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Medieval Vs Dark Ages Essay

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Before the years of the Medieval or Dark Ages, medicine and the study of human anatomy was at an all time high with physicians like Galen who discovered much about what the human body was and what diseases were. By 750 AD, the progress in the medical field came to almost a complete stand-still due to the lack of ideas going around and no way of learning. During the Dark Ages, no one knew exactly who illnesses happened, or why, and it was like that for over three hundred years, no fresh ideas coming up until the Renaissance took over. The Church heavily influenced the way medical care was taken, and most scholars depended on Galen and a few famous physicians’ work. Most studies of medicine took place in the churches of Italy, Germany, France, and England. In his article, “Medicine Before the Plague”, Bullough, Vern L mentions that most studies were in Latin, the…show more content…
Most people based their medical care off of what Galen had discovered in his studies, using the four humours and four elements (Early Medieval Medicine in Europe, Neil Schlager and Josh Lauer). The four humours- blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile- were examined to diagnose what could be going on with the individual. The four elements were used to describe as to why it was happening. Galen believed that illnesses were an imbalance between the elements and humours, causing one to fall ill when they were thrown out of balance (Early Medieval Medicine in Europe, Neil Schlager and Josh Lauer). For simple remedies, the people referenced the Lorch Book of Medicine and the Leech Book of Bald. Midwives were probably the most educated when it came to being a basic person in the population. They were used to assist with childbirth, infant death, and any topic related to a woman’s health. This gave them more knowledge as to what to do, some even came up with their own remedies out of
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