Answer ALL questions. Write in full sentences for Questions 15, 16 and 17. You are advised to spend about 65 minutes on this pack.
1
Name the French army surgeon who, in 1537, began using a soothing ointment instead of boiling oil to treat gunshot wounds.
(Total for Question 1 is 1 mark)
2
State the method Paré reintroduced for stopping bleeding after amputation, instead of using a hot iron to cauterise the wound.
(Total for Question 2 is 2 marks)
3
Give the year in which the Great Plague struck London.
(Total for Question 3 is 1 mark)
4
Name the theory, still widely believed in the seventeenth century, that bad-smelling air explained why the Great Plague spread.
(Total for Question 4 is 1 mark)
5
State one action the authorities in London took to try to prevent the spread of the Great Plague.
(Total for Question 5 is 2 marks)
6
Give the approximate number of people estimated to have died in London during the Great Plague of 1665.
(Total for Question 6 is 1 mark)
7
Name the scientific institution founded in London in 1660 that encouraged doctors and scientists to share experimental findings.
(Total for Question 7 is 1 mark)
8
Name the English physician, known as 'the English Hippocrates', who argued that diseases should be observed and classified by their symptoms.
(Total for Question 8 is 1 mark)
9
Name the plant-based remedy, imported from South America, that was used to treat fevers such as malaria in this period.
(Total for Question 9 is 1 mark)
10
State one way in which treatment of illness in the years c1500-1700 remained similar to treatment in the medieval period.
(Total for Question 10 is 2 marks)
11
Name the London parish records, kept since Tudor times, that recorded the weekly number of burials, including deaths from plague.
(Total for Question 11 is 1 mark)
12
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 12 is 2 marks)
13
Describe two measures the authorities in London took to try to control the spread of the Great Plague of 1665.
(Total for Question 13 is 4 marks)
14
Explain two ways in which medical treatment in the years c1500-1700 showed continuity with medieval treatment.
(Total for Question 14 is 4 marks)
15
Explain why the authorities' response to the Great Plague of 1665 was not effective in stopping its spread.
(Total for Question 15 is 8 marks)
16
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 16 is 8 marks)
17
'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 17 is 16 marks)
Mark scheme · EDX.MED2 Medicine in Britain, c1500-c1700: Treatment, Prevention and the Great Plague of 1665
Question 1
B1 Ambroise Paré
Answer: Ambroise Paré
Question 2
B1 ligatures
B1 tying silk thread around the blood vessel to seal it, rather than burning it closed with a hot iron
Answer: Ligatures: tying silk thread around the blood vessel to seal it, instead of cauterising with a hot iron.
Question 3
B1 1665 (accept 1665-66)
Answer: 1665
Question 4
B1 miasma (theory)
Answer: Miasma theory
Question 5
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 6
B1 an estimated 100,000 (accept a reasonable range such as 70,000-100,000)
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 11
B1 the Bills of Mortality
Answer: The Bills of Mortality
Question 12
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 13
B2 infected houses were shut up for 40 days with the occupants inside, marked with a red cross and the words 'Lord have mercy upon us', and watchmen were posted to stop anyone leaving
B2 the authorities ordered fires to be lit in the streets and sweet-smelling substances burned to purify the 'bad air' believed to spread the disease, and public gatherings such as plays were banned
Answer: Shutting up infected houses for 40 days with watchmen posted, and burning fires/herbs to purify the air while banning public gatherings.
Question 14
B2 bloodletting and purging, based on humoural theory, continued to be widely used to try to restore a balance of the four humours
B2 apothecaries and wise women continued to treat patients alongside university-trained physicians, using herbal remedies as they had in the medieval period
Answer: Bloodletting/purging continued, based on humoural theory, and apothecaries and wise women continued to provide herbal treatment alongside physicians.
Question 15
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 16
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 17
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.