![medieval_health_13.original[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/AMdq1vi.jpg "medieval_health_13.original[1].jpg")
>Cutting patients open and letting them bleed out
>Applying leeches so they can suck out the poison
>Sterilizing wounds with vinegar and rosewater
>Rinsing your teeth with piss
>Literally drilling holes in someone's skull to let air pressure escape
Classical and medieval medical science was... primitive, but to what degree did it actually help? Did doctors at the time actually know what they were doing, were they just desperate people trying but failing to find a solution to the problems of the time or were they just hacks trying to earn a quick buck?You now imagine a PC saying "I'm down to my last hit point, better drink my own piss"
Anon, are you familiar with Dark Souls?
Do you know how Firekeepers can help you refill Estus Flask?
And what Estus looks like when you consume it?
Yeah, exactly.
>>45053553
It looks like fucking OJ, which is awesome because I love a fucking glass of OJ
>>45053486
Hey, that last one actually works. Crainiotomy is a perfectly viable means of dealing with epidural and subdural hematomas.
>>45053633
They also used to use maggots, which are a perfectly viable but very gross way to clean a wound. I recall hearing leeches might work too, but I don't have a source so I might be misremembering
I've always wanted some kind of Healer class that would simultaneously make their enemies and a patient bleed in one turn, Send Leeches on their enemies and patient on the next, then use a melee attack to close up the wound for patients to Heal them or sew the leeches into the blood stream for enemies . It seems like an absolute downgrade in comparison to an actual Healer or any Poison using Class but I think it could be used for something.
Maybe a game where Healers are Mages, and the church is absolutely against it, so Clerics use this method to attack and heal and the Paladins are more like Warlords and Magic Resistance tanks.
>>45053553
Firekeepers help make your flask more powerful, all you need to refill the flask is a bonfire. It's literally fire in a bottle.
>>45053735
The only way that really works is if the source of the magic is highly questionable, or it has such horrible side effects the alternative is preferable.
>>45053486
>Rinsing your teeth with piss
>Literally drilling holes in someone's skull to let air pressure escape
These work. Leeches also work, for some stuff (usually for swellings, they suck out the dead cells along with the blood), the problem really was using them for every fucking thing.
>>45053486
Historically, medicine was worse than no treatment at all. It's thought Alexander the Great died because his doctors kept bleeding him to treat an infection.
>>45053633
Too bad they used it to treat mental illness and not hematoma, then.
Is bleeding a mistake if someone is suffering from blood poisoning?
I'm guessing so, but maybe it could be helpful in reducing the level of toxins in their system, even if they'll be fucked up by exsanguination.
>>45053675
Leeches can reduce bruising and swelling by removing subcutaneous blood.
You know the part in the oath that says "first do no harm"? It's there because a lot of the time these guys didn't know what the fuck to do to help someone. That isn't an answer people want to hear, so the might choose to try -something-, just because.
The real problem is without empirical testing and examination of results even when something did work it would be lost or forgotten with the next guy.
The other problem was a lack of understanding of septicis.
>>45053788
>>45053735
Thanatomancers are like that in Unknown Armies.
>>45053788
To be fair the Method I just described is probably much worse than whatever magic does to you. It couldn't be that corrupting if Healing is a major part of it.
>>45053844
>It's there because a lot of the time these guys didn't know what the fuck to do to help someone. That isn't an answer people want to hear, so the might choose to try -something-, just because.
THIS. Often, medieval medics were well aware that they had no treatment for many maladies, but they were paid professionals and the rich assholes who paid them insisted that they try SOMETHING.
Also although medics were notoriously dangerous (for the patent), the village wise woman who prepared traditional remedies and healing spells had generally good effects, mostly from the placebo effect but occasionally from luck, too (such as the use of a kind of wood naturally rich in aspirin as a treatment for toothache, which might actually have positive efects).
Sometimes they actually managed to get things right. Medieval England had cataract surgeons who had a near-100% success rate (but you'd have a pretty good chance of dying after because they didn't know to sterilize the tools).
The real problem was that they believed this is how illness works:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humorism
So obviously if you're trying to treat "you have too much yellow bile, bro," when the issue is a parasite, you're probably not going to fix anything.
>>45053843
>Is bleeding a mistake
Yes. There are virtually no times when bleeding someone is NOT a mistake.
>>45053924
>surgeons
It's important to note that surgeons are NOT doctors, even today. Surgeons did good work, cutting off septic limbs and treating wounds, granted the lack of a germ theory led to some deaths (lots of deaths) but the "technology" of surgery was leagues ahead of medicine before the modern era.
