The Church

• Help Medical Progress

  • Christian duty to car for the sick and the poor.
  • Church set up 160 hospitals, many attached to monasteries. Nuns fed the sick and gave them herbal remedies.
  • Church established university schools to train doctors.
  • Monks copied Galen's books. University schools and monasteries helped old medical texts to survive.
  • Crusades came into contact with Muslim doctors, who were more skilled than those in Britain.
• Hinder Medical Progress

  • Church disapproved of dissection.
  • Church approved Galen's work. Church arrested several physicians for criticising Galen.
  • Church controlled spread of medical writings. If writings didn't fit with views, were banned.
  • Church encouraged people to rely on prayers to saints and God and use superstition to cure disease.
  • No doctors in hospitals, only Priests would pray for the ill. Mass seven times each day.
  • Hospitals relied on charity, funding from Church or wealthy patrons. Usually limited to 12 patients.
  • Controlled training of doctors at Cambridge and Oxford.