What Were Hospitals and Health Care Like in the Middle Ages?

The Medievals had three types of hospitals. The first, known as the leprosaria, for those afflicted with leprosy. The second were those erected for the general use of pilgrims and sick travellers and the third were intended to give shelter to the elderly. A lot were a mixture of the three types, and all were used to look after the needs of the poor, where the inmates would receive care and possibly some rudimentary forms of treatment. Only the rich would have been able to afford the expertise of a trained physician or surgeon, and they would have been treated in their own homes. Poor-sick people would have used the skills of local healers and herbalists as well as the domestic cures passed on to them from female relatives.
0:00 Introduction
2:17 The Healing Power of Prayer
4:27 Doctors and Nurses
5:50 Leprosaria
9:18 The General Hospital
10:48 The Care Home
🎶🎶 Music by CO.AG: / @co.agmusic
Narrated by James Wade
Edited by James Wade & Adam Longster
Thank you for watching.
DISCLAIMER: All materials in these videos are used for entertainment purposes and fall within the guidelines of fair use. No copyright infringement is intended. If you are, or represent the copyright owner of materials used in this video, and have an issue with the use of said material, please email us at [e-mail]
Copyright © 2022 Top5s All rights reserved. In this video, we've compiled information from a variety of sources, including documentaries, books, and websites, all with the aim of providing an engaging viewing experience. While we strive to ensure accuracy, we acknowledge that there may be variations in the authenticity of the content. We encourage viewers to delve deeper and conduct their own research to corroborate the information presented.

[@YuBeace]

You can tell they really tried their absolute best with what they had available.

[@judahcreighton1544]

to be fair, piping in water for daily washing of sheets, keeping the areas generally tidy, and making getting rid of bodily waste a priority would make these perhaps the most sanitary buildings you could be put in

[@YuBeace]

"[Music] was thought to regulate the heartrate and lift the mood." I mean. True.

[@danatowne5498]

I really love the way you respect the lives and times of others. I grew up in a time with a pervasive attitude of looking down on those that came before in a way that NEVER made any sense to me personally. This is really refreshing, thanks!!

[@babyshambler]

I've not been this addicted to a KZbin channel since I found the JCS interrogation videos. Can't stop watching.

[@tmr4342]

Ah, but you can help with long hospital waits. We can watch these wee gems while we are waiting. :)

[@thetwilightzone2403]

Its interesting that hospice care was made in medieval Europe.

[@dallymoo7816]

I like how the hosptial were beautiful and used music and prayer.. more healing than the white walls and beeping and mean nurses

[@shannsimms9072]

10:30 I’m genuinely impressed that they had the idea of baby boxes back then.

[@DarkElfDiva]

Imagine a newborn baby with a sticker on its forehead that reads, "Be Kind. Rewind."

[@beths1140]

Imagine the high rate of infanticide at the tjme. Do yoh prefer a baby given to a church in a box or a dead baby? Those were the optioms. I prefer the live baby.

[@anthonycoon6955]

Never wanted kids anyways 🤷

[@mike79patton]

To err is human, to rewind is divine!

[@thewhitewolf58]

Honestly i do love the medievil logic they had true it sounds silly now but does generally make sense with the thought process of the day.

[@toniremer1594]

I'm learning A LOT from this channel, and I wholeheartedly believe that this channel SHOULD be taught in every single history class all over the world.

[@emzybenzey]

Wow 2 medieval madness videos in less than a week! Love it 😀 always look forward to your new videos thank you. Hope anyone reading this has a great day and hope you are well. Xx

[@kimberlyperrotis8962]

You, too,, friend🙂

[@marthaperdew]

You too my friend 😊

[@valerielhw]

Something similar to "baby boxes" exits today in some US states. These states allow unwanted babies to be taken to designated safe places and anonymously dropped off. Just as in the Middle Ages, these laws are designed to prevent infanticide and late-term abortions.

[@galactikcosmicspace]

We have them in Switzerland too

[@galactikcosmicspace]

I think this was like the least “mad” video. The ill and their needs were in the center of the system. Not corrupt corporate greed like today.

