Medicine and Remedies During the Middle Ages

Medicine and remedies during the Middle Ages inherited a medical tradition from the ancient world, especially from the Greek tradition as well as from treatises written during the Roman Empire. In modern standards, they were extremely limited, as physicians possessed little knowledge about the etiology of certain illnesses and lacked advanced medical tools to treat patients. Poor observation and incorrect diagnoses formed the bedrock for the theory of humors, or bodily fluids, as the primary explanation for health problems during the medieval era (Cameron 159). Surgery remained a dangerous and often life-threatening activity, which further revealed the efficacy of medieval medicine. (Campbell 39). Nonetheless, the majority of remedies prescribed by medieval physicians emerged in the form of plants and herbal remedies (Medieval Medicine). Moreover, various social factors such as religion and women impacted and developed medieval medicine and figured prominently in medical discourses. Although largely ineffective and absurd by current medical standards, medicine and remedies during the medieval, shaped by contemporary notions of gender and religious beliefs and authorities, set the foundation for modern medicine.

Medical writings and ideas from the Greek and Roman tradition profoundly influenced medicine during the medieval era, although the inherited ideas often led to poor diagnoses and faulty medical treatment. Galen, a prominent physician from antiquity, wrote a medical treatise that synthesized all of the Greek medical traditions and served as the basis for medicine during the medieval period (Siraisi 4). While he did not include the idea of blood circulation, he attempted to delineate the various functions taking place in the human body, such as breathing (Medieval Medicine). Moreover, the humor theory, which "arose out of Hellenic philosophy in an attempt to relate all things to universal laws," formed the fundamental principles of medieval medicine (Cameron 159). Balancing the four humors--black bile, phlegm, cholera, and blood--became vital to the health and well-being of the human body. People could attain a balance through medicine, proper diet, and the practice of bloodletting. Physicians and healers most commonly administered herbal remedies in order to balance a person's humors and cure their ailments. Each humor was associated with certain properties such as dry, wet, cold, and hot, and certain plants or foods with similar properties provided a remedy when a person's humors did not balance (Cadden 17). Thus, Galen's compendium of medical knowledge and theories provided the foundation for medical practices during the medieval era.

Following in the medical traditions from antiquity, medical healing and practices during the medieval era reveal a lack of real medical knowledge and capabilities by modern standards. Physicians often did not provide a complete diagnosis when they inspected the patient. They customarily inspected a patient's urine, feces and blood and took their pulse, although they usually did not perform all three tasks. The properties of a patient's blood, urine, and feces accounted for the balance of the humors in their body. Doctors would diagnose disease based on a patient's narrative or written account about the illness and colleagues' writings rather than through meticulous observation of the patient's symptoms (Medieval Medicine). They looked to leech books to decide what treatment or remedies to give the patient (Siraisi 10). Moreover, the practice of bloodletting, or phlebotomy, as treatment figures prominently in medieval medicine to balance a person's humors, although it eventually proved ineffective. Medieval physicians viewed phlebotomy as a type of surgery because they believed that every organ in the human body had its own particular vein (Cameron 165). Physicians mostly performed bloodletting in surgery, although sometimes they used leeches to suck the blood out of patients (Siraisi 140). Although embraced as a sound medical treatment, bloodletting posed great dangers such as weakened immunity in an already sick person, infection, punctured nerves, and lost consciousness. Thus, phlebotomy ironically usually resulted in exacerbated sickness or death of a patient (Medieval Medicine). Besides bloodletting procedures, physicians rarely performed surgery because safe anesthesia methods did not exist until much later. Sometimes physicians would give patients deadly potions in order to reduce pain or induce sleep (Campbell 39-40). Thus, medical practices in the diagnosis, treatment, and distribution of certain medicines or herbs as a remedy reveals that academic medicine was in its infancy during the medieval era. By modern standards, it appeared antiquated and undeveloped.

