Middle Ages: Little Change in Medicine (1 janv. 1250 – 1 janv. 1500)

Description:

The Church and Education - the Roman Catholic Church was the most powerful organisation in England, controlling all medical education. They taught that God sent diseases as punishment, and searching for cures was futile. They taught physicians the ideas of Hippocrates, Galen and Avicenna and made it so that no one would dare challenging them as it meant challenging the Church itself. Doctors were not allowed to perform their own dissections, so they continued to learn Galen’s incorrect ideas as correct and did not need to be proved otherwise.

Attitudes - much of the population were opposed to change and wanted to keep medical practices as they were. It was hard for new ideas to spread as everything was handwritten until the 1470s. Doctors did not think it was important to question old ideas and were not trained to do so. This is because there was evidence that the ideas were right (a patient may have a nosebleed or be sick, indicating excess humours), and the ideas seemed logical and reassuring if you were sick (they made it easier to treat patients).

Government - the government did not spend money on medical research. Although some kings ordered for the streets to be cleaned, the did not regularly pay for it. Taxes weren't collected to improve health and medicine or to fund medical breakthroughs.

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