Did Medieval People Know About Germs? - Video

This video is about how people in the Middle Ages understood sickness and disease. They didn’t know about germs, so they believed illnesses were caused by imbalances in four body fluids called “humors”, by breathing “bad air” called miasma, or as punishment from God. Doctors tried to fix imbalances through things like bloodletting, and people carried sweet smells to ward off bad air. Life was generally less hygienic than today, with dirty cities and limited understanding of clean water, and people didn’t live as long as we do now. They had explanations for why people got sick, even if those explanations seem strange to us today.