis would be made.

1 Bloodletting

Doctors of the medieval period believed in things called "humors." The word "humors" referred to certain fluids found in the body: blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm. "Humorism" was developed from the musings of Greek and Roman physicians who believed an excess or deficiency of any of the four humors would strongly influence a person's health.

For some reason, in the Middle Ages, blood-and excess blood in particular-was often seen as the cause of multiple ailments. Therefore, doctors would remove large quantities of blood from a person's veins in the hope that it would cure them. The two main ways of doing this were leeching and venesection.

In leeching, a leech was placed on the part of the body that was a concern and the "blood-worm" would suck blood (and, in theory, the illness) from the patient. Venesection was a little bit more direct: a doctor would literally open up a vein using a knife called a "fleam" and allow blood to drain from the body.

Bloodletting was so common that some people drained their blood regularly just because they believed it would keep them healthy. Surely a half-hour jog is a better way to stay fit?

Gareth May is an author and the co-editor of relationship website His 'n' Hers Handbook. His debut book, 150 Things Every Man Should Know, published in November 2009, was selected as one of the best books of the year by The Independent on Sunday. It has been published in the USA, Russia and China. His second book, Man of the World, was published in June, 2012. Born and bred in Devon, he now lives in London.

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10 Bizarre Medieval Medical Practices - Listverse

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Medicine is one of the cornerstones of modern civilization-so much so that we take it for granted. It wasn't always the case that you could just waltz into a doctor's office to have them cure what ailed you. In medieval times, for example, things were a lot more dangerous, and a lot stranger.

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towns were very dirty, causing  many diseases

leprosy was common, but had no real cure back then and lepers were made recluses from town

doctors sometimes used less scientific methods

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Woodcut of Leprosy In Medieval Times Giclee Print by Science Photo Library at AllPosters.com

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Woodcut of Leprosy In Medieval Times Giclee Print by Science Photo Library - at AllPosters.com. Choose from over 500,000 Posters & Art Prints. Value Framing, Fast Delivery, 100% Satisfaction Guarantee.