[@Balrog-tf3bg]

Wow kinda crazy how much care was given to lepers. I figured they were usually homeless beggars ran out of every town

[@MalteseKat]

There's several references about lepers in the Bible. Also chasing the lepers away spread the disease. It's a virus.

[@kimberlyperrotis8962]

It must have been such a terrible life for those with leprosy, throughout history, my heart goes out to them. Not until the age of antibiotics, around 1950, was there a cure, antibiotics. BTW, chaste rhymes with paste, not with fast (English).

[@varolussalsanclar1163]

the leprosia actually sounds like a pretty nice place to live out your few remaining months or years.

[@janececelia7448]

We can still learn a few lessons from the past. We're still in a miasma event with Covid19, but back then the hospital allowed for ventilation which they no longer do. Hospitals are a petri dish for disease because of the over reliance of antibiotics while vaccines have not replaced good social hygiene: we need both.

[@beths1140]

Ventilation. It would be awesome if we could open the windows on the pediatric oncology unit on the 18th floor at one of the hospitals in Boston. Hospitals are not a breeding group d for disease due to an overuse of antibiotics. Its Lear that you know little about medicine. I've never heard of MRSA running rampant in a hospital. As a nurse, I am cringing at the confidence behind your incorrect comment .

[@tricivenola8164]

Fascinating, thank you! The first state subsidized hospital for the poor was in Constantinople, and ruins of it exist to this day. The Hospital of Sampson was founded in the 6thCentury by Emperor Justinian, the first monarch to subsidize medicine. In addition to the hospital he sent doctors throughout the Byzantine Empire for 6months of the year to treat the poor. You can read about this in detail by Googling trici venola peace in the ruins. The Hospital of Sampson continued to lead the world in medicine for centuries, fading out with the Conquest of Constantinople in 1453. A tradition of hospice-next-to-temple exists to this day.

[@cleocatra9324]

Many people still get treated like crap today it really depends on a lot of factors.

[@niklashall5969]

One of the new favourites for alot of the people I see.....good job mediaeval madness!!!

[@chelseaelizabethbrown2399]

Fantastic love all your work that's put together to understand ways of living compared to our generation today look forward to seeing more based on the medevial period recently started watching all your channels that you have and honesty it's the best one I've seen based on the time line & description on what life was like back then 😁👍

[@kimberlyperrotis8962]

Spital is pronounced to rhyme with spittle, not spite-l. Spitalfields is still a neighborhood in London, silks were once manufactured there.

[@sarah82ish]

Really interesting to see how hospitals have changed over the years. Thanks for another educational video about healthcare in this era

[@michelleg7]

The baby boxes were in use in Italy up until the the late 19th century, now they have modern ones of course. The USA has something similar for some hospitals and I think it would be good for the UK to change their laws around abandon babies and mothers. Its better to have some kind of safe haven laws and baby boxes that one can have and where the baby is dropped off safely.

[@robinhumphrey2692]

Excellent!

[@risingson7773]

Excellent channel and info. Always looking forward to your next presentation. Cheers.

[@Dolores5000]

Wonderful episode

[@shark50401]

We have something like baby drop boxes now in the US- Safe Haven boxes.

[@laidasolarsrivero2238]

A gallon of beer a day

[@prosamis]

Wow This all is terribly interesting

[@80sMetalHead]

Well Done! Well-Done indeed. 👍

[@kimberlyperrotis8962]

In those times, people were probably better off without the attention of trained physicians. The local herbalists were probably safer and more effective.

[@phineas117]

over 700 thousand subscribers!!!

[@n1msu]

Hopefully this channel will do at least one thing. Wasting the doctor's time because you have a cold/flu but asking for antibiotics from a doctor at day 2 despite the fact that antibiotics are not going to help cure a viral respiratory infection. I hope the importance of antibiotics and how their misuse could result in a far more dangerous situation, bacterial pandemic, resistant to antibiotics (including plague) gets taught to people in secondary school before GCSE level.

