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9. Medieval medical care

Obviously, under such unhygienic living conditions, it was basically impossible for medieval Europeans to live a lifetime of health and disease. If you are sick, you must be treated, but the problem is that the doctors in medieval Europe were too unreliable no matter how you look at it.

-- In the pre-Middle Ages in ancient Greece and Rome, European medical technology was at a fairly good level. The "Hippocrates Oath" of Hippocrates, a famous Greek doctor, has been used to this day and is regarded as the common creed of medical personnel all over the world.

However, medicine itself was supposed to be a godless science, and the Middle Ages in Europe were an era of religious supremacy.

Thus, with the rise of Christianity, the Greco-Roman civilization was dimmed, and European medicine returned to the primitive witch doctor era.

In the early Middle Ages, many fanatical Christians refused to have surgery or medication at all, believing that a pilgrimage to Rome or Jerusalem, prayer to God, and the anointing of holy oil were sufficient cures. If it really doesn't work, you can also ask a priest to recite the scriptures to ward off evil spirits. And the clergy of the Church also highly praised this, even saying nonsense: "A person with red dysentery only needs to retrieve a handful of soil from the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem to recover." A patient with tongue inflammation will be cured with just a lick of the temple handrail," while viciously threatening that "sinners who receive secular medical treatment are heretics"!

Unfortunately, we do not live in a magical world, and medieval Europe did not have priests and paladins who could perform healing techniques.

Devout faith cannot defeat bacteria and viruses, and amulets, holy waters, and hymns cannot ward off disease.

Therefore, even in the Middle Ages in Europe, when the religious atmosphere was the strongest, the profession of doctor still existed.

But let's be honest, if you travel back in time to medieval Europe and unfortunately suffer from some disease, and then go to a hospital in medieval Europe, then the cure rate is estimated to be similar to that of a priest to exorcise evil spirits.

Why? To answer this question, look at what hospitals in medieval Europe looked like.

First of all, in medieval Europe, there were large hospitals and small clinics. Large hospitals are usually run by churches, attached to churches or monasteries, and small clinics are run in any of the neighborhoods.

According to the concept of modern people, generally speaking, it is more comfortable to go to a big hospital to see a doctor.

So, you go to a big hospital run by a convent, and the nuns treat you very warmly, without charging a registration fee or asking you to show your papers. After patiently listening to your account of your illness, a kind old woman comes forward to comfort you, anoint you with a little oil or a few drops of holy water, and then let you join them in prayer and Mass, and visit the various holy objects in the church. Then we will dine with them, sharing a soup made of oatmeal and beans, and occasionally salted fish and brown bread. Finally, I will arrange a place for you to sleep...... All of the above qiē are free, and if you're in rags, they might even give you an old garment from a good Samaritan.

So, while feeling the warmth of the nuns' ancient ways, you wrapped yourself in a blanket and prepared to fall asleep, but suddenly remembered a very strict question:

Huh? I'm here to see a doctor, not to receive relief! Where is the doctor?

Unfortunately, it is hard for us modern people to imagine that the medieval church hospital was basically a hospice, and there were no doctors at all!

According to the medieval church, sickness was God's punishment for sinful people, and salvation could be achieved by sincere prayer and repentance, without the need for medicine. Therefore, the so-called hospital run by the church is nothing more than a place where a large number of sick people gather for collective prayer. If there is anyone who is cured without medicine, it is a miracle from God, and the church will trumpet it in order to increase its prestige. If it does not work in the end, it means that the sick person has sinned so much that he needs to go to a more distant place to practice and repent, or even go on a pilgrimage to the holy city of Jerusalem......

As for the actual church hospitals that could cure the sick and save people, they did not appear until much later, at least in medieval Europe, which was quite rare. Moreover, even in such ecclesiastical hospitals, the monks often confuse treatment with religious ceremonies, and the actual level of medical care is not high.

After figuring out what this church hospital is, you may think that it is too unreliable to pray for a miracle from God, or that it is more practical to rely on worldly medical skills...... So, you hurriedly say goodbye to your enthusiastic nun and go to find a small clinic with a real doctor at work.

