How It Works: Dark Times. Medicine of the Middle Ages
Thanks to films and historical books, it is known what horror the people in the Middle Ages were inspired by the executioner's costume - a hoodie and a mask that hides the face. No less terrifying was the costume of the so-called Plague Doctor, who said that the Black Death, the plague, had settled nearby.
Doctors of that time could not immediately recognize the disease: it was assumed that the transmission of the disease occurs during physical contact, through clothing and bedding. Based on these ideas, the most infernal costume of the Middle Ages arose - the costume of the Plague Doctor. In order to visit the sick during the plague, doctors were required to wear this special clothing, which turned out to be a combination of prejudice and sound epidemiological considerations.
Why did doctors during the bubonic plague wear such strange clothes?
Each part of the costume, namely the hat, bird mask, red glasses, black coat, leather pants and wooden cane, is believed to have had an important function. Although doctors did not know that they do more harm than good. With the help of their outfit, or rather the coat in which they walked, they infected more and more people, because their clothes may have protected them from infection for a while, but they themselves became a source of infection. After all, the real carriers were ticks and rats ...
In the 14th century, a doctor could easily be identified by a wide-brimmed black hat. It is believed that the wide-brimmed hat was used to partially shield doctors from bacteria.
bird mask
Why a beak? Although in the Middle Ages, for some reason, people believed that birds spread the plague, but the beak served other purposes. The beak was filled with vinegar, sweet oil, and other strong-smelling chemicals, which masked the smell of a decaying body, which accompanied the doctor of that time all the time.
Red glass lenses
Doctors somehow thought that the red eyepieces would make them immune to the deadly disease.
Black coat
Everything is simple. So they tried to reduce contact with the infected body of the patient. Also, this shapeless black coat concealed the fact that the entire body of the doctor was smeared with wax or fat to create, as it were, a layer between the virus and the doctor.
Leather pants
These are worn by fishermen and firefighters to keep water out, and the leather trousers of medieval doctors protected their limbs and genitals from infection. Yes, there, too, everything was smeared with wax or grease.
wooden cane
With a cane they moved dead bodies.
Are you afraid to go to doctor appointments, check-ups and procedures? Do you think doctors hurt? Once upon a time, skilled doctors treated with red-hot iron and dirty knives. And today you can relax: modern medicine is much safer than medieval medicine.
Enema
Modern enemas differ significantly from medieval ones. They were placed with the help of huge metal devices, and the liquid used was a mixture of boar bile. Only the bravest guy could agree to such heroism.
One of the daredevils is King Louis XIV of France. During his life, he experienced over two thousand incredible enemas. Some of them were put on the guy at a time when the king was sitting on his throne.
Source: triggerpit.com
antiseptic
One of the doctors of the King of England Henry VIII had a great sense of humor. The doctor recommended using human urine as an antiseptic. Thanks to this initiative, warriors often washed their wounds after the battle with a miracle liquid.
In 1666, during an outbreak of plague in England, epidemiologist George Thomson advised the use of urine in the fight against plague. There was a whole medical preparation made on this liquid. It was sold for money, and was called the Essence of urine.
Source: mport.bigmir.net
Cataract treatment
Cataract treatment in the Middle Ages is one of the most sophisticated occupations. The craftsmen pressed the lens into the eye itself and pierced the sclera with a thick iron needle with a hole inside. The sclera is the white mucous membrane of the eyeball, which is often covered with red vessels if you sleep little and drink a lot. The lens was sucked out with a needle. The brave decision of the brave guys is to cure the cataract with total blindness.
Source: archive.feedblitz.com
Haemorrhoids
Medieval man believed: if you do not pray to one of the gods, you will get hemorrhoids. And they treated such a disease in a more than harsh way: they inserted it into anus hot iron fittings. Therefore, the guys of the Middle Ages were more than just afraid and bowed before the hemorrhoidal deity.
Source: newsdesk.si.edu
Surgery
It is better not to lie down on the operating table of a medieval surgeon. Otherwise, he will cut you with non-sterile knives. And don't dream of anesthesia. Patients, if they survived after such bloody events, did not last long: medical torture infected the human body with deadly infections.
Source: triggerpit.com
Anesthesia
Medieval anesthesiologists were not much different from their fellow surgeons. While some slaughtered poor patients with non-sterile knives, others used tinctures of herbs and wine as anesthesia. One of the most popular anesthetic plants is belladonna. Atropine, which is part of the herb, can cause excitement, reaching rabies. But to prevent patients from behaving too violently, medieval anesthesiologists mixed opium into the potion.
Source: commons.wikimedia.org
trepanation of the skull
Medieval doctors believed that craniotomy would help cure epilepsy, migraine, mental disorders, and stabilize blood pressure. So the guys broke the heads of the poor patients. Needless to say, such an operation is a complex and dangerous procedure, the sterility of which is threatened even by bacteria flying in the air. You yourself have already guessed about the frequent outcomes of treatment.
Diseases in the Middle Ages- these are the real "factories of death". Even if we remember that the Middle Ages is a time of uninterrupted wars and civil strife. Plague, smallpox, malaria and whooping cough could get sick everyone, regardless of class, level of prosperity and life. These diseases simply “starved” people not by hundreds and thousands, but by millions.
In this article we will talk about the largest epidemics Middle Ages.
It should be mentioned right away that the main reason for the spread of the disease in the Middle Ages was unsanitary conditions, a great dislike for personal hygiene (both for any commoner and for the king), poorly developed medicine and lack of necessary measures precautions against the spread of the epidemic.
541 "Justinian Plague"- the first historically recorded plague epidemic. It spread in the Eastern Roman Empire during the reign of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I. The main peak of the spread of the disease falls precisely on the 40s of the 6th century. But in different areas the civilized world, the Justinian plague still arose every now and then for two centuries. In Europe, this disease has taken about 20-25 million lives. The famous Byzantine historian Procopius of Caesarea wrote the following about this time: “There was no salvation for a man from the plague, no matter where he lived on an island, or in a cave, or on a mountain top ... Many houses were empty, and it happened that many died, for lack of relatives or servants, lay for several days unburned. Most of the people you could meet on the street were those who carried the corpses.”
