The poor were often better off when it came to medical care during this time period because they could not afford the costly and detrimental procedures that physicians used at this time. The rich may have had access to these procedures, but most of them were more dangerous than beneficial. For example, many physicians considered bloodletting the cure all for any disease, but actually bloodletting could lead to death by contamination, infection, or loss of too much blood. They believed that bloodletting relieved their bodies of toxic poisons and prevented fluid build ups like bumps in the black plague. Apothecaries sold herbal medicines to the rich which could have adverse effects. The rich patients could overdose on the drugs, like with
