Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Treating the Black Death in the Middle Ages

Since doctors had minimal knowledge about this disease, some methods were barbaric.  Treatment  methods include:
  • Bed rest
  • Washing patient with vinegar and rose water
  • Cutting the buboes open and applying a mixture of tree resin, roots of white lilies and human feces
  • Cutting veins leading to the heart and applying a mixture made of clay and violets
  • Eating a bland diet of bread, fruit and vegetables as opposed to smelly foods like meat, fish and cheese
  • An oral medicine made of roasted, ground up, freshly laid egg shells, chopped up leaves and petals of marigolds, boiled in ale. The patient drank this mixture once in the morning and once at night
  • A live hen was strapped to one of the buboes to "suck out the disease" and urine was to be drank twice a day
  • Beating themselves in order to repent for their sins (thought God was angry with humanity)





Prevention methods include:
  • Sanitizing streets by burning human waste and infected dead bodies
  • Turning away potentially infected ships coming into ports
  • Quarantining infected patients
  • No bathing
  • No excercising
  • No eating pork

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/cures_for_the_black_death.htm
http://www.gohistorygo.com/#!black-plague-in-europe/c1c4q


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