The Plague of Justinian is considered the forerunner of the Black Death.
737 First smallpox epidemic in Japan. About 30 percent of the population of Japan died from it. (in densely populated areas, the death rate often reached 70 percent)
1090 "Kyiv pestilence" (plague epidemic in Kyiv). The disease was brought with them by merchants from the East. More than 10,000 people died in a few winter weeks. The city was almost completely deserted.
1096-1270 Plague in Egypt. The temporary apogee of the disease passed on during the fifth Crusade. historian I.F. Mishud in his book History of the Crusades describes this time as follows: “The plague reached its highest point during the sowing. Some people plowed the land, and others sowed the grain, and those who sowed did not live to see the harvest. The villages were deserted: dead bodies floated down the Nile as densely as the tubers of plants that cover the surface of this river at a certain time. The dead did not have time to burn and relatives, trembling with horror, threw them over the city walls. During this time, more than a million people died in Egypt.”
1347 - 1366 years Bubonic plague or Black Death one of the most terrible epidemics Middle Ages.
In November 1347, the bubonic plague appeared in France in Marseilles, by the beginning of 1348, the wave of the main disease of the Middle Ages reached Avignon and spread almost at lightning speed through the French lands. Immediately after France, the bubonic plague "captured" the territory of Spain. Almost at the same time, the plague had already spread to all the major ports of southern Europe, including Venice, Genoa, Marseille and Barcelona. Despite Italy's attempts to isolate itself from the epidemic, Black Death epidemics broke out in cities before the epidemic. And already in the spring, having practically destroyed the entire population of Venice and Genoa, the plague reached Florence, and then Bavaria. In the summer of 1348, she had already overtaken England.
The bubonic plague simply “mowed down” the cities. She killed both ordinary peasants and kings.
In the autumn of 1348, the plague reached Norway, Schleswig-Holstein, Jutland and Dalmatia. At the beginning of 1349, she captured Germany, and in 1350-1351. Poland.
During the described period of time, the plague destroyed about a third (and according to some sources up to half) of the entire population of Europe.
1485 "English sweat or English sweating fever" An infectious disease that began with severe chills, dizziness, and headache, and severe pain in the neck, shoulders and limbs. After three hours of this stage, fever and intense sweat, thirst, increased heart rate, delirium, pain in the heart began, after which death most often occurred. This epidemic spread several times throughout Tudor England in 1485-1551.
1495 the first epidemic of syphilis. It is believed that syphilis appeared in Europe from the sailors of Columbus, who contracted this disease from the indigenous inhabitants of the island of Haiti. Upon returning to Europe, part of the sailors began serving in the army of Charles VIII, who fought with Italy in 1495. As a result, in the same year there was an outbreak of syphilis among his soldiers. In 1496, an epidemic of syphilis spread to the territories of France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, and Poland. About 5 million people died due to the disease. 1500 syphilis epidemic spreads throughout Europe and beyond. Syphilis was the leading cause of death in Europe during the Renaissance.
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"Dark Ages" - this is the definition given by many historians to the era of the Middle Ages in Europe. How well do we know the events connected with the political reality of this period? But many documents of that era are associated with propaganda or political intrigues, and therefore suffer from bias towards other realities of that time. Are we also well acquainted with other aspects of the life of this time?
How and under what conditions were people born? What diseases could a person of that period suffer from, how did the treatment take place, what means did medical care? How advanced was medicine in that period? What did medieval medical instruments look like? When did hospitals and pharmacies appear? Where can you get medical education? These questions can be answered by studying the history of medicine in the Middle Ages, toxicology, epidemiology, and pharmacology. Consider the basic concepts that give an idea of the subject of this article.
Term « the medicine » descended from Latin word"medicari" - appoint remedy.
Medicine is a practical activity and a system of scientific knowledge about the preservation and strengthening of people's health, the treatment of the sick and the prevention of diseases, the achievement of longevity by human society in terms of health and performance. Medicine has developed in close connection with the whole life of society, with the economy, culture, worldview of people. Like any other field of knowledge, medicine is not a combination of ready-made, once-for-all truths, but the result of a long and complex process growth and enrichment.
The development of medicine is inseparable from the development of natural science and technical industries knowledge from common history of all mankind at the dawn of its existence and in each subsequent period of its change and transformation.
It is necessary to understand the links between the development of individual medical branches. This is the task of the general history of medicine, which studies the main patterns and main, key problems in the development of medicine as a whole.
Medical practice and science develop historically in close interaction. Practice, by accumulating material, enriches medical theory and at the same time poses new challenges for it, while medical science, developing, improves the practice, raising it to an ever higher level.
The history of medicine is a scientific discipline that studies the development of medicine at all stages, from its inception in the form of primitive traditional medicine to the present state.
The following sources are used to study the history of medicine: manuscripts; published works of doctors, historians, government and military officials, philosophers; archival materials; linguistic materials, data of art, ethnography, folk epic and folklore; images that can be presented both in the form of ancient rock paintings, and in the form of photographic and film documents of our time; scientific information: numismatics, epigraphy, paleography. Of particular importance are the data obtained as a result of archaeological excavations, paleontological and paleopathological studies.
By studying the history of medicine, we can trace the entire path of the origin, development, improvement of medical instruments, methods of treatment, formulations of medicines and compare with the level of development of modern instruments and methods of treatment. To follow the whole thorny path of trial and error that doctors have gone through from century to century.
The medieval period is very interesting because we still do not know many of its aspects. And it would be exciting to know more about him. Let us consider in more detail the medicine of the Middle Ages.
How did hospitals, hospitals and pharmacies appear?
The development of the hospital business is associated with Christian charity, because every person who wants to quickly go to heaven after death donated part of their income and property to the maintenance of hospitals and hospitals.