>>45053937
high blood pressure
>>45053978
True, but they still fall within the category of "medical science." I assume OP wasn't excluding surgeons intentionally.
>>45053924
>Humorism
I have to wonder where that shit came from. It persisted pretty much until Pasteur introduced germ theory, but why? You'd think that somewhere along the line, maybe someone would consider that Hippocrates was full of... well, bile?
>>45053991
Bloodletting to relieve pressure is extremely dangerous, aside from the very high risk of infection and the general lowering o the immune response by letting blood. Unless you're literally about to stroke out, its not a treatment anyone should ever consider.
>>45054061
>"medical science."
Purely a modern idea. Surgeons and doctors historically had no connection to one another, surgeons were for stitching injuries and amputating limbs while doctors were or the treatment of illness. Surgeons were typically working class nobodies while doctors were educated and literate professionals. We see surgery and medicine as joined at the hip, but that's not an historical view at all.
>>45053920
Sallycilic Acid and the wood in question is the cambium of the Willow family.
>>45054131
If you don't know what germs are, or what genes are, or how the organs of the body work, or even what they do, then humourism seems as likely as any other theory. It's like how modern alternative medicine works, people swear by its efficacy and spend money on it even tho it has no value whatsoever. Consider how much more attractive that kind of woo would have been back in the day, before medical science was a thing?
>>45054151
Thank you, Captain Factoid. I was thinking willow but I also thought maybe ash so I left it vague.
>>45053830
It depends on the time period and the nature of your doctor.
The meme that all medieval surgeons were witch doctors is false, though the church actually did have to ban the use of astrology in medicine before that one went away.
Bleeding was primarily used as a sort of sedative because bloodloss makes you feel woozy. This actually worked for anxious or schizophrenic people, and on hypochondriacs, which is what most rich folk who wanted treatment for the human condition actually were.
When it came to serious stuff, though, like infections, hemorrhoids, dentistry, foreign body extraction and posts-surgical treatment, Europe actually made some big steps forward in the incorrectly labeled "dark ages" and the medieval era. One doctor in England for example noticed that changing bandages too frequently increased the odds of infection (because sanitation wasn't fully understood yet) so he reduced the frequency with which they were changed, and so halved the rate of septic infection in his hospital, and eventually across Europe. The use of bread and spider webs as a poultice in Poland was an early, if unwitting, form of antiseptic.
I read a paper once that suggested that Galen's ridiculous ideas on "cold" and "hot" foods was actually aping dangerously close to an understanding of dietary balance. Medieval people weren't stupid, they just didn't have the same information we did, and had to figure it all out through observation.
>>45054135
I can't speak to the rest of Europe since my area of study is England, but that's not entirely accurate. Many individuals combined both into one practice, or created positions we don't even have today (like the "quacks" who were shyster-doctor-entrepeneurs). I see no reason why we should avoid discussing medical science as a whole when discussing the medieval period, especially when the questions asked are so broad. OP isn't saying, "hey guys explain the historical position of a doctor in society and contrast it with other medical workers, please." He's saying "how good was the broad category of medicine in the middle ages and did it always kill you?" It's appropriate to discuss all aspects of medicine in that regard. I'd even include midwives, traditional healers (where they were present), etc.
>>45054135
>Surgeons were typically working class nobodies while doctors were educated and literate professionals
Eh, not after the 15th century when people began to look seriously at how the human body worked and performing dissections. Schools of medicine began teaching people how to stitch red to red and white to white and surgeons became respected professionals.
>>45054230
>Eh, not after the 15th century
So, not until after the period we're talking about?
>>45054226
Taken more generally, medieval "healthcare" did have some benefit, mostly from the placebo effect. There's no doubt surgeons and dentists saved many lives with their treatment, even as they killed a great many unwittingly thru infections. But medical science, the learned profession of medicine OP asked about, did more harm than good.
>>45054222
>Bleeding was primarily used as a sort of sedative because bloodloss makes you feel woozy. This actually worked for anxious or schizophrenic people, and on hypochondriacs, which is what most rich folk who wanted treatment for the human condition actually were.
Except it also lead to untold numbers of deaths from infections and accidental / excessive exsanguination. A village wise one who prescribed carrying a dried toad around as a treatment would get the same placebo benefit a doctor would get, without the serious health risks of the doctor's "treatment".
>Medieval people weren't stupid
I'm not suggesting they are, they were, however, terribly terribly wrong about a great many things, thru no fault of their own.
Funnily enough, blacksmiths often had a pretty good grasp on bonesetting and skeletal health in general. Mostly because the strongest man in the village who had a wide variety of hammers and tongs was the best choice when a broken arm healed wrong and needed to be reset (By breaking it again and binding it correctly).
