Medicine in Britain, c1500-c1700: Treatment, Prevention and the Great Plague of 1665 - Worksheets, Questions and Revision

12 original exam-style questions - 4 pages of questions with a full mark scheme - free printable PDF.

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This topic is chapter 4 of GCSE History: Medicine in Britain, c1250-present Practice Book 1.

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1.4 Medicine in Britain, c1500-c1700: Treatment, Prevention and the Great Plague of 1665

EDEXCEL 1HI0 · about 50 minutes

Total Marks

Name: _______________________________ Date: ____ / ____ / ______

Answer ALL questions. Write in full sentences for Questions 15, 16 and 17. You are advised to spend about 65 minutes on this pack.

State one way in which treatment of illness in the years c1500-1700 remained similar to treatment in the medieval period.

(Total for Question 1 is 2 marks)

Name the London parish records, kept since Tudor times, that recorded the weekly number of burials, including deaths from plague.

(Total for Question 2 is 1 mark)

Give one reason why wealthier people, including the King's court, were better able to survive the Great Plague than the poor.

(Total for Question 3 is 2 marks)

Explain why the authorities' response to the Great Plague of 1665 was not effective in stopping its spread.

(Total for Question 4 is 8 marks)

Explain why the Royal Society, founded in 1660, was significant for the future of medicine, even though its direct impact on treatment at the time was limited.

(Total for Question 5 is 8 marks)

'Continuity, not change, was the main feature of the treatment of disease in Britain in the years c1500-1700.' How far do you agree with this statement? Explain your answer.

(Total for Question 6 is 16 marks)

Give the year in which the Great Plague struck London.

(Total for Question 7 is 1 mark)

Name the theory, still widely believed in the seventeenth century, that bad-smelling air explained why the Great Plague spread.

(Total for Question 8 is 1 mark)

State one action the authorities in London took to try to prevent the spread of the Great Plague.

(Total for Question 9 is 2 marks)

Name the scientific institution founded in London in 1660 that encouraged doctors and scientists to share experimental findings.

(Total for Question 10 is 1 mark)

Name the English physician, known as 'the English Hippocrates', who argued that diseases should be observed and classified by their symptoms.

(Total for Question 11 is 1 mark)

Name the plant-based remedy, imported from South America, that was used to treat fevers such as malaria in this period.

(Total for Question 12 is 1 mark)

Mark scheme · 1.4 Medicine in Britain, c1500-c1700: Treatment, Prevention and the Great Plague of 1665

Question 1

B1 bloodletting and purging, based on the Theory of the Four Humours, remained widely used
B1 herbal remedies also remained widely used, prepared and sold by apothecaries
Answer: Bloodletting, purging and herbal remedies, all based on humoural theory, remained widely used.

Question 2

B1 the Bills of Mortality
Answer: The Bills of Mortality

Question 3

B1 wealthier people, including King Charles II's court, could afford to leave London for the countryside
B1 away from the crowded and unsanitary conditions in the city, whereas poorer Londoners could not afford to abandon their homes and livelihoods and had to remain
Answer: The wealthy could afford to leave London for the countryside; the poor could not afford to abandon their homes and had to stay in crowded, unsanitary conditions.

Question 4

Level 1 (1-2): Identifies one or two general reasons the response was ineffective, with little or no supporting detail or explanation.
Level 2 (3-4): Identifies and begins to explain one reason, supported by accurate detail.
Level 3 (5-6): Explains two reasons why the response was ineffective, each supported by accurate and relevant detail.
Level 4 (7-8): Explains two or more reasons in a well-developed, logically structured way, supported throughout by precise and accurate detail, showing how the reasons connect.
Indicative content:
- The true cause of plague (a bacterium spread mainly by fleas carried by black rats, not identified by scientists until the late nineteenth century) was completely unknown to contemporaries, so their prevention measures could not address the real means of transmission.
- The authorities ordered the killing of cats and dogs, wrongly believing they spread the disease; this removed natural predators of rats, which some historians argue made the underlying problem worse rather than better.
- Shutting up infected houses trapped healthy family members inside with the infected, increasing the chance of transmission within the household even as it aimed to protect the wider community.
- London's overcrowded, unsanitary conditions, with rubbish and waste in the streets and many people living closely together, provided ideal conditions for infection to spread despite the measures taken.
- Enforcement was inconsistent and depended heavily on wealth: the King's court and wealthier residents could leave the city entirely, while poorer people, who could not afford to leave, remained in the most crowded and dangerous conditions.