At the dawn of the Middle Ages, the hospital was more of a shelter than a hospital: those who arrived here were given clean clothes, they were fed and monitored for compliance with Christian norms, the rooms in which the sick were, washed and ventilated. The medical fame of hospitals was determined by the popularity of individual monks who excelled in the art of healing.
In the 4th century, monastic life was born, its founder was Anthony the Great. The organization and discipline in the monasteries allowed them to remain a citadel of order in the difficult years of wars and epidemics and to take under their roof the elderly and children, the wounded and the sick. Thus, the first monastic shelters for crippled and sick travelers arose - xenodocia - prototypes of future monastic hospitals.
One of the most famous medical institutions of the early 9th century was the monastery in Saint-Gallen.
In the X-XI centuries medical assistance and shelter, many wanderers and pilgrims, and later crusader knights, could find in the cloisters of the "mobile brotherhood", the so-called hospitallers.
In the 70s of the XI century. Hospitallers built many shelters and hospitals in European countries and in the Holy Land (in Jerusalem, Antioch). One of the first to be built was the Hospital of St. John the Merciful in Jerusalem, in which a specialized department of eye diseases had already been allocated. At the beginning of the XII century, this hospital could take up to 2000 patients.
The Hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem was founded by the crusaders in Palestine in 1098 on the basis of a hospital for lepers, which existed under the jurisdiction of the Greek Patriarchate. From the name of this order comes the concept of "Infirmary". The order accepted into its ranks knights who fell ill with leprosy, and was originally intended to care for lepers. His symbol was a green cross on a white cloak. The order followed the "Rite of St. Augustine", but until 1255 was not officially recognized by the Holy See, although it had certain privileges and received donations.
At the same time, women's spiritual communities were also created, whose members cared for the sick. For example, in the 13th century in Thuringia, St. Elizabeth created the Order of the Elizabethans.
In Medieval Western Europe, initially hospitals were founded at the monasteries only for the monks living in them. But due to the increase in the number of wanderers, the premises of the hospitals gradually expanded. On the territories of the monastery lands, the monks grew medicinal plants for the needs of their hospital.
It should be noted that during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, monasteries not only cultivated medicinal plants, but also knew how to use them correctly, knowing numerous old recipes. The monks followed these recipes, preparing various herbal medicines that were used in the treatment. Many monks-healers compiled and invented new medical herbal infusions and elixirs. An example is the French herbal liqueur Benedictine, which became so named after the monks from the monastery of St. Benedict. This monastery was founded on the banks of the English Channel, in the city of Fecamp in 1001. .
This is how the first pharmacies appeared. Over time, they became of two types: monastic, which had places for the manufacture of medicines, and urban ("secular"), which were located in the city center and were maintained by professional pharmacists who were part of the guild organizations.
Each of these types of pharmacies had their own placement rules:
- monastic: in order not to disturb the routine of monastic life, they were located, as a rule, outside the walls of the monastery. Often the pharmacy had two entrances - external, for visitors, and internal, which was located on the monastery territory;
- city ones were usually located in the center of the city, they were decorated with bright signs and emblems of pharmacists. The interiors of pharmacies were original, but their indispensable attribute was special cabinets - rows of glazed or open shelves with pharmacy raw materials and finished medicines.
Of particular interest is the ancient apothecary utensils, the production of which, with the development of a network of pharmacies, has become an independent industry, which is often closely linked with art.
Production and sale of medicines on early stages the formation of the pharmacy business was too unprofitable, and in order to make the enterprise more profitable, pharmacists sold alcoholic drinks, sweets and much more .
Tallinn Town Hall Pharmacy, one of the oldest operating in Europe, opened in the 15th century, was famous, for example, not only for good medicines, but also for claret, light dry red wine. Many diseases were treated with this pleasant remedy.
In the Middle Ages, the work of monastic pharmacies and hospitals was strongly influenced by the epidemics that struck Europe. They contributed to the emergence of both explanations for the spread of the disease and methods of dealing with it. First of all, quarantines began to be created: the sick were isolated from society, ships were not allowed into the ports.
In almost all European cities in the 12th century, medical institutions founded by secular citizens began to appear, but until the middle of the 13th century, these hospitals still continued to be under the leadership of monasticism. These shelters were usually located near the city wall, on the outskirts of the city or in front of the city gates, and in them you could always find clean beds and good food as well as excellent patient care. Later doctors began to be assigned to hospitals who did not belong to a particular order.
At the end of the 13th and beginning of the 14th centuries, hospitals began to be considered secular institutions, but the church continued to provide them with its patronage, which benefited from the inviolability of the property of the hospital. This was very important for the organization of medical activities, since wealthy citizens willingly invested their money in hospitals, thereby ensuring their safety. Hospitals could purchase land, take stocks of grain if there was a crop failure, and provide loans to people.
How did medicine develop? Where can you get medical education? Outstanding doctors
The worldview of the Middle Ages was predominantly theological, "and church dogma was the starting point and basis of all thinking."
In the Middle Ages, the church severely persecuted and tried to eradicate any attempts by scientists of that time to explain nature to people. various phenomena from a scientific point of view. All scientific, philosophical and cultural research, research and experiments were strictly prohibited, and scientists were subjected to persecution, torture and execution. She [the church] fought against "heresy", i.e. attempts at a critical attitude to the "Holy Scripture" and church authorities. To this end, the Inquisition was created in the 13th century.
By the 8th century, interest in education had declined across much of Europe. This was largely facilitated by the church, which became the dominant force. In the era of the development of feudalism, the need for the development of medical education was acutely revealed, but the church prevented this. The exception was the Salerno Medical School, founded in the 9th century in an area with healing natural springs and healthy climate. It differed significantly from the later scholastic medical faculties. In the 11th century, the school was transformed into a university with a term of study of 9 years, and for persons who specialized in surgery, 10 years.
In the 12th century, universities opened in Bologna (1156), Montpellier (1180), Paris (1180), Oxford (1226), Messina (1224), Prague (1347), Krakow ( 1364). All these educational establishments completely controlled by the church.