>>45053937
>>45053991
Both wrong. Bleeding doesn't relieve high blood pressure, but it does have a slight effect on the body. After being bled during a fever the body's temperature lowers and they begin to recover more quickly. Once this was found out it was reused and misapplied in many ways.
>>45054601
>After being bled during a fever the body's temperature lowers and they begin to recover more quickly.
Yeah, no. Draining blood drains white blood cells, which has the opposite effect to making you better.
>>45053486
There is a podcast called Sawbones devoted to this topic. The hosts are married, one is an actual doctor and the other is on the adventure zone and my brother, my brother and me if you're familiar with those.
>>45054656
Never said it fought the disease, it just lowers the body temperature. In many cases where it's traditionally applied (not just "I have a headache, draw some blood") it doesn't work out well, but in some it can actually save lives. Not that we have any reason to do it nowadays, thanks to medicine, or even ice.
>>45054727
Great!
Or, you know, birch bark tea.
>>45053843
The only pathology for which bloodletting is a legitimate treatment is hemochromatosis.
>>45053486
I know they ate chalk help with stomach pain and this works because of the calcium carbonate.
>>45054222
The doctor and the surgeon were two different people in medieval times.
The doctor is a studied holistic professional who will advise you on diet, habits, and piety in the context of your humors.
The surgeon is also the barber and possibly the blacksmith and he cuts off things that won't stop hurting, smelling, or turning black. His education began and ended with his master. As no one knows about sterilizing wounds you always have about a 50-50 chance with any larger surgery, you WILL get a bad infection. And infected bones heal funny. But this is not a medical profession in the understanding of the age, it is carpentry on the human body.
>>45053486
If you know a better way to balance the humours, I'd like to hear it.
Next you'll be saying we should all take baths, as if all that cold wetness wouldn't cause a dangerous amount of phlegm to build up in the brain.
I wish you a good day sir. A. Good. DAY.
>>45053675
The maggot treatment is Napoleonic.
>>45055114
Medieval people actually bathed regularly.
>>45055114
This merchant gets it.
>>45055263
In what, the river? We know Scandinavians and urban Iberians bathed because they had infrastructure for it. Most of Europe just decided bathing was overrated for a few hundred years.
>>45055437
>In what, the river?
Yes you fucking retard.
>>45055511
Actually, that wasn;t that popular. Peasants feared the water (there are meny accounts from priests about that, that people were so dirty and smelly that they didn;t want to procreate)
>>45055437
>Scandinavians had the infrastructure for public baths
>The rest of Europe didn't
I get urban Iberians considering it saw a lot of Roman influence, but backwater Scandinavia? While more Romanized regions like France and England did not? How?
>>45055677
The Iberians had it because of Muslim influence, and bathing is just part of Scandinavian culture. I assume they used it to break the monotony between raids.
>>45055762
>he still thinks even a moderate portion Scandis were all epic viking warriors
>>45055420
Well of course.
Now how many bushels of sage did you want?
>>45055917
Well then to break the monotony of general life.
>>45053486
>Literally drilling holes in someone's skull to let air pressure escape
This was legit science you fucking twit. Drilling holes in the skull of suffering from a traumatic head injury would save their lives as it would prevent brain swelling.
>>45056025
Also removes any possible insect from Shaggai.
>>45053820
their saliva also contains anticoagulant and I think antibacterial properties.
>>45055600
That's like anon saying that OP is such a faggot that he is ruining /tv/.
>>45053553
>>45053774
Yeah its just Emerald Herald peeing in a bottle in DaS2, and she's not even a real Fire Keeper.
>>45055437
In tubs, once a week (on Sunday before church I assume) where the water was used by the whole family, one after another.
Or so I've heard about central Europe.
>>45057229
True, but a thing of the industrialization.
>>45054131
You set a big glass jar of blood down and leave it for a while. It separates into black shit (clotted blood), red shit (red blood cells), white shit (white blood cells), and yellow shit (plasma).
Early man looked at this and was like "Holy shit, I just found out what humans are made of!"
>>45053486
To answer the original question, medieval healing techniques could be divided into the following categories:
Stuff that worked (Chew this bark, it'll dull your pain)
Stuff that only worked under specific circumstances (Leaches helped with that bruise, maybe they'll help here?)
Stuff that "worked", but not really (He has less blood, and now his fever's not as bad! It's science.)
And last but not least, random bullshit to at least give people hope (HOLY WATER IS THE ANSWER TO EVERYTHING!!!)