Question 5

Level 1 (1-2): Identifies one or two general reasons for the Royal Society's significance, with little or no supporting detail or explanation.
Level 2 (3-4): Identifies and begins to explain one reason, supported by accurate detail.
Level 3 (5-6): Explains two reasons for the Royal Society's significance, each supported by accurate and relevant detail.
Level 4 (7-8): Explains two or more reasons in a well-developed, logically structured way, supported throughout by precise and accurate detail, showing how the reasons connect.
Indicative content:
- It promoted the value of careful observation and experiment, rather than reliance on ancient authorities such as Galen, encouraging a new, testable approach to studying the body and disease.
- It published Philosophical Transactions from 1665, allowing scientists and doctors across the country and abroad to share and check each other's findings, speeding up the exchange of new ideas.
- Its royal backing gave scientific and medical enquiry greater status and encouragement, attracting more individuals to carry out and publish careful experiments, including figures such as Thomas Sydenham, who emphasised close observation of disease symptoms.
- Although its direct impact on everyday treatment in the seventeenth century was limited, since it did not itself discover a new cure or theory of disease, it helped establish a scientific method and culture of shared, tested evidence that later enabled breakthroughs such as Germ Theory in the nineteenth century.

Question 6

Level 1 (1-4): Shows limited relevant knowledge of treatment in this period, and offers only a simple, unsupported opinion on the statement.
Level 2 (5-8): Shows some relevant knowledge and identifies relevant factors, but the argument is only partly supported and lacks a developed judgement on how far the statement is accurate.
Level 3 (9-12): Shows good relevant knowledge and explains a range of factors, reaching a supported judgement on how far the statement is accurate, with some links made between factors.
Level 4 (13-16): Shows precise, well-selected knowledge and explains a range of factors in a balanced way, reaching a fully supported and sustained judgement on how far the statement is accurate, with clear analytical links between factors and consistently accurate use of specialist historical terminology.
Indicative content:
- Supporting continuity: bloodletting, purging and herbal remedies, all based on the Theory of the Four Humours, continued to be widely used, and university medical training still centred on humoural theory.
- Supporting continuity: apothecaries and wise women continued to treat most people alongside physicians, much as in the medieval period, and government responses to epidemics such as the Great Plague still relied on the old idea of miasma.
- Against, showing change: new remedies from the wider world, such as cinchona bark for fevers, became available in Britain for the first time in this period.
- Against, showing change: surgical practice changed through Paré's reintroduction of ligatures in place of cauterisation for amputation, reducing unnecessary trauma and pain for patients.
- Against, showing change: the founding of the Royal Society in 1660 began to establish a new scientific approach, based on shared, tested evidence, that would in the long run transform medicine even if it had little immediate effect on treatment.
- A balanced judgement might conclude that day-to-day treatment for most people changed little in this period, but that the century saw the first seeds of the scientific approach, and some specific surgical and remedial changes, that would eventually transform medicine after this period.

Question 7

B1 1665 (accept 1665-66)
Answer: 1665

Question 8

B1 miasma (theory)
Answer: Miasma theory

Question 9

B1 identifies a valid measure, e.g. shutting up infected houses with the occupants inside
B1 supporting detail, e.g. for 40 days, with the door marked with a red cross and the words 'Lord have mercy upon us'; or watchmen were posted to guard shut-up houses; or fires were lit in the streets and sweet-smelling herbs burned to purify the air; or the killing of cats and dogs was ordered
Answer: Infected houses were shut up for 40 days, marked with a red cross, and watchmen were posted to guard them (any valid detailed measure).

Question 10

B1 the Royal Society
Answer: The Royal Society

Question 11

B1 Thomas Sydenham
Answer: Thomas Sydenham

Question 12

B1 cinchona bark (quinine); accept 'Jesuit's bark'
Answer: Cinchona bark (quinine)

Medicine in Britain, c1500-c1700: Treatment, Prevention and the Great Plague of 1665 - Worksheets, Questions and Revision

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1.4 Medicine in Britain, c1500-c1700: Treatment, Prevention and the Great Plague of 1665

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Question 12