So, where should you go to find a small clinic in medieval Europe? You only have to look at the door number to know this - the Red Cross symbol of modern medicine was not revealed until the 19th century. In earlier times, the emblem of European doctors was a snake around a cane. This symbol of the "snake around the cane", known as the "snake emblem", is said to have been used by doctors since ancient Greek times, and has appeared in some medical journals until modern times.

In addition, on the buildings on the streets of modern European cities, we can occasionally see such a peculiar mark: a snake wrapped around a goblet. This is the symbol of pharmacies in European countries, and its origin is the "snake around the crutch" badge that used to represent doctors.

Well, anyway, after seeing the sign on the door that says "Snake around a cane", you knock on the door and go in, and you see a black birdman - black hat, black clothes, black cloak, and a long bird's beak mask, and the whole person looks like a big crow in clothes......

You may think this dress is strange and unlucky, but it was the standard for medieval European doctors (as anyone who has played Assassin's Creed should know), so it was called "Doctor Bird's Beak" and "Doctor Raven" by Europeans at the time.

The strange beak mask on his face was actually a simple gas mask, filled with cotton, lavender, mint, and other spices to ward off the stench of the patient's body and to prevent the doctor from contracting the plague himself - it should be noted that this beak mask was made after the Black Death, and the early medieval European doctors were only wearing black clothes and hats.

Although the color of this crow doctor's clothing is just the opposite of the modern "angel in white", which makes people mumble a little, as a patient, you can't pay too much attention to it, so you sit down and talk to him about your condition, and answer a few questions he asks.

Next, the crow doctor began to rummage down, ready to take out the usual tools to start the treatment. You're wondering if he's going to take out a primitive version of a stethoscope, but you see him bring a glass urine bottle and ask you to pee on the spot and show him it.

-- The first step in curing a disease is to diagnose the disease, and Chinese medicine pays attention to "looking, hearing, inquiring, and seeing" in this regard, so when Chinese medicine encounters a patient, it usually has to look at their tongue coating and pulse diagnosis. However, doctors in medieval Europe believed in the theory of fluid balance, and used "urine diagnosis", which was to take a glass urine bottle and let you pee, and then he would open a medical book to analyze the condition according to the urine - in fact, in medieval Europe, the glass urine bottle was the most basic equipment of the doctor!

Although it is true that urine tests are still done in hospitals today, there were no modern analytical instruments in medieval Europe, and doctors could only observe the color, concentration and smell of the urine, and at most dip it in the urine and lick it to confirm whether it was diabetic...... It seems that it is more reliable to diagnose the pulse?

Regardless of whether this "urine diagnosis" is reliable or unreliable, in short, after you have peed, he holds up the glass urine bottle and puts it in the sun, looks at it carefully, shakes it again and again, and maybe smells and licks...... In the end, the disease was diagnosed.

Next, you were waiting for the doctor to prescribe a prescription, but he came out of a drawer with a few glittering knives......

Hey, hey! Is there a mistake? I'm just having a bit of a headache and insomnia, why are you going to have surgery on me? And the knife hasn't been sterilized yet...... Could it be that this doctor colluded with my enemy to assassinate me in the clinic?

Make no mistake, they are not trying to give you surgery or murder, but they are going to give you bloodletting.

-- Medicine in medieval Europe was largely based on the doctrine of fluid balance. To put it simply, it is to attribute all diseases to an imbalance of body fluids. They believe that illness is due to unclean blood, and as long as the blood vessels are cut to remove "dirty blood", the purpose of disease prevention and treatment can be achieved.

Before the Renaissance, doctors in Europe wore black clothes and hats, carrying urine bottles and knives to work. From a modern point of view, it's less like a doctor and more like a killer. As for the treatment...... Do you have a cold? Let's bleed, you're hurt? Let's bleed, you have diarrhea? Let's bleed, you have a headache and insomnia? Let's bleed...... In short, whether you have a headache, brain fever, cold or flu, all bloodletting! The patient survived because God blessed him and the angels blessed him, but if he didn't survive, he was guilty of a lot of sin and was called by the Lord.

Therefore, the Europeans at that time were very religious-God blessed to cure any disease, not to be religious!