In the XIII century, the Parisian High School received the status of a university. The future doctor successively went through the stages of a clerk, bachelor, licentiate, after which he received a master's degree in medicine.
Scholastic (“school wisdom”) medicine developed at the universities. Teachers read texts and commentaries on books by church-recognized authors; students were required to learn this by heart. Both those and others discussed a lot, argued about the methods of treating a particular disease. But there was no practice of treatment. The ideological basis of medical training was Aristotle's doctrine of entelechy: the expediency and purposeful activity of the "highest creator" in predetermining the forms and functions of the body, and his natural science views were distorted. Galen was recognized as another indisputable authority. His works "Small Science" ("Ars parva") and "On the affected places" ("De locis affectis") were widely used. The teachings of Hippocrates were presented to students in the form of Galen's comments on his writings.
Teachers and students were not familiar with anatomy human body. Although autopsies have been performed since the 6th century, in the Middle Ages this practice was condemned and banned by the church. All information about the structure and functions of the human body, with all significant errors and inaccuracies, was drawn from the works of Galen and Ibn Sina. They also used an anatomy textbook compiled in 1316 by Mondino de Lucci. This author had only been able to dissect two corpses, and his textbook was a compilation of the writings of Galen. Only occasionally were autopsies allowed at universities. This was usually done by a barber. During the autopsy, the theoretical professor read aloud in Latin the anatomical work of Galen. Usually the autopsy was limited to the abdominal and thoracic cavities.
Only in Italy at the end of the 15th - beginning of the 16th century did the dissection of human corpses for the teaching of anatomy become more frequent.
Pharmacy was associated with alchemy. The Middle Ages are characterized by complex medicinal registrations. The number of parts in one recipe often reached several tens. A special place among medicines was occupied by antidotes: the so-called theriac, which included 70 or more components (the main component- snake meat), as well as mitridates (opal). Theriac was also considered a remedy for all internal diseases, including "pestilence" fevers. These funds were highly valued. In some cities, especially famous for their theriaci and mitridates and selling them to other countries (Venice, Nuremberg), these funds were made publicly, with great solemnity, in the presence of authorities and invited persons.
After graduating from the university, doctors united in a corporation in which there were ranks. Court physicians had the highest status. One step below were the city doctors, who lived off the payment for the services rendered. Such a doctor periodically visited his patients at home. AT XII-XIII centuries the status of city doctors is significantly increasing. They began to manage hospitals, testify in court (about the causes of death, injuries, etc.), in port cities they visited ships and checked if there was any danger of infection.
During outbreaks of epidemics of the sick, "plague doctors" were especially popular. Such a doctor had a special suit, which consisted of a cloak (it was tucked at the neck under a mask and stretched to the floor to hide as much of the body surface as possible); masks in the form of a bird's beak (the view repels the plague, red glasses - the doctor's invulnerability to the disease, odorous herbs in the beak - also protection from infection); leather gloves; caskets with garlic; canes (for examination of the patient).
At the lowest level were surgeons. The need for experienced surgeons was very great, but their legal status remained unenviable. Among them were wandering surgeons who performed operations in different cities right on the market square. Such doctors cured, in particular, skin diseases, external lesions and tumors.
Bath attendants-barbers also joined the corporation of doctors. In addition to their direct duties, they performed bloodletting, set joints, amputated limbs, treated teeth, and monitored brothels. Also, such duties were performed by blacksmiths and executioners (the latter could study human anatomy during torture and executions).
Outstanding doctors of the Middle Ages were:
Abu Ali Hussein ibn Sina (Avicenna) (c. 980-1037) was an encyclopedic scholar. As a result of long and painstaking work, he later created the world famous « Canon of Medicine » , which became one of the largest encyclopedic works in the history of medicine;
Pietro d'Abano (1250-1316) - an Italian doctor accused by the Inquisition of secret knowledge and practicing magic. He had medical practice in Paris, where he became famous after the publication of a work on the complex use of various medical systems;
Arnold de Villanova (c. 1245 - c. 1310) - theologian, physician and alchemist. Studied medicine in Paris for 20 years;
Nostradamus (1503 - 1566) - French physician and soothsayer, whose far-reaching prophecies for many centuries caused a contradictory attitude towards himself;
Paracelsus (1493 - 1541) – one of the greatest alchemists, philosophers and doctors. His methods of treatment have gained wide popularity. Paracelsus served as city doctor and professor of medicine. He argued that any substance can become a poison depending on the dose;
Razi (865 - 925) – Persian encyclopedic scientist, philosopher, alchemist, also made a great contribution to the development of medicine;
Michael Scott (about 1175 - 1235) – alchemist, mathematician, physician, astrologer and theologian;
Guy de Chauliac (XIV century) is a comprehensively educated doctor who inherited the ideas of Hippocrates, Galen, Paul of Eginsky, Ar-Razi, Abul-Kasim, surgeons of the Salerno school, and others.
What diseases and epidemics "devoured" the population of Europe during the Middle Ages?
In the Middle Ages, a wave of terrible epidemics swept through the countries of Western Europe, killing thousands of people. These diseases were previously unfamiliar to the population of Europe. Many epidemics were brought to this territory thanks to the return of the knights from the Crusades. The reason for the rapid spread was that after the fall of the Roman Empire, where much attention was paid to the protection of public health, the era of Christianity that came to Europe marked a general decline in knowledge gained by experience. Christianity took a sharp opposition to the pagan cult of a healthy and beautiful human body, which was now recognized as only a mortal, unworthy shell of care. Physical culture mortification of the flesh was often opposed. Diseases began to be regarded as God's punishment for sins, so their occurrence was no longer associated with a violation of elementary norms of sanitation and hygiene.
Epidemics were used by the clergy to strengthen the influence of religion on the masses and increase church income through donations for the construction of God's temples. Also, church customs and rituals themselves contributed to the spread of infection. When kissing icons, crosses, the Gospel, the shroud, applying to the relics of "holy saints", the causative agent of the disease could be transmitted to many people.
