How Does Medieval Medicine: Everything You Need To Know Work?

Medieval medicine is like using a crayon to draw on a dirty window, it might look fun, but it’s not always the best way to clean it.

Imagine you have a boo-boo on your knee, and instead of using bandages or soap and water, doctors used weird mixtures made from things like honey, onions, and even leeches. It was like playing with a toy that had unexpected parts, sometimes it worked, sometimes it made the boo-boo worse.

Doctors in medieval times believed that our bodies were full of humors, like four different flavors (blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile) that needed to be balanced. If one flavor got too strong, you’d get sick, kind of like when your favorite ice cream melts and becomes a messy puddle on the floor.

To fix things, doctors used treatments like cutting open someone’s body (called surgery) or giving them strange drinks that tasted like swamp water. Some people even had bleeding, where they let blood out to make sure their humors stayed in balance, it was like letting some of your energy go out through a tiny straw.

Sometimes, these treatments worked, sometimes not. But they were the best tools doctors had at the time! Medieval medicine is like using a crayon to draw on a dirty window, it might look fun, but it’s not always the best way to clean it.

Imagine you have a boo-boo on your knee, and instead of using bandages or soap and water, doctors used weird mixtures made from things like honey, onions, and even leeches. It was like playing with a toy that had unexpected parts, sometimes it worked, sometimes it made the boo-boo worse.