How Successfully Can We Measure Medical Progress in the Middle Ages
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- Category: History
- Date Submitted: 03/13/2011 04:56 PM
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How successfully can we measure medical progress in the middle ages.
The middle ages were a period from the collapse of the Roman Empire to about 1400AD. The development of medicine both progressed and regressed and contributed prominently to historic events. Throughout this period, significant individuals arose and authorities and religions gained and lost power. Both the European and the Islamic world contributed to this. Due to Bad emperors, war, disunity and economic decline causing the fall of the Roman Empire, this impacted greatly on medicine. This period was controversially called the “Dark Ages”
In the ‘Dark ages’, the education of doctors and the development of public health systems were disrupted. In Europe, the training of doctors was abandoned. This was mainly because amidst the war, copies of most important medical books, such as Galen’s work, was destroyed, lost or hidden away for safe keeping. Surviving medical knowledge was mainly in the Muslim cities of the Middle East. Moreover, the new ‘barbarian’ rulers were vastly illiterate and uneducated and did not consider the education of doctors meaningful. Therefore, the only way in which people could to some extent be treated was to rely on ‘folk medicine’ which comprised of some herbal remedies but mainly superstitious treatment which was predominantly passed down by oral tradition. The individuals who supplied these treatments were the closest thing to a doctor in the ‘Dark Ages’. This overall change was a regress in Europe in the terms of the education of doctors. Things only started to progress after about 400 years later. Medical schools were starting to be set up in universities around the twelfth century. The oldest medical school in a university in Europe was founded in Salerno in 900AD. Other medical schools started to become popular like the Montpellier in France in 1200AD or Bongolia in Northern Italy. An early medical school was established in Salerno in south Italy which taught that...
The middle ages were a period from the collapse of the Roman Empire to about 1400AD. The development of medicine both progressed and regressed and contributed prominently to historic events. Throughout this period, significant individuals arose and authorities and religions gained and lost power. Both the European and the Islamic world contributed to this. Due to Bad emperors, war, disunity and economic decline causing the fall of the Roman Empire, this impacted greatly on medicine. This period was controversially called the “Dark Ages”
In the ‘Dark ages’, the education of doctors and the development of public health systems were disrupted. In Europe, the training of doctors was abandoned. This was mainly because amidst the war, copies of most important medical books, such as Galen’s work, was destroyed, lost or hidden away for safe keeping. Surviving medical knowledge was mainly in the Muslim cities of the Middle East. Moreover, the new ‘barbarian’ rulers were vastly illiterate and uneducated and did not consider the education of doctors meaningful. Therefore, the only way in which people could to some extent be treated was to rely on ‘folk medicine’ which comprised of some herbal remedies but mainly superstitious treatment which was predominantly passed down by oral tradition. The individuals who supplied these treatments were the closest thing to a doctor in the ‘Dark Ages’. This overall change was a regress in Europe in the terms of the education of doctors. Things only started to progress after about 400 years later. Medical schools were starting to be set up in universities around the twelfth century. The oldest medical school in a university in Europe was founded in Salerno in 900AD. Other medical schools started to become popular like the Montpellier in France in 1200AD or Bongolia in Northern Italy. An early medical school was established in Salerno in south Italy which taught that...