Medicine in the

Middle Ages
Most medieval ideas about medicine
were based on those of the ancient
work, namely the work of Greek
physicians Galen (129–216 CE) and
Hippocrates (460–370 BCE). Their
ideas set out a theory of the human
body relating to the four elements
(earth, air, fire and water) and to four
bodily fluids (blood, phlegm, yellow
bile and black bile). It was believed
that health could be maintained or
restored by balancing the fluids, and
by regulating air, diet, exercise,
sleep, evacuation and emotion.
Doctors also often advised risky
invasive procedures like
bloodletting.
 Most people in Medieval times never saw a doctor. They
were treated by the local wise-woman who was skilled in
the use of herbs, or by the priest, or the barber, who pulled
out teeth, set broken bones and performed other
operations. Their cures were a mixture of superstition
(magic stones and charms were very popular), religion (for
example driving out evil spirits from people who were
mentally ill) and herbal remedies (some of which are still
used today). Monks and nuns also ran hospitals in their
monasteries, which took in the sick and dying.
 There were doctors too, of course - although
they treated only the rich. Some of these had
even received medical qualifications from the
first European medical school at Salerno in
Italy, or from those set up later at Bologna
(Italy) or Montpellier in France. Through
these medical schools, the doctors of Europe
began to learn about the ideas of Arabic and
ancient Greek medicine. Compared to the
knowledge of the Arabs, for example,
European medicine was not very advanced. A
Syrian writer of the time describes how an
Arab doctor and a European one argued
about how to treat and abscess, an infected
lump on a knight's leg. The Arab prepared a
dressing with ointment to open the lump and
draw out the infection. The European insisted
the only thing to do was to cut off the leg!
 One of the main ways in which a physician
would diagnose illness was by examining
stools, blood and especially urine: physicians
were often depicted in images holding a flask
of urine up to the light. Some medical treatises
contain illustrations showing urine in different
hues, thus aiding the physician in his
diagnosis.
 Another area of medical concern was how to treat wounds,
ruptures and lesions, in which the surgeon specialised. One
illustrated treatise demonstrates a procedure for a skull
fracture, which is accompanied by a narrative of Christ's life;
this juxtaposition may hint at the need for divine assistance
for both surgeon and patient. Although it is impossible to
determine the success rate of such interventions, the survival
of medieval skulls with bone that has knitted together after
the treatment of an injury demonstrates that even traumatic
head wounds were not always fatal.
 Doctors and barber-surgeons had plenty of
practice treating wounds and broken bones
because of the many wars of the time. They
knew how to set broken bones in plaster and
how to seal wounds using egg whites or old
wine to stop them getting infected. They knew
how to use alcohol or plants like mandragora to
send people to sleep or dull the pain of
operations. They could even remove diseased
parts of the body, for example the gall-bladder,
and deliver babies by Caesarean section (where
a cut is made and the baby is taken directly out
of the mother's womb).
 There were dentists in the Middle Ages too, called
dentatores, who had also learnt a great deal from Arab
specialists. They had files and forceps and many other
tools, and could remove decay, fill holes, strengthen
loose teeth with metal wires or even fit false teeth
made of ox-bone. Holes were thought to be caused by
small worms in the teeth. This isn't very different from
the modern idea about bacteria.
Still, only the rich could afford the services of the
dentatores. Anyone else with a loose or aching tooth
went to have it pulled out at a booth in the fair or
market, or by the barber.
 In medieval Europe, medicine generally
operated within the context of the Christian
Church. Hospitals which cared for the elderly
and the ill were often run by religious orders,
which could maintain infirmaries for their
own members and operate hospitals for
others. Where professional medicine could
not help, the faithful often turned to saints,
and visited saints' shrines in the hope of
miraculous cures. The windows of the Trinity
Chapel in Canterbury Cathedral, completed
c. 1220, show pilgrims suffering from illness,
injury and even insanity flocking to Thomas
Becket's shrine; in some scenes, physicians
with urine flasks turn away in despair, unable
to equal the healing power of the saint.
 The sick might also have turned to the
occult: the dividing line between magic
and medicine is not always obvious in
medieval sources, and many medical
practitioners used occult knowledge to
heal the sick either by natural means
(using, for example, herbs to treat or
prevent illness or ward off danger) or
using demonic magic, which attempted
to use diabolical forces to intervene
with human affairs.
There is no doubt, that the state of medicine in the Middle Ages
left a little chance for a person during complex injuries or
epidemics of infectious diseases. However, let us recall the
conditions of operation of soldiers during the First and Second
World Wars in the field, often without anesthesia and antiseptics.
Or we can recall the death among the civilian population from
dysentery, typhus, childbirth. This makes us wonder whether the
medicine of the early twentieth century was so strong for the
average person and really was differed from the treatment in the
"dark ages".

And what do you think?

Thank you!