By: Amanda Gutierrez

Personal Selected Reading

Science and Medicine in the Middle

Ages

Medicine in the Middle Ages

During the Middle

Ages, there was no

formal training to

become a physician.

“Certified” physicians

taught others how to

care for and heal the

ill.

Anyone who took care

of a sick person was

considered to be a

physician.

Medicine in the Middle Ages As time went on, there were

universities set in place for people to become properly trained doctors. Although, they were still ore based off practice and skill than studies. Elder doctors simply showed them how to practice.

There were four texts, written by a man named Galen, regarding education to become a physician. The first text talked about

the good and the bad schools of physicians

The second explained the heart

The third talked about the pulse

And the fourth text taught a student how to cure a fever

Medicine in the Middle Ages

Doctors began

studying and

experimenting with

herbal drugs: learning

how to use them, and

how to prescribe safe

dosages.

They did not have the

technologies to

develop chemical

drugs yet, so they

relied on herbal

medicines.

Medicine in the Middle Ages Women were always the

traditional mid-wives to aid there daughters, sisters, and cousins through the process of giving birth.

Because the women were around medical practices such as those, their fathers (who were doctors) thought it was appropriate to teach them their practice to carry on the family business.

Women were soon involved in a lot more than just being mid-wives.

Medicine in the Middle Ages Learning more about the

human body was almost impossible without knowing what was inside.

Previously, anatomical studies were always done with animals, but a man named Mondino de’ Luzzi took it upon himself to write the first in-depth text on the human body. He wrote the text from his

experience of performing an autopsy on two deceased pregnant women. This was one of the first medical autopsies performed on a human body.

Medicine in the Middle Ages The Plague broke out, and

physicians couldn’t understand the concept of infection.

They determined that people were becoming sick in increasing numbers because of the way Jupiter and Saturn were aligned. Astronomy played a role in

life in the Middle Ages, and doctors thought that some gas released from the planets, because of the way they were positioned, was seeping through out atmosphere and getting through the skin of the infected humans. People of this time had no idea why this disease was spreading so rapidly.

Sources

Lindberg, David C. Science in the Middle Ages.

Chicago: University of Chicago, 1978. Print.

I got this book from an Orange County Public

Library in Rancho Santa Margarita.