Plague
People have long noticed the connection of plague epidemics with the preceding unusually strong reproduction of rats, which was reflected in numerous legends and tales. In one of the famous stained glass windows of the cathedral in German city Gammeln depicted tall man dressed in black, playing the flute. This is the legendary rat-catcher, who saved the inhabitants of the city from the invasion of vile creatures. Bewitched by his playing, they left their holes, followed the flutist into the water and drowned in the river. The greedy burgomaster deceived the savior and instead of the promised hundred ducats gave him only ten. The angry rat-catcher again played the flute, and all the boys living in the city followed him, and disappeared forever. This mystical character is found on the pages of many works of art.
Plague has two main forms: bubonic (lymph nodes are affected) and pulmonary (the plague bacterium enters the lungs, causing acute pneumonia with tissue necrosis). In both forms, untreated, fever, sepsis, and death occur. Since the most typical of the plague is the femoral bubo, on all engravings and relief sculptural images of St. Roch, the patron saint of plague patients, the latter defiantly flaunts the bubo located in this very place.
By chronological table compiled by A.L. Chizhevsky, starting from 430 BC. and until the end of the XIX century, there are 85 plague epidemics. The most devastating was the epidemic of the XIV century, which swept through the countries of Europe and Asia in 1348-1351.
Lion Feuchtwanger's historical novel The Ugly Duchess vividly describes the pages of this distant past. “The plague came from the East. Now she raged on the sea coast, then penetrated deep into the country. She killed in a few days, sometimes in a few hours. In Naples, in Montpellier, two-thirds of the inhabitants died. In Marseilles, the bishop died with the entire chapter, all the Dominican friars and minorites. Entire areas were completely depopulated ... The plague was especially raging in Avignon. The slain cardinals fell to the ground, the pus from the crushed buboes stained their magnificent vestments. Papa locked himself in the most distant chambers, did not allow anyone to see him, maintained a big fire all day, burned herbs and roots that purify the air ... In Prague, in an underground treasury, among gold, rarities, relics, Charles, the German king, sat, he put on myself fasting, praying.
The plague spread in most cases with merchant ships. Here is her path: Cyprus - late summer 1347; in October 1347 she penetrated the Genoese fleet stationed in Messina; winter 1347 - Italy; January 1348 - Marseille; Paris - spring 1348; England - September 1348; moving along the Rhine, the plague reached Germany in 1348. The structure of the German kingdom included the present-day Switzerland and Austria. There have also been outbreaks in these regions.
The epidemic also raged in the Duchy of Burgundy, in the Kingdom of Bohemia. 1348 - was the most terrible of all the years of the plague. It went for a long time to the periphery of Europe (Scandinavia, etc.). Norway was hit by the Black Death in 1349.
The plague left depopulated cities, deserted villages, abandoned fields, vineyards and orchards, devastated farms and abandoned cemeteries. No one knew how to escape the black death. Fasting and prayer did not help. Then people rushed to seek salvation in fun. Processions of dancers, calling to the mercy of St. Wallibrod, the protector from the plague, stretched along the streets and roads. One of these processions was depicted on a canvas dated 1569 by the artist Pieter Brueghel the Elder (the painting is in the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum). This custom of organizing mass dances to fight the plague, despite its complete uselessness, long persisted among the Dutch and Belgian peasants.
The "Black Death" still exists on the planet, and people are still dying from it, especially in those countries where the epidemic service is poorly set up.
Leprosy (leprosy)
This disease is caused by Mycobacterium leprae, a bacterium related to tuberculosis. This disease proceeds very slowly - from three to forty years and inevitably leads to death, which is why in the Middle Ages it was called "lazy death."
With leprosy, or, as it is more commonly called, leprosy, one of the darkest pages in the history of infectious diseases is connected. This chronic, generalized infectious disease affects the skin, mucous membranes, internal organs and peripheral nervous system... Different peoples have very figurative names for leprosy: fox scab, rot, lazy death, mournful illness.
In Christianity, there are two saints who patronize those who are ill with leprosy: Job (especially revered in Venice, where there is the church of San Jobbe, and in Utrecht, where the hospital of St. Job was built), covered with ulcers and scraping them out with a knife, and poor Lazarus, sitting at the door of the house an evil rich man with his dog that licks his scabs: an image where sickness and poverty are truly united.
Vintage engraving "Jesus and the leper"
Egypt is considered the birthplace of leprosy. During the time of the pharaohs the only way alleviating the disease was taking a bath of human blood. (Wow, doesn't it remind you of anything?! It can be assumed that this is how the legends about vampirism began to appear.) S. Zweig in the chronicle novel "Mary Stuart" mentions the ominous rumors that circulated about the French King Francis II. It was said that he was ill with leprosy and, in order to be healed, bathed in the blood of babies. Many considered leprosy even more terrible punishment than death.
During archaeological excavations in Egypt, bas-reliefs were discovered that convey a picture of mutilation - the rejection of limbs during leprosy. From here, the disease passed through Greece to the countries of Europe - to the West to Spain and to the east - to Byzantium. Its further spread was the result of the Crusades to Palestine, the participants of which were knights, merchants, monks and farmers. The first such campaign under the slogan of the liberation of the Holy Sepulcher took place in 1096. Crowds of thousands of motley rabble led by Pierre of Amiens moved to Palestine. Almost all the participants in this campaign laid down their lives in Asia Minor. Only a few lucky ones managed to return to their homeland. However, the European feudal lords needed new markets, and three years later a well-armed army of six hundred thousand knights and their servants took Jerusalem. Over the course of two centuries, seven crusades took place, during which huge masses of people rushed to Palestine through Asia Minor and Egypt, where leprosy was widespread. As a result, this disease has become a social disaster. Medieval Europe. After the cruel massacre of the French king Philip IV over the knights of the Knights Templar in France, a difficult time of popular unrest began, which took bizarre forms of religious and mystical mass campaigns. During one of these outbreaks, a massacre of lepers began in the country, who were blamed for the misfortunes that befell the country.
