Medieval Medicine - Influences

Influences

As Christianity grew in influence, a tension developed under the church and folk-medicine, since much in folk medicine was magical, or mystical, and had its basis in sources that were not compatible with Christian faith. Spells and incantations were used in conjunction with herbs and other remedies. Such spells had to be separated from the physical remedies, or replaced with Christian prayers or devotions. Similarly, the dependence upon the power of herbs or gems needed to be explained through Christianity.

The church taught that God sometimes sent illness as a punishment, and that in these cases, repentance could lead to a recovery. This led to the practice of penance and pilgrimage as a means of curing illness. In the Middle Ages, some people did not consider medicine a profession suitable for Christians, as disease was often considered God-sent. God was considered to be the "divine physician" who sent illness or healing depending on his will. However, many monastic orders, particularly the Benedictines, considered the care of the sick as their chief work of mercy.

Medieval European medicine became more developed during the Renaissance of the 12th century, when many medical texts both on ancient Greek medicine and on Islamic medicine were translated from Arabic during the 12th century. The most influential among these texts was Avicenna's The Canon of Medicine, a medical encyclopedia written in circa 1030 which summarized the medicine of Greek, Indian and Muslim physicians until that time. The Canon became an authoritative text in European medical education until the early modern period. Other influential translated medical texts at the time included the Hippocratic Corpus attributed to Hippocrates, Alkindus' De Gradibus, the Liber pantegni of Haly Abbas and Isaac Israeli ben Solomon, Abulcasis' Al-Tasrif, and the writings of Galen.