>>45060234
Makes sense
>>45053486
Bloodletting was a very precise thing and has been shown to have medical value, it just isn't the be all, end all people treated it as.
Also, most medieval medicine from doctors was focused around preventative medicine(the balance of the humors mostly, but still), something modern medicine only picked up on as a good thing a few decades ago.
>>45053486
>>45060868
>something modern medicine only picked up on as a good thing a few decades ago.
In 1854 John Snow identified the link between water contamination and Cholera, effectively ending the pandemic spread of cholera in places that followed sanitation and testing for preventive medicine.
"modern medicine" is vastly better at all types of medicine, including preventative medicine, then any traditional medicine.
People that advocate 'traditional medicine' tend to claim it's effects for preventative medicine because when you treat healthy people you can claim victory if they remain healthy.
>>45056096
This is a welcome side affect.
>>45061010
Is that mercury
>>45061065
I think it is. How is that man alive.
>>45061084
>>45061065
yes. mercury isnt poisonous to drink
did i just blow your mind anons?
>>45061084
Ivan the Terrible took mercury for years before it killed him.
>>45061104
Mercury is super poisonous to drink. It's just badly absorbed in it's zero oxidation state.
Vaporized, it will fucking kill you dead, or in the form of a salt. It's just elemental mercury that you can drink without too much danger.
Trepanation almost never involved actual drilling, OP. Typically the process involves peeling the skin back and carefully scraping thin layers of bone away until you reach the inside. Much less likely to poke a brain that way.
>>45061142
>Ivan the Terrible took mercury for years before it killed him.
no he died from a stoke
>>45061199
>mercury is super poisonous you cant drink it!
>well yeah you can totally drink it though
im aware the vapor is deadly im just being aloof
What would your current PCS be like if they were at the mercy of real life medieval medicine?
>>45061199
>elemental mercury that you can drink without too much danger.
Nasty diarrhea though.
>>45061270
>Nasty diarrhea though.
thats the entire reason for drinking it
>>45061277
Yes Egyptian laxative, I know
>>45061248
Well, he could devour them to fuel his inhuman vitality and regeneration. I suppose he'd be fine.
>>45061247
Took it for years without killing him then. It did, however, drive him insane. See also the stereotype of the mad hatter, a fairly common thing since thet used mercury to seal hats at one point.
>>45061010
Aw shit, now there's another immortal I gotta go kil.
Good doctors knew some legit shit, like honey wraps as wound anti septics and how to set bones, how to suture, and what local plants functioned as analgesics.
>>45054151
>Sallycilic
I find this typo funny for some reason
>>45053486
Trepaning is a legitimate procedure to deal with swelling in the brain.
There are occasions when draining "poisoned" blood helps to an extent.
>>45061492
Read the thread.
>>45053553
Its fucking Sunny D.
>>45053830
>Historically, medicine was worse than no treatment at all. It's thought Alexander the Great died because his doctors kept bleeding him to treat an infection.
That's how homeopathy has taken off: it did absolutely nothing, which was pretty good compared to shit like treatment by mercury vapors.
>>45061050
John Snow knows some things.
>>45061010
Is he dead?
>>45061355
The vapor is what got hatters. They used the liquid to treat syphilis (you can find where explorers camped because of the mercury in latrines).. Too much could make you crazy, but mostly people survived it.
You vaporize it though and it dose get absorbed, and can fuck you up bad.
>>45053675
Honestly, having maggots raised in a sterilized environment eating off the necrotic tissue around your wound instead of a doctor removing the necrotic tissue he has to more or less eyeball.
I mean, the surgeon has to tear the dead flesh away, which pulls at the exposed and still-living parts of your flesh, or cut away the dead flesh and a decent amount of living flesh it is immediately attached to, just to be on the safe side.
Maggots tickle a lot, though. Falling onto garbage bags that burst under your weight is the absolute worst
>>45066425
Frankly, if you don't have antibiotics then your best bet is to have the doctor cut a lot and go for clean edges rather then try to use maggots or beetles to eat the dead away. Yes, it means cutting away healthy tissue. But infection will kill your ass anyway if you don't get necrotic tissue off as quickly as possible in a antibiotic-less environment.
If you do have antibiotics.. it's still better to go with the doctor cutting away a minimum.
>>45061413
Silly Sally acid
>>45061248
They are. It's WFRP.
>>45054800
We still do that
>>45053486
>Sterilizing wounds with vinegar and rosewater
Viable
>Rinsing your teeth with piss
Viable, but consider anything alkaline instead
>Applying leeches so they can suck out the poison
Won't work
>Cutting patients open and letting them bleed out
Bad idea
>Literally drilling holes in someone's skull to let air pressure escape
Works but causes bigger problems later.