M. Druon described these events in the novel “The French Wolf”: “Were these unfortunates with a body eaten away by a disease, with the faces of the dead and stumps instead of hands, these people imprisoned in infected leper colonies, where they bred and multiplied, from where they were allowed to go out only with a rattle in their hands, were they really guilty of polluting the waters? For in the summer of 1321, springs, streams, wells and reservoirs in many places turned out to be poisoned. And the people of France this year choked with thirst on the banks of their full-flowing rivers or drank this water, waiting with horror after every sip of inevitable death. Didn’t the same order of the Templars put their hand here, didn’t they make a strange poison, which included human blood, urine, witchcraft herbs, snake heads, crushed toad legs, blasphemously pierced prosphora and the hair of harlots, a poison that, as assured, and the waters were contaminated? Or, perhaps, the Templars pushed these God-damned people to revolt, suggesting to them, as some lepers admitted under torture, the desire to destroy all Christians or infect them with leprosy? ... Residents of cities and villages rushed to leper colonies to kill the sick, who suddenly became enemies of society. Only pregnant women and mothers were spared, and even then only while they were feeding their babies. Then they were burnt. The royal courts covered these massacres in their sentences, and the nobility even allocated their armed men to carry them out.
People with signs of leprosy were expelled from the settlements to special shelters - leper colonies (many of them were created on the initiative of the Order of St. Lazarus, established by the Crusaders, at the beginning they were called infirmaries, and later - leper colonies). As soon as the relatives of the sick person or neighbors discovered that someone was ill with leprosy, the patient was immediately put in chains and the church tribunal sentenced him to death. Then one of the cruel and sinister rituals to which the Catholic Church was prone during the Middle Ages was staged. The patient was taken to the temple, where the priest handed him special clothes gray color. Then the unfortunate was forced to lie in a coffin, a funeral mass was served and the coffin was taken to the cemetery. The priest said over the grave: "You are dead to all of us." And after these words, a person forever became an outcast. From now on, the leper colony became his lifelong refuge.
If the patient went beyond the territory of the leper colony, he had to announce his approach by ringing a bell or a rattle. He also had a begging bag with him, and a special sign was sewn on his gray cloak: crossed arms made of white linen or a goose paw made of red cloth - a symbol of the disease, often accompanied by the gradual death of the limbs (the bones inside the fingers rotted, crumbled, the sensitivity of the fingers disappeared, fingers withered). If a leper talked to anyone, he was obliged to cover his face with a cloak and stand against the wind.
Although there are drugs to treat leprosy today, it still affects people in India, Brazil, Indonesia and Tanzania.
Medical instruments and operations
It is important to note that in the Middle Ages, no painkillers were used, other than strangulation or a blow to the head, and the use of alcohol. Often, after operations, the wounds rotted and hurt terribly, and when a person tried to ask the doctor for painkillers, the latter answered that to anesthetize means to deceive pain, a person was born to suffer and must endure. Only in rare cases was hemlock or henbane juice used, Paracelsus used laudanum, an opium tincture.
During this period of history, it was widely believed that diseases could most often be caused by an excess of fluid in the body, therefore the most common operation of that period was bloodletting. Bloodletting was usually carried out by two methods: hirudotherapy - a physician applied a leech to the patient, and exactly on the place that most worried the patient; or opening the veins - direct cutting of the veins into inside arms. The doctor cut a vein with a thin lancet, and the blood flowed into a bowl.
Also, with a lancet or a thin needle, an operation was performed to remove the clouded lens of the eye (cataract). These operations were very painful and dangerous.
Amputation of limbs was also a popular operation. This was done with a sickle-shaped amputation knife and a saw. First, with a circular motion of the knife, the skin was cut to the bone, and then the bone was sawn.
Teeth were mostly pulled out with iron tongs, so for such an operation they turned to either a barber or a blacksmith.
The Middle Ages was a "dark" and unenlightened time of bloody battles, cruel conspiracies, inquisitorial torture and bonfires. The same were medieval methods treatment. Because of the unwillingness of the church to allow science into the life of society, diseases that can now be easily cured in that era led to massive epidemics and death. A sick person, instead of medical and moral assistance, received general contempt and became an outcast rejected by all. Even the process of giving birth to a child was not a cause for joy, but a source of endless torment, often ending in the death of both the child and the mother. “Prepare for death” - women in labor were admonished before childbirth.
Cruel times gave birth to cruel customs. But still, science tried to break through church dogmas and prohibitions and serve for the benefit of people even in the Middle Ages.
I chose this picture for me:
But it turned out that I had an urgent opportunity to write on this topic elsewhere, and in order not to duplicate information, this post, written back in February, had to be hidden from everyone ... Nevertheless, I always remembered it, and now I had the opportunity to show it to everyone, which I do with pleasure.
This post is dedicated to one of the most sinister outwardly and essentially fertile figures medieval history- the plague doctor, who is depicted in the photo above. This photo was taken by me on July 19, 2005, while traveling in Estonia, in the Kiek in de Kök Tower Museum in Tallinn.
Thanks to films and historical books, it is known what horror people in the Middle Ages, for example, were inspired by the executioner's costume - this hoodie, a mask that hides the face and makes its owner anonymous ... But no less fear, although not without a share of hope, caused more one suit - the so-called. The plague doctor. Both of them, both the doctor and the executioner, dealt with Death, only one helped take lives, and the second tried to save them, although most often unsuccessfully ... The appearance on the streets of a medieval city of a terrible silhouette in a dark robe and with a beak under a wide-brimmed hat was ominous a sign that the Black Death - the plague - settled nearby. By the way, the plague in historical sources was called not only cases of bubonic or pneumonic plague, but also pestilence and other fatal epidemics.
The plague was long known disease- the first reliable plague pandemic, known as "Justinian", arose in the VI century in the Eastern Roman Empire, during the reign of Emperor Justinian, who himself died from this disease. This was followed by an outbreak of bubonic plague in Europe in the 8th century, after which it made itself felt only sporadically for several centuries.
