Medicine and Religion in the Middle Ages

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 by religion during the Middle Ages, because religion was a big part of society at the time and therefore many cures and remedies were based around people’s natural beliefs. Also, Galen was a popular doctor who influenced medicine during the Middle Ages because his ideas followed the ways of the Church.

As religion was a very important part of society during the Middle Ages people tried to cure the sick, however many people looked for cures based on their religious beliefs for example praying to God, because of this religion hindered medical progress and therefore health as people stopped looking for natural remedies and looked for more supernatural cures. They even had days set for fasting and praying in hope God would wipe away their sins and therefore cure them from illness. Also, as the church was in control during the Middle Ages, they chose what people learnt and they controlled what happened at university. As the Church believed in Galen’s ideas as Galen said the human body was designed by one person - God everyone had to follow Galen’s ideas, therefore there was no progress in medicine because people were not allowed to go against Galen.

However, the Christian religion and Islamic religion taught people they had to treat the sick, therefore religion did partly help progress medicine and health during the Middle Ages especially in Arab countries. In the Islamic religion people were told to help the ill and Arab rulers believed in it was important to develop education, as a result people moved away from Galen and looked for their own, natural cures and to help the sick, they built hospitals which were famous for the care they gave patients. Also, the Arab doctors shared their knowledge by writing medical encyclopaedias which organised their medical knowledge and allowed other to learn from them. Al-Razi and Ibn Sina were two of the Arab doctors that improved medicine and health by using methods of both Galen and Hippocrates as well as their own. They encouraged people to look passed Galen and to search for new methods to improve health and treat the sick as their religion states. Therefore, religion had positive impacts on medicine and health in Arab countries.

Medicine and health was largely impacted by religion during the Middle Ages, however it did not help everyone as in European countries it hindered medical advances but in Arab countries it did help medicine.