Medieval Vs Dark Ages Essay

In this essay I will be looking at the different aspects of medicine in the Middle Ages and accessing how the church helped or hindered their development. As there was a lot of unrest at the start of the middle Ages the church is important because it preserved a lot of things. It also provided a way of life, so it was very influential.

In Elizabethan times many deadly diseases had spread such as the plague, smallpox and typhoid, but the causes and cures had yet to be discovered. Due to bad hygiene because of open sewers and rubbish dumped in the river, this caused disease to easily spread as it was a natural habitat for rats, fleas and lice. The plague was carried by the fleas living in the fur of rats. As a result of this one third of the population died. Elizabethan physicians believed that medicine was basic, they had no idea why and how people were getting so sick, treatments were based from superstitions and guesses so they used a mixture of herbs for cures and also believed leeches would ‘suck

During the Middle Ages, medical knowledge was severely limited. People did not understand things like germs and how diseases are spread from person to person. To the Medieval man,

Christianity played a huge part in the medicine of Europe at that time (the reason flagellation was used), so prayer itself was also a common cure-all, along with holy artefacts and other holy things. People were also not permitted to perform dissection on cadavers, making it difficult if not impossible for medicine to progress. This meant that it stayed

Another prominent Greek physician who influenced on Roman medicine was Claudius Galen Galen moved to Rome in 162 AD and established many beliefs such as ; four humors or four fluids: blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile. He recommended special diets that welcomed to help in the “cleansing the putrefied juices”. Methods slice purging bloodletting, were often used. While in Rome, Galen was a physician to the emperor he was to clean and to treat wounded gladiators. He believed it was a great opportunity to learn more about human anatomy.

At this time there was no physician-patient relationship, this being due to the fact that physicians were there to treat the body and the general view was that patients were unable to provide accurate evidence without “feelings and emotions” getting in the way. This Era at the bottom line was about facts, evidence and physical direct ailments. The nursing profession was just starting to be developed in this Era. The “nurses” of this time were family members, nuns, priests, neighbors who were all untrained. The start of some of the founding nurses were seen such as Florence Nightingale. She started to look at sanitary conditions and nutrition, some might say she was the original nurse. Her contribution the start of nursing is very significant. She trained some of the first nurses during the Crimean War and with her training she was able to statistically show how sanitary conditions, cleanliness and nutrition were able to significantly decrease the death rate of Crimean soldiers. In Era I physicians really only took care of one part of the “human”, because as humans we are a composition of the physical, mental and soul. Those three parts are what give us humanity and higher thinking. So Era I does not create a fully encompassing view of medicine.

Although medicine today is comparatively more advanced, that is a more recent change than one would like to think. For instance, not even 150 years ago, “Hippocrates and Galen would have recognized and largely agreed with most medical practices.” Barry addresses this topic of medical advancement at the beginning of his book by producing a well researched, albeit a little too long, history of western medicine. He provides examples of how medicine evolved from the teachings of Hippocrates, Galen, and Vesalius to a more “modern” form of medicine. This was done in order to explain how prepared the medical community was in the face of this impending virus. Unlike the other epidemics, the people of the early 19-century should have been prepared to face the influenza with all of their exciting and new medical equipment and practices, but there was something in their way of advancement—universities.

Doctors based most anatomical descriptions on the work of Galen and Hippocrates, as cutting into and exploring a dead body was strictly prohibited by the Catholic church. Doctors estimated that perhaps the health of a person relied on their sleep, exercise, diet, air intake and emotions, as well as the position of the stars. Unfortunately for peasants, doctors were hard to find. Most medical advice for the lower classes came from the elders with folk traditions. Alternatively, the towns people would turn to the local church and pray the illness away. The spread of disease was sped up by the lack of knowledge of germs, meaning going to the church to pray away the disease made the spread of it much more serious.

