The Middle Ages was a grim time to be poorly. In the 1350s, the average life expectancy was perhaps 30-35. Infant mortality was extremely high where 1 in 5 children died before their first birthday and many women died in childbirth.

People died from simple injuries, diseases such as leprosy (a disease affecting parts of the body and the nervous system) and smallpox (a viral disease with fever and sores) and various fevers. Nearly a thousand years after the fall of Rome, medicine in Europe had regressed and returned to a more primitive outlook. Treatments continued to be a mixture of herbal remedies, bleeding and purging, and supernatural ideas.