Diagnosis and treatment Methods

Medieval medical healers and physicians took diagnosis and
treatment of their patients very seriously.

An initial diagnosis  involved evaluating a person’s normal state of health, taking
into account his or her symptoms, assessing (nonscientifi cally) the
person’s blood and urine, and then considering how any treatment
would be affected by the current position of the stars. Other than
checking a patient’s pulse, a physician would rarely touch a patient.
Basic fi rst aid was important in helping a patient; dietary
changes were sometimes recommended, and bloodletting and
cautery (see chapter 4, “Surgery in the Middle Ages”) were also
very popular “cures.” However, herbal remedies or religious healing
were generally the preferred solutions. Herbal remedies were
mixed according to the specifi cation of the healer or the physician
(sometimes mixed by the healer him- or herself). Sometimes the
herbal remedies were to clean the body (through purging or evacuation
of the bowels) in order to rid the person of a particular illness.
Surgery was high risk, so while a growth might be removed
or a bone set, invasive surgery was avoided whenever possible.
This chapter will examine the methods physicians and healers
used to diagnose an illness and then will explain the way medications and religious healing were employed. Mouth pain and mental illnesses were also serious problems of the time, and how these
issues were managed will also be discussed.