There were no medical schools at all and very few physicians in Western Europe. Those who studied the human body or any kind of medicine were members of the Church. Even then, if the human body was studied, dissection was not allowed. “Furthermore, because the human body was held sacred, dissection was prohibited and this meant that the sciences of anatomy and physiology, which are the bedrock of all medical knowledge, could not be studied in a practical manner” (Bishop 58). Going deeper into the natural causes of disease was discouraged as well, even when one of the first principles of Christianity was healing the sick. Instead of physicians curing people, churches dedicated shrines to saints that were associated with the healing arts. “A patron saint was usually regarded as having power to relieve affections of a particular organ or part of the body” (Bishop 58). Practices of surgery were forbidden to priests; any practice of surgery therefore was left into the hands of barbers and uneducated men. However, there were surgeons who attended the noble and royal. This surgery that was attempted was meddlesome in the Middle Ages. “The progress of surgery was long retarded by the belief that suppuration was an essential process in the healing of wounds” (Bishop 60). Suppuration is discharged waste from a wound. There were messy and obnoxious antidotes for treating a wound and the wound was kept open artificially (Bishop 60). Another way wounds were treated was the use of ligature by the Greeks to control haemorrhage. Ligature is the binding of a wound. Ligature was abandoned because of the later surgeons and the use of cauterization. However these methods were only used in time of dire need and the surgeons usually did not want to use any brutal methods; the surgeons wanted to stick with a simple dressing of the wound. After some

Medicine and anatomy changed a great deal since the time of ancient Greeks to the time of Newton. In ancient Greece medicine was governed by the ideas of Hippocrates of Cos. Hippocrates findings are considered to be the birth of medicine in the western world. His ideas were that disease was not the cause of bad divine influence but rather from natural causation. At first this idea was created to bring in students to his medical school by stating that doctors before him were magicians and that he was a true medical expert (Fara, 32).

The logic and principles of medieval medicine shaped those of Modern medicine. Never was there a more efficient method perfected, so much that it remained through history through so many hundreds of years. Today’s concepts of diagnosis, relationships with the church, anatomy, surgery, hospitals and training, and public health were established in the Middle Ages.

Imagine having to bury your own children. How awful would that be? The Middle Ages were a brutal time that included the bubonic plague, many wars and other horrible things. This period is considered to be one of religion and the Catholic Church, but this was overshadowed by chaos and confusion. Although the Middle Ages is often known as the age of faith, a more appropriate title for the time period would be The Dark Ages because of the black death, wars and the collapse of government.

Many ancient civilizations, such as the Romans, Greeks, and Egyptians, pushed medical knowledge forward until the Middle Ages, when medical knowledge was believed to have slowed down. However, that is not the case. The Middle Ages were a time of change and improvement, they shaped the modern world. The Middle Ages revolutionized medical practices, physicians linked filth to the spread of disease, many practical diagnoses and treatments for common illnesses were discovered, and medical training programs in universities became well established.

The Muslims made much significant advancement in the medical field. The rulers of the Muslim Empire encouraged this research in the medical field. They wanted people who knew about diseases and medical procedures treating them were they were ill. This made the Muslims much more advanced and knowledgeable in medicine than other parts of the world. In fact, Muslim cities boasted some of the best hospitals in the world. One reason they were so efficient is that doctors and pharmacists were required to complete a specific course of study and pass a formal examination before being able o practice medicine. However, this knowledge was not exclusive to the Muslim Empire, but rather it was translated into Latin and was used in European schools. The spread of this knowledge made Europe significantly more knowledgeable regarding diseases and medical procedures than they were prior to them receiving this information. In addition to advancements in the medical field, other scientific advancements were made. The created the practice of the experiment as well as a method of classification into three distinct categories: animal, vegetable, or mineral.

The bio-medical model of ill health has been at the forefront of western medicine since the end of the eighteenth century and grew stronger with the progress in modern science. This model underpinned the medical training of doctors. Traditionally medicine had relied on folk remedies passed down from generations and ill health was surrounded in superstition and religious lore with sin and evil spirits as the culprit and root of ill health. The emergence of scientific thinking questioned the traditional religious view of the world and is linked to the progress in medical practice and the rise of the biomedical model. Social and historical events and circumstances were an important factor in its development as explanations about disease