The pandemic, known as the "great pestilence" or "black death" in the 14th century (1348–51), was brought to Europe by Genoese sailors from the East. It must be said that more effective remedy spreading plague than medieval ships is hard to find. The holds of the ships were infested with rats, spreading fleas on all decks.
The cycle of infection from flea to rat and from rat to flea could continue until the rats died out. Hungry fleas in search of a new host transferred the disease to humans. Here, for example, is a diagram showing the cycles of infection and mortality in one single unit of society. The infected rat, marked with a red dot in the "1st day" column, died from the disease on the 5th day. When a rat died, the fleas left it, carrying the plague to other rats. By day 10, these rats were also dead, and their fleas were transferred to humans, infecting about 75% of them. By the 15th day, about half the people on the ship or in the house will have died of the plague; a quarter will recover, and a quarter will avoid infection.
Not a single state of Western Europe escaped the wholesale pestilence, even Greenland. It is believed that the Netherlands, Czech, Polish, and Hungarian lands remained almost unaffected, but the geography of the spread of the plague has not yet been fully studied.
The plague "moved" at the speed of a horse - the main transport of that time. During the pandemic, according to various sources, from 25 to 40 million people died. The number of victims in different regions ranged from 1/8 to 2/3 of the total number of inhabitants. Entire families died. The map of Europe shows the ways in which this epidemic spread:
Unsanitary environment, persistent malnutrition and reduced physical resistance human body, the lack of basic hygiene skills and overcrowding contributed to the spread of the epidemic. No one was immune from the plague, neither a simple townsman nor a king. The list of the dead includes French King Louis IX (Saint), Jeanne of Bourbon - wife of Philip of Valois, Jeanne of Navarre - daughter of Louis X, Alphonse of Spain, German Emperor Gunther, brothers of the King of Sweden, artist Titian. As Russov's chronicle tells, the master of the powerful Livonian Order of the Crusaders Bryggene died in Livonia.
The name "bubonic plague" comes from one of the early signs of the disease: the appearance of large painful swellings of the lymph nodes called buboes in the neck, groin and under the arms. Three days after the appearance of buboes, people had a fever, delirium began, and the body was covered with black uneven spots as a result of subcutaneous hemorrhages. As the disease progressed, the buboes enlarged and became more painful, often bursting and opening.
Reconstruction of the appearance of such a patient from a museum in Holland:
About half of the patients died before this stage. Images of patients with buboes are frequent on old images of that time.
On this English miniature of 1360-75. monks are depicted covered with buboes and seeking salvation from the Pope himself:
Doctors of that time could not immediately recognize the disease. It was fixed too late, when it seemed impossible to do anything. The causative agents of the disease will remain unknown for several centuries, the treatment as such did not exist at all. Doctors believed that the plague was spreading as a result of the so-called. "infectious beginning" (contagion) - a certain toxic factor that. can be passed from the sick to the healthy. Person-to-person transmission was thought to be either through physical contact with the patient or through clothing and bedding.
Based on these ideas, the most infernal costume of the Middle Ages arose - the costume of the Plague Doctor. In order to visit the sick during the plague, doctors were required to wear this special dress, which was the result of a combination of both epidemiologically sound things and prejudices.
For example, it was believed that such designs of masks in the form of ravens and other creatures with beaks, giving the doctor the appearance of an ancient Egyptian deity, "scare away" the disease. At the same time, the beak also carried a functional load - it protected the doctor from the "morbid smell". The beak, or its tip, was filled with strong-smelling medicinal herbs. It was a kind of natural filter that simplifies breathing in conditions of constant stench. He also protected others from other "stench" - since the doctor constantly chewed garlic for preventive purposes, and also placed incense on a special sponge in the nostrils and ears. To prevent the doctor from suffocating from all this bouquet of smells, there were two small ventilation holes in the beak.
The mask also had glass inserts to protect the eyes. A long, wax-soaked cloak and thick leather or oiled clothing were needed to avoid contact with the infected. Often clothes were impregnated with a mixture of camphor, oil and wax. In reality, this made it possible to some extent to avoid the bite of the plague carrier - a flea, and protected from the disease transmitted by airborne droplets, although this was not even suspected at that time.
The doctor's costume was completed by a leather hat, under which they put on a hood with a cape, covering the joint between the mask and clothes. Variations of the costume depended on the area and the financial capabilities of the doctor. For example, in the museum of the Tallinn tower Kik-in-de-Kök, the image of a doctor without a hat is presented, but with a hood that fits around his beak. Wealthier doctors wore bronze beaks. The doctor's gloved hands often clutched two objects necessary in his practice: a stick to drive away hopelessly infected people and a scalpel to open buboes. Or it could be smoking incense. The wand also contained incense, which was supposed to protect against evil spirits. Even in the doctor's arsenal there was a pommander - a box for aromatic herbs and substances that were supposed to "scare away" the plague.
In more recent times, the plague doctor costume became this:
In addition to doctors, there were also so-called. Mortuses (special employees recruited from those who survived the plague, or from convicted criminals), whose duty it was to collect the bodies of the dead and take them to the burial place.
On old engravings from London, mortuses are seen bringing corpses on carts and wagons, digging graves and engaging in burial.
Burning braziers can be seen on the engravings of that time. Then it was believed that fire and smoke purify the contaminated air, so the fires were burning everywhere, not going out even at night, incense was smoked to help cleanse the air of infection. Residents of London in the 17th century, for example, were persuaded to smoke tobacco, equating it with healing incense. Fumigation of premises with tarry substances, washing with odorous compounds, inhalation of vapors of burned saltpeter or gunpowder was practiced. To disinfect the premises where the patients died, the doctors recommended, in particular, to put a saucer with milk, which allegedly absorbs poisoned air. During trade settlements during the plague and other epidemics, buyers lowered money on the market into a vessel with oxymel (honey vinegar) or just vinegar, which each seller had - it was believed that then the infection could not pass from hand to hand.
Leeches, dried toads and lizards were applied to abscesses. Put into open wounds lard and oil. Opening of buboes and cauterization of open wounds with red-hot iron was used.