>>45061248
"Flip a coin. Did you get heads? Gratz, you died in childhood. Roll another character."
>>45063593
Yes it's "interesting" to note that the only alternative medicines that are still used are the ones that have zero effect, stuff like reiki and homeopathy, where only the placebo effect remains. (Alternative) Medicine has finally caught up with the standards of healthcare enjoyed by the poor since ancient times! And all it will cost you is a huge wad of bills for some sugar pills!
>>45066488
>>45066425
Maggots are MUCH better than surgery for many burns, they're just horrifyingly grotesque so most people prefer the surgery.
>>45068410
Vinegar is fine, but only if it's very high concentration, the kind you buy in modern stores, not the kind you would have made at home in olde timey land. Rosewater has no value as a disinfectant, and was probably used to mask the smell of an infected injury rather than to treat it. Piss to clean your teeth won;t work, piss is rich in amino acids and calqs that will urr your teeth up. Piss is a good disifnectant tho, but only "straight from the source", you can't keep jars of piss around for use later. Well you CAN, but you oughtn't.
Trepanation was generally used to treat psychosis, on the basis that by cutting a hole in the skull, the demons causing the mental illness will be released. It's about as effective as tattooing, another ancient remedy for treating sickness with roots in the ice age.
>>45053486
Outdated medicinal practices are a branch of magic in one of my settings.
Believing it works makes it work and all.
>>45069308
man fuck that.
"we can use the biological equivelant of tiny robots and let them remove the tissue with precision and it might tickle a bit, or well I can just slice on you and hope for the best."
yeah maggots nao plz.
>>45069640
bet you'd pussy out
>>45069611
This approach would also work in Unknown Armies. And wasn't there an oMage faction that used pseudoscience to do magic?
>>45069611
>Believing it works makes it work and all.
So "RED WUNZ GO FASTA" works for medical science too?
>>45069698
why because of an eww icky worm? naw.
>>45069810
Orks don't have medicine, the idea of trying to FIX an injury is alien to them. When an Ork is injured, he either dies or has the bits replaced with mekka bits.
![latest[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/oy3DKq3.jpg "latest[1].jpg")
>>45053486
wanna fight fgt?
>>45069924
best girl
>>45069908
Mad Docz are a thing. They can staple an ork's head back on his body and him be just fine.
>>45055437
Bathing was about the only pleasure poor peasants could enjoy for free. Of course they bathed. Pretty much every human settlement is close to a river or lake, when not right on top of it.
You just have to walk upstream until you leave the town behind and bam, clean or mostly clean water free for bathing.
>>45070958
>You just have to walk upstream until you leave the town behind and bam, clean or mostly clean water free for bathing.
The Middle Ages must've been full of "misunderstandings".
>>45070246
Didn't one Dok-slash-Mek die eight times in one night? Once from getting chopped to bits by a cheeky Nob, then seven more times as his Gretchin assistants attempted to put him back together again. He wasn't quite sane afterwards though.
>>45069640
>>45069308
For burns serious enough for necrosis you there's no real reason for maggots. You gonna get grafted, so you might as well jump right ahead to the agonizing adventure that is skin graft surgery rather then fuck around with maggots.
>>45069379
That's true. To use acetic acid as a disinfectant you'd need to use a concentration you could only achieve by distillation, so you'd be looking at something that cost more per kilo then silver in Ye Old Medieval Times.
Yes, 10% acetic acid from vinegar has some antimicrobial properties, but it's not nearly enough. You'd be better off with boric acid or sodium bicarbonate if you were restricted to chemicals you could get in the middle ages.
>>45055437
>because they had infrastructure for it
exactly how much technical know-how do you think it takes to dig a hole, line it with stone and put some water in it? Or indeed just build a slightly larger bucket?
Bath-houses were common all across medieval Europe. People didn't view bathing as the absolute necessity that we do today, but they still saw its value.
It went in an out of fashion, according to how permissive the church was feeling and whether there was a plague outbreak
>>45053486
>Cutting patients open and letting them bleed out
high blood pressure can be a real bother, and bleeding patients worked well for that
>Applying leeches so they can suck out the poison
Leeches are still used today to get the blood flowing in organ grafts and other things
>Sterilizing wounds with vinegar and rosewater
Great stuff, I actually use alcohol based deodorant
>Rinsing your teeth with piss
may sound dirty, but pee is mostly saline water with some acids that would actually kill bacteria
>Literally drilling holes in someone's skull to let air pressure escape
Can instantly stop vomiting like the exorcist chick.