Beyond general medical practices, medieval medicine became defined by various social aspects, as gender and religion played a prominent role in medical practices and discourses. Deep conviction in God directly affected medical decisions about the health and treatment of a patient. In Greek antiquity, both religious and secular forms of healing took place side by side, but the deep conviction in Christianity during the medieval era altered this relationship between religious and secular healing. Furthermore, monasteries became a center for religious healing as well as a place to learn about medicine and medical practices (Siraisi 7). Christian beliefs in the early medieval era played a large role regarding medicine and remedies for the ill. When physicians failed to cure an illness, often times people turned to miracles for healing. Prayer became the primary source for a miraculous cure. Another source of miraculous healing was anointing the sick with oil, a practice adopted from the Bible in which the oil promoted human health (Medieval Medicine). In the later part of the medieval era, the Catholic Church governed academic medicine, medical practices, and the medicines and remedies administered to patients. Christian versions of herbal remedies replaced previous folk ones, and healers who were not formally educated often faced harsh punishment (Medieval Medicine). Sickness and poor health became viewed as a punishment for one's sins, revealing that religion largely shaped medical ethics during this epoch. Despite touting God's benevolence, the Catholic Church did not believe in public health, which posed many problems because clergy members constituted the majority of medieval physicians. The hospital as the central medical institution did not figure prominently during the medieval era until the church embraced the notion of xenodochia, our almshouses for the sick and the poor, which evolved into the hospital during the twelfth century (Kealy 82). Both Christian beliefs and the Catholic Church greatly affected medical beliefs and medical practices, which is why medieval medicine and remedies greatly contrast with modern medicine.

Just as religious beliefs and the Catholic Church shaped medical ideas and practices during the medieval era, women and salient gender discourses about gender different exerted profound influences during an epoch when academic medicine faced much uncertainty. Women participated in the medical field just as much as their male counterparts, although once medical universities formed they were excluded from higher education in the medical field (Siraisi 27). They practiced medicine as a nurse, midwife, or practitioner. Some prominent female doctors such as Hildegard of Bingen also helped develop medicine during the medieval era (Cadden 84). Moreover, female saints retained a significant role as miraculous healers for the sick when physicians and other remedies failed to do so. Female saints such Catherine of Sienna combined healing with feeding (Bynum 170). Finally, various discourses about gender often resulted in ambiguous medical treatment for medieval women and men. In her Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages, Joan Cadden engages the medical and scientific aspects of medieval views of sexuality to situate various discourses within a wider cultural context (Cadden 231). Women received different medical treatment then men, and scientific and medical discourses prevalent during the time period reveal that "a cluster of gender-related notions" regarding sex difference underlay physicians' medical decisions (9). Thus, gender and medical discourses about gender played a role in medicine and remedies during the medieval era. Antiquated notions about gender as well as religious beliefs with regards to medicine ultimately limn medieval medicine as pre-modern.

Medieval medicine and remedies were born out of medical ideas, traditions and knowledge from antiquity. The prominence of the humor theory reveal the extent of how deeply rooted they were in ancient texts, which often provided incorrect information about the human body. As a result, medieval medicine proved ineffective and inadequate. Physicians did not diagnose their patients completely. Instead of careful observing patients, doctors would rely on written inquiries by their colleagues or patients and treat them according to leech books and other medical writings. Physicians most commonly prescribed herbal remedies for various illnesses, as surgery was rare because of how dangerous the procedure was. Anesthesia did not develop until much later, and doctors would inadvertently kill their patients in attempts to develop a safe form of anesthesia. Bloodletting emerged as the primary treatment for various illnesses, although it often resulted in sustained illness or death. Social factors such as religion and gender played exerted great influence on medical ideas, practices, and remedies. The confluence social factors and inherited traditions project academic medicine during the medieval era as uncertain, antiquated, and pre-modern. Nonetheless, universities developed in the later medieval period, which laid the foundation for the development of modern medicine.

Works Cited

Bynum, Caroline Walker. Holy Feast And Holy Fast the Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.

Cadden, Joan. Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages: Medicine, Science, and Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Cameron, M. L. Anglo-Saxon Medicine. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge, 1993. Print.

"Medicine Through Time." BBC News. BBC, n.d. http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks3/history/uk_through_time/medicine_through_time/rev ision/3/.

Campbell, Sheila. Health, Disease and Healing in Medieval Culture. St. Martin's Press. New York, 1992.

Kealy, Edward J. Medieval Medicus - A Social History of Anglo-Norman Medicine. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Baltimore, 1981.

"Medieval Medicine." Medieval Medicine. N.p., n.d. http://www.maggietron.com/med/healing.php.

Siraisi, Nancy. Medieval And Early Renaissance Medicine: An Introduction to Knowledge And Practice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990.