Medicine and Religion in the Middle Ages

Authors Avatar by khadijasheikh2021gmailcom (student)


The Middle Ages was a time of religious superstition and disease

. Briefly describe the work of surgeons in the Middle Ages.

Surgeons during the middle ages were involved in bleeding and cauterizing wounds. They carried out minor operations and trephining, as well as removing tumours. Also, they were responsible to deal with battlefield operations and bone splits.

. Explain why the people in the fourteenth century were unable to prevent the spread of the Black Death?

In the fourteenth century, the Black Death was a common disease. Physicians and surgeons were following both Galen and Hippocrates’ ideas which had no effect because neither of the two knew about the cause of disease being germs. This hindered progress in medicine and therefore the Black Death spread quickly throughout the fourteenth century.

Also, people in the fourteenth century depended on religion for cures as they believed God caused disease. This also hindered medicine because people stopped looking for natural cures or causes, therefore instead of giving the people who had the Black Death treatments they would pray for them. They also had a national praying day, where everyone prayed and fasted in hope that God would forgive their sins and so the people would be cured, however this had no effect and stopped the people from looking for new cures.
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The physicians and doctors of the fourteenth century did not clean themselves, so germs continued to stay on them as they treated other patients. This was because they did not know about germs and therefore did not know this spread disease, however this had disastrous affects because those who treated the sick spread their germs, causing more people to get the Black Death, resulting in an increase in death rate.

. ‘Medicine and health was greatly helped by religion during the Middle Ages.’ How far do you agree? Explain your answer.

Medicine and health was impacted ...

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