Medical progress

• What were Christian ideas about health and medicine?

  • The Christian Church believed in following the example of Jesus, who healed the the sick
  • For this reason, Christians believed that it was good to look after the sick, and so they founded many hospitals
  • However, there was a strong belief that illnesses came from God, and curing an illness would be a challenge to God who had sent it as a punishment or a test of faith
  • So, it was important to care for the patient, not necessarily cure them
  • Prayers to God were therefore the most important treatment
• What were Christian ideas about health and medicine? pt.2

  • The Church also encouraged the belief in miraculous healing
  • There were many shrines filled with relics of the bones, hair and other body parts of a holy person
  • These shrines were places that people made pilgrimage to, for help with their illnesses, such as the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury
  • While the Church valued prayers, it also respected the traditional medical knowledge of the Ancient World because it thought Hippocratic and Galenic ideas were correct
  • Monks preserved and studied these ideas; they copied out the books by hand, as well as traditional medical books like Pliny's Natural History, which was an encyclopedia of everyday family remedies
• How did Christians treat the sick?

  • Between 1000 and 1500, more than 700 hospitals were started in England
  • Many hospitals were centres of rest where sick people might recover in quiet and clean surroundings
  • Some were small, with enough space for only 12 patients (the same number as Jesus had disciples)
  • Many hospitals did not have doctors but a chaplain (a priest), and were run by monks or nuns to a strict pattern of diet and prayer
  • Hospitals depended on charity for money, and were mainly financed by the Christian Church or by a wealthy patron
  • There were several different types of hospitals; for example, there were hospitals or asylums for the mentally ill, such as Bedlam in London
  • Monasteries had infirmaries that could provide free treatment to the sick and the poor
  • There were a few large hospitals, such as St Leonard's in York