Page 40 - British Museum: SYTYGIB Medieval Castle

If you think dentists were bad, you should have seen the doctors.
Or rather, you shouldn’t have seen the doctors if you wanted to avoid pain or death, which you should definitely steer clear of if you want to enjoy life.
It was definitely a bad idea to get ill or injured in a medieval castle. The average life expectancy in the middle of the Middle Ages was only around 30–35, and 1 in 5 children died before their first birthday.
Docs back then just loved emptying blood out of their patients. They reckoned it was the cure for almost any illness.
Sometimes they would
cut open a vein and let
the blood drain out into
a bloodletting cup. The phases of the moon, the tides and the season would help them decide which vein to cut, but whatever the choice the end result could easily be a dead patient.
Just lie down there while I fetch my very sharp knife.
Are you sure that´s the best cure for a sore throat?
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Less dangerous, but more “YeUcH” was the use of leeches. If you don’t know what a leech is, imagine a slippery green/black slug with a mouth filled with sharp teeth that it uses
to bite you and suck your blood until it’s completely full (and you are less so).