Medical Practices and Treatments in Medieval Medieval medicine holds an important place in medical history and the development of the medical world today. There were many various diseases of medieval times that made life difficult for the people of the time. There were many treatments to treat various diseases during these times even though at times they were far-fetched and very ineffective. During the medieval times there were not many tests developed at the time and many doctors relied primarily on symptoms of the patients to determine the individual illness. When citizens had common problems and illnesses there were a few treatments that doctors would administer even though they may have seemed extreme for a minor illness they were treating.…show more content… Leprosy became a major illness; it was a bacterial infection that also carried the name Hansen’s disease (Woolf 18). The effects of the disease, often harsh resulted in rotting of the flesh over time, which would put off a foul odor to the people around the sickened. The people of the time believed that this was a soul disease and there was nothing that could be done to treat it because it came from God. The people who had this disease became outcasts of society and were considered dead by the general population, often put into isolation to prevent spreading of the illness. Leprosy numbers fell of around 1400 most likely due to the high number of plague victims and plague mixed with Leprosy became almost certainly fatal (Woolf…show more content… During this time surgeons treated things all along the lines of bug bites, bone breaks, and lesions (Elliot 22). Surgeons began to research alternative treatments to things by looking into victims with various diseases (Woolf 38). Postmortems became common on Plague victims in order to investigate the roots of the disease and its causes (Woolf 38). Barbers became a common part of society and performed most minor operations on patients (Elliot 22). Barbers shaved hair from men’s faces along with the minor surgeries. The symbol of the barber became a pole hanging on the wall with red and white stripes. The pole came from the technique of bloodletting the white stood as a symbol for the bandage while the red represented the cut. Most barbers did not attend a school in order to learn their practice but instead go their training from watching other more experienced barbers. Barbers removed rotten teeth from people who developed infections in the mouth. Surgeons on the other hand would spend their time doing things such as cauterizing wounds. During this process they would burn a wounded area with an iron to stop bleeding. Surgeons at the time believed it sealed wounds and also helped prevent infections. Surgeons also believed that cauterizing would help cure internal disorders as well as outside wounds (Elliot