Illness, disease and plagues were a gloomy part of everyday life in the Middle Ages. Living conditions for both the rich and poor were very unsanitary and life expectancy was very low. Leprosy and syphilis were two common diseases that plagued daily life. How did they handle treating disease, centuries before penicillin was invented? A single woman’s body found in Dixon’s Lane in York is going to help Malin Holst find some answers. Medieval approaches to disease may actually have been a little more advanced than we might think.