[@-JA-]

👍👏

[@Tim_Apple]

I love this channel

[@nataliapanfichi9933]

@MedievalMadness can you do a video on foundings? Like babies being left at the doorsteps of houses or churches that got taken in and raised by whoever opened the door. (Like Quasimodo and his adoptive father/guardian archdiacon dom Claude Frollo in the book notre dame de paris which is set in the 1400s).

[@crystalharris7394]

💗💗💗

[@myse7enkids]

It is very interesting that the progression of symptoms (both in the Bible & in Medieval descriptions) EXACTLY is the progression of untreated syphilis. There's been speculation that what's described as "leprosy" was actually syphilis... including that "The fathers sin & the children's teeth are set on edge" referred to the notched teeth of congenital syphilis.

[@stevecosmolove1045]

idk sounds like you are just unhealthily obsessed with syphilis

[@Bga1412]

Imagine going back with a few bottles of penicillin and some advil.

[@markriosn7589]

Is it weird that I would rather be in a 12th venture infirmary than a 19th century hospital?

[@Iesous27]

Kind of hilarious how they put mental health as a priority compared to our modern day health care lol.

[@britaeirikr8609]

Actual leprosy doesn't actually cause extremities to fall off. The bones become absorbed and the extremities recede leaving the nubby flesh behind. Totally different. The idea of limbs falling off is an almost comical, if insensitive, interpretation of what actually happens and it is worth knowing the difference. It is also worth noting that "leprosy" was a catch-all term for many diseases that were neither understood nor differentiated.

[@johnnyazer5779]

What did the leper say to the hooker.......keep the tip

[@forickgrimaldus8301]

Yeah but this is the Medieval period so while they did understand more about healthcare than people give them credit for they are still living in a world without the benefits of More modern medical science.

[@britaeirikr8609]

@@forickgrimaldus8301 What do you mean "more than they give them credit for"? The whole of medicine at the time was based on balancing humors. What more credit do they deserve? And of course they were not benefiting from science and medicine that was learned 100s of years later. Why say this? The Medieval period is already understood as a much earlier and specific time in history characterized by too many to count backward practices. The term "medieval" is used to describe cruel and barbaric backward practices as well as the specific period of time in history, but it is capitalized in the second case.

[@forickgrimaldus8301]

@@britaeirikr8609 yeah but at the same time they understood surgery in a very basic way just look at the many surgical procedures that were successful so again while they have zero understanding of germ theory and use the Humors theory and bloodletting, its not all that simple that they have zero idea what the hell they were doing they did have some idea but its very flawed. (Whatelse can they do, there were no Microsocpes back then to disprove Humors theory a Theory as old as Ancient Greece, they can't just say to people there is noway to treat them and just disrespectfully abandon them) Take a look at how a Medieval English Prince got shot on the face by an Arrow and survived luckily without infection. We are lucky that we now have a literal hundred years of Medical Science that proved Germ Theory and the instrumentation and medical procedures to both view and cure illnesses caused by them.

[@forickgrimaldus8301]

And lastly they were doing the best they can for this period to heal their patients, this like the equivalent of saying modern medical staff are murderers and guilty of malpractice because they can't heal people with Stage 4 cancer nor give people Bionic/Stem cell grown organs in fhe hospital.

[@moritzstrohriegel8724]

where there hospitals for farmers?

[@chicagogyrl4846]

Clothes were washed once a week??!! Ewww...

[@czarbuscus1475]

Do you mean as in they would wear the same clothes for a week straight or doing all laundry once a week

[@localman7017]

Weird how there’s no mention of Avicenna in this video

[@yager943]

oohh yeah...another episode of medieval knowledge!!

[@poeticsilence047]

Infant deposit box. There is something I thought I would never hear.

[@lillipopswitch]

They exist today in many parts of the world. They are installed in fire departments across Indiana usa, they call them “safe haven baby boxes” there.

[@missbraindamage]

@@lillipopswitch That's what I was going to comment! They are in many states.

