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Medicine Through TimeExam Focus

Exam Technique: The Black Death as a Turning Point?

Part of The Black Death — GCSE History

This exam focus covers Exam Technique: The Black Death as a Turning Point? within The Black Death for GCSE History. Revise The Black Death in Medicine Through Time for GCSE History with 8 exam-style questions and 5 flashcards. This topic appears regularly enough that it should still be part of a steady revision cycle. It is section 5 of 11 in this topic. Treat this as a marking guide for what examiners are looking for, not just a fact list.

Topic position

Section 5 of 11

Practice

8 questions

Recall

5 flashcards

📝 Exam Technique: The Black Death as a Turning Point?

For significance questions: Did the Black Death change medicine? The answer is complex:

  • YES (short-term changes): Some doctors started questioning Galen (his cures didn't work); some began recording symptoms more carefully
  • NO (continuity): Same theories (miasma, humours, God) used to explain later plagues; Church still controlled medical education
  • SOCIAL change: Labour shortages → peasants demanded higher wages → contributed to Peasants' Revolt 1381
  • Conclusion: Black Death exposed the failure of medieval medicine but didn't immediately change it — that took the Renaissance

    • Keep building this topic

    Read this section alongside the surrounding pages in The Black Death. That gives you the full topic sequence instead of a single isolated revision point.

    Key StatisticsWhy Did This Happen?Setting the SceneWhat Did People Believe Caused It?

    Practice Questions for The Black Death

    In which year did the Black Death first arrive in England?

    • A. 1337
    • B. 1348
    • C. 1381
    • D. 1400
    1 markfoundation

    What were 'buboes', which gave the bubonic plague its name?

    • A. Painful swellings in the armpits and groin caused by infected lymph nodes
    • B. Black patches on the skin caused by internal bleeding under the surface
    • C. Blisters filled with fluid that appeared on the chest and back
    • D. Swollen and blackened fingertips caused by the blood turning bad
    1 markfoundation

    Quick Recall Flashcards

    When did the Black Death arrive in England?
    1348 (lasted until about 1350)
    What caused the Black Death? (actual cause)
    Yersinia pestis bacteria, spread by fleas on rats

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    Why Did This Happen?