Ages 7 to 14 years. Medicine was a mysterious art in the Middle Ages and had not yet benefited from the scientific discoveries we take for granted today. This astonishing new book illustrates how death and incurable disease were considered a common part of medieval life. Young readers will be fascinated by the history of the Black Death, or the Plague, which killed millions of people in Europe, and why medical treatments in the Middle Ages were often worse than the disease. Topics include: a timeline of medical changes through the Middle Ages; common medieval diseases and their causes, such as smallpox, tuberculosis, diphtheria, and leprosy; "The Back Plague" and the modern explanation for it; the Four Humors; operations and treatments such as bloodletting, cupping, cauterising; medicine makers such as apothecaries and housewives; famous doctors such as Hippocrates, Galen, Rhazes and Avicenna; women's place in medicine.