Medieval first aid name?

[ravenfish]

It doesn't help that the skill Physician is rather awkwardly named, corresponding less with the profession of physician and more with nursing- which of course has been practiced since TL0, albeit often without formal training until fairly recently.

[Plane]

"Leech" is one term apparently: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/leech#English:_physician

Fisicient too: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fisicien#Old_French

I could've sworn there was something like "physikker" but I can't find it. I think it was in some medieval period movie from 2005-2015

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by ravenfish

It doesn't help that the skill Physician is rather awkwardly named, corresponding less with the profession of physician and more with nursing- which of course has been practiced since TL0, albeit often without formal training until fairly recently.

Where's the like button? This is so true. Somewhat stick that on the 5E ticktock: rename physician to nurse or something more representative.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Where's the like button? This is so true. Somewhat stick that on the 5E ticktock: rename physician to nurse or something more representative.

Doesn't particularly help - Physician was a fine generic word too until quite recently. In fact I think it still is in most jurisdictions. Until the 19th or early 20th century the only widely protected title was Doctor, and around then Nurse joined it - yeah, we still use it for other things and it's only protected when coupled with an adjective like Registered or Licenced, but still if you call yourself a "nurse" and apply a band aid to somebody in a public setting, you may very well get into legal trouble unless you have a license of some sort. Some jurisdictions do also restrict the use of Physician, but it is much less universal.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Paracelsus is commonly credited with its first print expression in 1536. Given that he also more or less invented toxicology, was a big proponent of scientific observation of patients, the concept of specifics, and was responsible for the popularization of some of the first effective ones (such as opium and mercury) in European medicine, he's probably a better breakpoint for the appearance of scientific medicine than Pasteur.

This would be true if "Paracelsism" had become the dominant school of medical thought and his methods had been rigorously applied. Instead, his methods got lumped in with all misinterpretations of Galen, Hippocrates, Avicenna, etc. that were current medical practice in the Renaissance and Early Modern eras.

This was the era when the concept of laudable pus during wound healing was not just considered acceptable but desirable. Even 300 years after Paracelsus's work, doctors were routinely poisoning their patients with massive doses of mercury salts.

Pasteur is one of the most famous researchers, but there was a critical mass of other scientists in the mid-19th century who were finally able to dispel (most of) the mistaken medical notions of the previous millennium with hard scientific proof. That led to a huge fight over who could legally call themselves a physician and accreditation of medical schools in the late 19th century, with homeopaths, hydropaths, herbalists, and other practitioners of "alternative medicine" getting pushed aside.