It is not surprising that with such treatment, the mortality among the sick often even at a later time was 77-97%. A tried and tested recipe, which was followed by the people, was, until the 17th century. and later, - cito, longe, tarde: to flee from the infected area as soon as possible, further and return later.
The fear induced by the plague is shown in the painting by Pieter Brueghel the Elder "The Triumph of Death", where death in the form of wandering skeletons destroys all life. Neither the king with his gold, nor the young revelers at the table can escape the invasion of the ruthless army of the dead. In the background, skeletons push their victims into a water-filled grave; nearby you can see a barren, lifeless landscape.
The writer Daniel Defoe, known as the author of "Robinson Crusoe" and also at the origins of British intelligence, wrote in his "Diary of a Plague Year": "If only it were possible to accurately depict that time for those who did not experience it, and give the reader the correct the idea of the horror that seized the townspeople, it would still make a deep impression and fill people with surprise and awe. It can be said without exaggeration that all London was in tears; no mourners circled the streets, no one wore mourning and no sewing special clothes, even to honor the memory of the closest dead, but crying was everywhere. The cries of women and children at the windows and doors of dwellings where their closest relatives were dying, or, perhaps, had just died, were heard so often, as soon as they went out into the street, even the hardest stone heart would break. Crying and lamentations were heard in almost every house, especially at the beginning of the pestilence, because later hearts hardened, since death was constantly before everyone’s eyes, and people lost the ability to grieve over the loss of loved ones and friends, hourly expecting that they themselves would suffer the same fate. ".
Giovanni Boccaccio, in his Decameron, which takes place just during the plague in 1348 in Italy, wrote: "A man who died from the plague caused as much participation as a dead goat."
Boccaccio's description is tragic: "Glorious Florence, best city Italy was visited by a destructive plague ... Neither doctors nor drugs helped or cured this disease ... Since for a great multitude dead bodies, which every hour were brought to the churches, there was not enough consecrated land, then huge pits were dug in the crowded cemeteries near the churches and hundreds of corpses were lowered there. In Florence died, as they say, 100 thousand people ... How many noble families, rich inheritances, huge fortunes left without legitimate heirs! How strong men, beautiful women, charming young men, whom even Galen, Hippocrates and Aesculapius would recognize as completely healthy, had breakfast with relatives, comrades and friends in the morning, and in the evening they dined with their ancestors in the next world.
In those days, people sought salvation from epidemics in churches, prayed for healing all together - sick and healthy ... The feeling of panic horror that epidemics and diseases sowed in medieval society was reflected in the prayer for intercession: "Save me from plague, famine and war us, Lord!"
According to eyewitnesses, the panic was such that "people wrapped themselves in two sheets and arranged a funeral for themselves during their lifetime (which was simply unheard of!)".
Perhaps the most famous Plague Doctor today was Michel de Notre Dame, better known as the soothsayer Nostradamus. At the dawn of his career, Nostradamus became famous for his success in saving his fellow citizens from the plague. The secret of Nostradamus was simple - the observance of elementary hygiene. There were no other means in his arsenal, and therefore he was powerless to save from this terrible disease his first family, after which he went into exile. And only in 1545 (at the age of 42) he returned to Marseilles, and this time his new medicine was able to act on pneumonic plague, and then, in Provence in 1546, on the "black plague".
Scene from the exposition of the Nostradamus Museum in Provence:
Not much is known about Nostradamus' methods. Wherever the bubonic plague raged, he ordered black crosses to be painted on the houses of the doomed to warn the healthy and hinder the spread of the epidemic. It must be remembered that the rules of hygiene familiar to us in those days were not known to many, and therefore the methods of Nostradamus had some effect. He recommended drinking boiled water, sleep in a clean bed, in case of danger of the plague, leave the dirty, stinking cities as soon as possible and breathe fresh air in the countryside.
In the city of Aix, the capital of Provence, Nostradamus first used his famous pills, mixed with rose petals and rich in vitamin C. He distributed them right on the streets of the infected cities, along the way explaining to fellow citizens the rules of elementary hygiene. "All who used them," he later wrote, "were saved, and vice versa."
Nostradamus devoted several chapters to the description of the disinfectant powder from which he made the pills in one of his medical books. The 1572 edition of this book is kept in the Parisian library of St. Genevieve under the unusual title for us "An excellent and very useful brochure on many excellent recipes, divided into two parts. The first part teaches us how to prepare various lipsticks and perfumes to decorate the face. The second part teaches us how to prepare jams of various varieties from honey, sugar and wine Compiled by Master Michel Nostradamus, M.D. from Chalons in Provence, Lyon, 1572." In particular, sections of this book were titled "How to make a powder, clean and whiten teeth ... and a way to give a pleasant smell to the breath. Another way, even more perfect, for cleansing teeth, even those that are badly rotten ... How to cook a kind of soap that makes the hands white and soft and has a sweet and delicious smell ... A way to prepare a kind of distilled water to the best way beautify and whiten the face... Another way is to make the hair of the beard blond or golden, and also to destroy too much fullness of the body."
Before the discovery of the plague bacterium and the use of antibiotics in the treatment of this disease, almost half a millennium remained ...
The painting "The Plague" by Arnold Böcklin (1898) shows all the horror of this disease - after all, even in his time, at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, they had not yet learned how to fight it!
And even in our time, individual outbreaks of this disease are still recorded:
Materials used in the preparation of the article:
from Colin McEvedy's article "Bubonic Plague" from IN THE WORLD OF SCIENCE. (Scientific American. Edition in Russian). 1988. No. 4,
Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica
from the article "War against the "Black Death": from defense to offensive" V. S. Ganin, Ph.D. honey. Sciences, Irkutsk Research Anti-Plague Institute of Siberia and Far East, in the journal "Science and Life" No. 7, 2006
Filippov B., Yastrebitskaya A. The European world of the X-XV centuries.
HISTORY OF PLAGUE EPIDEMICS IN RUSSIA