Of course, this kind of bloodletting is not simply a matter of cutting open the blood vessels, but rather deciding how much blood to be bled to, from where it is done, and how to do it, depending on the patient's age, symptoms, season, climate, and location. This kind of bloodletting therapy has been continuously summarized and studied by later generations, and has become one of the pillars of Western medicine, and has even been continued until modern times.

But don't think that the bloodletting therapy they have summarized will be very scientific, for example, according to medieval medical books, the bloodletting of the ** part must be carried out when Cancer enters the correct astrological position...... The doctor also worked part-time as an astronomer, climbing on the roof in the middle of the night to look up at the stars.

What's worse is that the English in the 14th century once believed that after bleeding a patient, feces should be smeared on the wound...... Isn't this tantamount to a rush to infect the patient's wound with germs, suppuration or even tetanus?

Even though phlebotomy was not very effective, it was still widely regarded as a panacea by doctors in Europe at the time. Phlebotomy is used not only for the sick, but also for healthy people as a routine "health measure", and even for the treatment of "lovesickness" and depression. Every spring and autumn, wealthy families undergo bloodletting to "strengthen their physique" and adapt to the upcoming climate change. Some people even believe that bloodletting can also make those watery poplars and light women who see things different become single-minded, only love their husbands and forget about fornication.

In the Middle Ages, when asceticism was prevalent, the Church once advocated bloodletting for monks and nuns in order to eliminate the lustful thoughts of these clergy.

As for the actual effect of phlebotomy...... It should be said that under certain conditions, bloodletting is indeed beneficial to patients, and phlebotomy has been used almost all over the world to treat diseases. For example, Chinese medicine, Tibetan medicine and Mongolian medicine in China sometimes use bloodletting therapy (usually using leeches to suck blood). However, this treatment method is obviously not a panacea, and once the bleeding is too much and too diligent, it will lead to excessive blood loss and death of the patient.

Among the most famous victims was Washington, the founding president of the United States, who in 1799 suffered from laryngitis due to the rain, and his family quickly invited several famous doctors to consult, first giving Washington an emetic and then irritating the skin with a poisonous insect, but to no avail.

As a result, these famous doctors agreed that he should be given the most scientific bloodletting therapy. As a result, three blood bleeds in a row, and Washington's condition appeared to have worsened. These "famous doctors" had no choice but to increase the amount of bloodletting...... In the end, President Washington, who was more loyal and unyielding than the ** member, was released with 23oo milliliters of blood, which was almost half of the total blood in his body, and finally couldn't stand it and kicked his legs. According to modern view, he died of blood loss, not a bacterial infection caused by laryngitis - hence the fact that Washington was murdered by doctors......

But in the Middle Ages in Europe, this would only be considered a sinful and summoning President of Washington, and the doctors would never be held responsible.

In fact, according to the European medieval view, this doctor is willing to personally perform bloodletting for you, which is already a very responsible expression. More often than not, you'll only see him call a physiologist and pick up a dandruff-stained razor and prepare to cut your blood vessels.

-- Although medieval Europeans believed that "bloodletting was the beginning of recovery," doctors believed that it was the work of inferior people, and usually refused to do it themselves, but entrusted it to a physiologist...... As a result, the physiologist became an amateur surgeon.

In 154o, with the approval of the English king, the physicists officially took up the post of medical surgeon, and chose the tricolor pillar as their symbol of medicine and physiology. The red in the tricolor column represents the artery, the blue represents the vein, and the white represents the gauze. Later, in 1745, King George II of England decreed the establishment of the Royal Society of Surgeons, and the medical profession has since separated from the physicists, but the tricolor pillar in front of the shop has been used to this day.

Obviously, the physiologist in the greasy robe, holding a rusty razor, was in his hand, and he was humming "...... Little patient, white and white, grabbed with both arms, cut the arteries and veins, and was motionless and cute", when you slowly walk towards you with a cruel smile like a chainsaw murderer, your first reaction must be to kill and not do it!