[@beths1140]

That's partly because you're a man and couldn't never understand what it would be like for a woman to be left alone with a what back the. Infant deposit box vs infanticide. Only a man would have to.question it.

[@nazlsenay7312]

.

[@LittleKitty22]

Middle Ages: hospital patients receive fresh, nutritious food, get encouraged to pray, hospitals are lofty as it's known that bad smells cause disease, nurses look after patients and bathe them once a week and even provide services to wash clothes. Strict discipline ensures that everybody is safe. 21st century UK: I get left without food or water as the hospital refuses to cater to my special dietary needs, I get left unwashed as the nurses are too lazy to wash me and instead scream at me to go in the shower even though I can neither walk nor sit, windows are kept tightly closed and the smell is beyond sickening as patients are having diarrhea all over the place. Patients unable to feed themselves also get left without access to food, and prayer is strictly forbidden, at least for Christians and Jews. Admitting to any religious faith puts one at risk of getting locked up as a mental patient. Doctors are abusive and refuse to treat serious medical conditions, instead get abusive over me being slim and scream threats at me. Being slim is now the worst crime imaginable, one has to be as morbidly obese as all the doctors and nurses are. Nurses ignore patients and openly mock them, telling each other jokes about patients and have no shame promoting their ideologies with their crazy hairstyles and tattoos that betray their mental instability. Elderly and frail patients get forced to sit in chairs all day even if they scream in pain. Patients get knocked out with tranquilizers to keep them quiet and make them not realize that they are being abused. All as experienced by me on the neurology ward at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham/UK in early March 2022. It was so bad I self discharged, fearing for my safety. I have instructed this hospital never to contact me again. Formal complaints get me nowhere as they only result in false accusations against me being made by management to hide their crimes, and a total denial of all events listed above. This was the third serious incident at this hospital!!! Twice before I have been abused there by doctors as an outpatient. It appears there is a culture of abusing the defenseless at that hospital. Sadly this is what new doctors learn as the hospital is adjacent to Birmingham University, which explains a lot of the abuse doctors now mete out on their helpless patients. Give me the Middle Ages any time over nowadays' hospitals...

[@pinkpugginz]

you need a lot of help

[@pinkpugginz]

is there legal aid you can get? you have a strong case of malpractice and abuse against the hospital

[@LittleKitty22]

@@pinkpugginz No, legal aid doesn't exist any more in the UK except for immigration cases. Complaints get thrown out of course with false accusations against me to hush it all up, as is commonly done. I'm looking into privately funded legal action but from what I could establish, it's extremely rare that one wins such a case. The hospital in question is affiliated with Birmingham University, so the chances of winning a lawsuit are nil. There's been several similar scandals in various hospitals in the UK, and I'm getting thousands of similar reports in from patients all over the country - always regarding abuse of the most vulnerable of patients, ie the disabled and the elderly. I have also, while I was in that hospital, observed nurses forcing a very sick and disabled elderly lady to sit in a chair which caused her a lot of pain, and a lady who was unable to feed herself was left with the food in front of her but no help with feeding. Nurses kept her sedated to keep her quiet. When she was crying out in pain, I tried a few times to call the nurses and tell them that the lady was in pain but they just said "oh she's alright". Thing is, I couldn't film at the hospital of course due to the other patients and patient confidentiality, so there's no proof. And patients never get believed!

[@cleocatra9324]

Wow that sucks

[@DanielECulbertson]

What do you mean, praying was "strictly forbidden"? How would they even know you were praying? And what would they do if they found out you *were* praying? I feel like we're missing some context here... 🤔

[@EA-js1me]

Medieval Europe and Ancient Egypt: FREE HEALTHCARE! America: Damn commies... XD

[@spacechimp5141]

I wouldn't call it hospitals or health care!

[@thetwilightzone2403]

Some of these places are healthcare because they provided end of life care, or hospice.

[@SaurabhTiwari08]

After mongol invasion 😂😂😂

[@thornil2231]

another anglo-centric video.

[@UnCannyValley67]

Where’s your video then..?