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book. Welcome to this episode of Gone Medieval from History Hit. I'm Matt Lewis.

One of the most fascinating aspects of medieval life to consider for us today is what would we do

if we fell ill? The horror stories of bloodletting gone wrong, drilling holes in heads,

and weird concoctions might be enough to put you off visiting any kind of doctor

for even a fairly major ailment. But how accurate is this impression of medieval medicine?

Well, I'm joined today by Julie Cummings, whose new book, Medicine in the Middle Ages,

is the ideal companion to picking apart the myths surrounding this subject. So thanks so

much for joining us, Julie. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Thank you for

getting me in touch with Penn and Sword essentially. If it wasn't for you, I feel like I'm not sure

where this would have gone. So thank you very much. Ah, Shucks, more please.

So I guess to start off with, can you give us an outline of what were the principles of medieval

medicine? Because I think a lot like combat, it kind of goes back to sort of ancient philosophies

really, doesn't it, for its basis? It does. So the theory of the four humors originated with

Aristotle, but Hippocrates is really the one that was credited with the development of it all.

Does it goes back to ancient Greece? They believed that the body was made up of four different

humors. And it was like four section they called it the four humors. And they felt that these

four humors needed to be kept in balance in order for everything to be, you know, running and for

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