Then, after the phlebotomy was sternly rejected by you, the doctor complained that you were too difficult to serve as a patient, and finally took a few herbs and boiled you a small pot of medicinal soup. When you were wondering if this medicinal soup would taste bitter, the doctor motioned for you to quickly take off your pants, and then cocked your ass - it turned out that this pot was not a medicinal soup to drink with your mouth, but an enema to bear with ****!

- No way, the European doctors of the Middle Ages basically used these three methods: bloodletting, enema, and vomiting (this trick was quite effective against food poisoning). The main goal is to promote the excretion of harmful substances from the body, so that the body can recover......

But the problem is that, just as excessive bloodletting is tantamount to murder, too much enema and too much diligent can cause the patient to collapse and die. What's worse is that if doctors feel that one therapy is not enough to cover and use multiple therapies together, then it will be a great tragedy for the patient.

――In 1685, King Charles II of England unfortunately suffered a slight stroke, so twelve imperial doctors **** entered the palace and began to destroy the dragon body of His Majesty in the name of "medical treatment": first, he cut the king's shoulder and released a full pint and a half of blood (equivalent to 1ooo ml, while my country only donated 4ooml of blood each time); Then he fed the king some emetic medicine, and made him vomit profusely; This was followed by a potion made with spices such as rock salt, mallow leaves, violets, beetroot, chamomile flowers, fennel seeds, flaxseeds, cinnamon, cardamom and saffron, which were given to the king with an enema every 2 hours...... After five full days of repeated enemas like this, the king's condition worsened not only at all.

(Enemas so many times in a row, let alone a patient paralyzed by stroke, even a healthy person can't bear it!) ）

Seeing that the king, who was still a little angry, became dying, the royal doctors were so frightened that they quickly switched to a new type of treatment: they shaved the king's head, burned it with a red-hot iron, squeezed it out, then smeared pigeon dung on his feet, and finally ground the dead man's skull into powder, mixed it with laxatives, and poured it all into the king's throat...... Poor Charles II immediately vomited and bled profusely, and finally died with a whimper.

When he was dying, the king was "ashamed" to say to the imperial doctors: I'm really sorry that I have struggled for so long and made you tired.

- To sum up, the "medical" torture that King Charles II of England endured before his death seems to be almost horrific compared to the gay King Edward II, who was ********killed by his jailers with a red-hot iron bar, and whose screams resounded through half of London before his death......

Although the consequences of over-enema are terrible, there are always people in this world who seek fashion and pastime at the cost of their own bodies - and like bloodletting, the seminal romantic French in the late Middle Ages turned enemas from a medical treatment into a fashion trend. According to court records, King Louis XIII of France performed 212 enemas and 47 bloodlets from 161o to 1643, believing that this would be beneficial to health. His son, King Louis XIV of France, took more than 2,000 enemas in his lifetime, and was especially fond of coffee enema. For a long time during the Valois and Bourbon dynasties, it was considered a shame for the French aristocracy to not carry a large needle with them on their travels so that they could be enemas at any time.

In short, when you travel back in time to that era, if you see two French nobles greeting each other, the first sentence is neither what is the weather like, nor "Have you eaten?" Instead, "Did you have an enema today?" ”…… Don't mistake them for the masochists of the SM Club!

Back to the topic again, looking at the hot enema potion, you tilted your head and thought about it, and felt that your headache and insomnia had nothing to do with the enema, so you asked the doctor, in addition to the three types of "conventional medical techniques" of enema, bloodletting and vomiting, are there any other treatments?

Seeing that you were so fashionable, the doctor enthusiastically introduced you to a few "latest developments" in the European medical community at that time:

First, fix the patient on a wooden wheel and turn it high, so that the sky is dark in one breath, so that the disease can be turned away; secondly, to hang some kind of special sachet around the neck, and then to take a potion made of metal powder and mercury, which is said to ward off all diseases; Thirdly, according to a certain "prophet", headaches are caused by "the devil getting into the brain", and if an iron needle soaked in holy water is driven into the patient's head, the headache will be cured immediately...... One thing these therapies have in common is that they all make patients die faster.

So, it's best to slip away before the doctor pulls out the needle and hammer and prepares to make a hole in your head!

-- Why did so many medieval Europeans pray for a miracle from God rather than go to a doctor?