GCSE History Revision List 2027

Explain one way in which ideas about the cause of disease in medieval Britain, c1250-c1500, were different from ideas about the cause of disease in Britain today.

1. Identify one precise difference rather than a vague one: medieval people explained illness mainly through supernatural causes and the Theory of the Four Humours, while modern medicine explains illness through germ theory and genetics.
2. Support the medieval side with a specific detail: physicians believed illness came from an imbalance of the four humours (blood, phlegm, black bile, yellow bile), sometimes worsened by God's punishment for sin or an unfavourable position of the planets.
3. Support the modern side with a specific detail: today, illness is explained by identified causes such as bacteria, viruses or inherited genetic conditions, diagnosed using evidence such as blood tests or scans rather than urine charts or astrology.
4. Make the contrast explicit in a single sentence so the examiner can see the comparison clearly: unlike today's evidence-based, scientifically tested explanations, medieval explanations rested on inherited classical authority and religious belief that were rarely tested or challenged.

Name the four humours in Galen's theory.

Blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile.