James Hannam

On the Dark Ages thread, Ray Moscow suggested that the church has held back medical science and gave a couple examples of how he thought this had happened. Let me deal with them in turn.

One of the more prevalent myths about the Medieval Church is that it opposed human dissection. As it happens, most societies and cultures did have a strong taboo against this activity. It was illegal in ancient Rome, Islam and most Greek civilisations. The only exemption seems to have been briefly in Alexandria. So, it is surprising that the Church allowed dissections to go ahead with barely a whimper of opposition. A papal bull of 1300 entitled De Sepulturis is often cited as evidence for a Church prohibition as it forbids the boiling of bodies to remove flesh so that a dead person’s bones could be transported for burial without rotting away on route. Apparently, this practice, known as the German method of preserving bodies, had become common during crusades when those who died on campaign wanted to be interred in the family tomb back home. This bull had nothing whatsoever to do with human dissection for medical or legal purposes. However, it did have rather an odd unintentional effect of preventing anatomists from boiling heads to reveal the structure of the middle ear, as Mondino, an early practitioner, admits in his manual. But, it is hard to believe that if the Catholic Church had really objected strongly to human dissections, we would see them rapidly become part of the syllabus in every major Catholic medical school.

Ray mentioned that the church forbade clerics from practicing medicine. Canon law did forbid priests from moonlighting as physicians, however, partly because the secular physicians did not like the competition and partly because it was not the priest’s job. Only with great scourges like the Black Death of 1347 – 50, before which all the physicians arts were powerless, did people come to rely exclusively on religious help. The church also founded hospitals, where the ill could be cared for, free of charge if they were poor. These institutions do appear to be a Christian invention, first appearing as religious foundations in the Byzantine Empire and spreading thence to the west.

Best wishes

James

Read chapter one of God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science

Minimalist

Much as I would love to blame the church for all the evils of the world, it does seem that real medical progress did not begin until the invention of a practical microscope.

Once science had some idea of what it was up against, instead of attributing illness to evil spirts or other such primitive nonsense, it seems that progress has proceeded at a fairly steady rate. When did useful microscopes come into production? 18th century? 19th??

Matt the Medic

Hospitals are quite clearly not a Christian invention. There were religion-associated hospitals in ancient Greece, Egypt, India, and Persia for starters. In fact, Baghdad had a very famous hospital in the 8th or 9th centure AD.

There's no doubt that hospitals in medieval Europe were largely associated with or ran by churches, but the idea wasn't new and the treatment wasn't really any more effective until practical application of the Germ Theory of Disease in the more recent centuries.

aa5874

What was the Medieval Church position on 'epilepsy'? Was it of the Devil according to the Church?

See http://www.epilepsia.org.br/epi2002/JEp229-232.pdf

Toto

Clouseau's attempted hijack has been split off here

James Hannam

Matt,

I'd be very interested in references to ancient Greek, Indian, Persian and Egyptian hospitals. My information came from Roy Porter's "The Greatest Benefit to Mankind (or via: amazon.co.uk)". I'd agree that there was no effective medicine until the mid/late nineteenth century and this was down to realisation about the role of microbes.

The earliest Byzantine ones date from the 5/6th century, so these pre-date Islam. It is probable that Islamic rulers took the idea from Christianity.

Best wishes

James

Antipope Innocent II

Yes, well the stuff from that article on the Medieval period is pretty much generic crap from someone with no actual knowledge of medicine in the period. More proof that articles by non-historians drawing on non-academic sources of information, citing no sources and presenting no evidence are simply going to propogate errors-by-baseless-assertion. I'm sure the authors of that article know lots about epilepsy. Their knowledge of medieval medicine, however, seems fairly close to zero.

So, turning to people who actuall do know what they're talking about:

"[I]t is of interest that another famous Montpellier teacher, Bernard of Gordon (d. c. 1320), seems to have suggested that the nerves exerted a mechanical pull on the muscles. Bernard followed Greek authorities in believing that epilepsy was caused by the humours blocking the passages of the brain and interfering with the supply of air to the limbs."
(A. C. Crombie, Augustine to Galileo: Science in the Middle Ages (or via: amazon.co.uk), pp. 171-172)

So, no sign of demons there. Some erroneous science, certainly, but it was erroneous ancient Greek science that this Medieval scholar followed out of his entirely Medieval reverence for the ancient Greek and Roman "authorities".

Galen was one of the primary medical texts in the Middle Ages and he regarded epilepsy as a purely medical condition and nothing to do with demons. Like the Greeks, as mentioned above, he considered it an imbalance of humours and prescribed parsley to treat it. Okay, that doesn't sound like useful advice but, again, no "demons" were involved.

The Twelfth Century mystic Hildigarde of Bingen didn't seem to know about any Greeks, humours or Galen, but also regarded epilepsy as a purely medical condition. Her cure would have been even less effective than Galen's parsley (it was a cake made of the blood of a mole, duck beak, the feet of a female goose and wheat flour) and rather more disgusting to eat, but no demons were involved. And she'd be a good indication of what non-scholars believed about epilepsy. Richard Kieckhefer's Magic in the Middle Ages (or via: amazon.co.uk) has plenty on Medieval folk beliefs about demons and exorcism, but makes no mention of epilepsy in relation to these things or in relation to Medieval magical beliefs at all.

Unless you can present some evidence other than an article written by some people whose detailed knowledge of medicine in the Middle Ages seems non-existent and who cite no references or evidence, it would seem that the actual Medieval Church's position on epilepsy was the same as that of the Greeks and Romans: that it was a medical condition caused by an imbalance of the humours.

And if you think that's silly, blame the Greeks.

JoeWallack

JW:
I think this would be a good subject for Bill Maher's new The Revisionist History Channel.

Regarding the relationship of Christianity and Medical Science, hell, who needs to go back to Mid Evil times? I was in Boston recently and I always like to drive by the Christian Scientist (chuckle) headquarters. A beautiful building located on prime real estate:

http://www.tfccs.com/aboutchristianscience/index.jhtml

They consider themselves Christians and I Am pretty sure they have the same Bible you do and that their philosophy comes straight from it. How many people do you think have died or at least suffered because they believed that Faith Healing was superior medicine or at least an important alternative? Before there was II there was Mad Magazine and there was a classic cartoon where a man is just run over by a car and they look in his wallet for information and see that he is a Christian Scientist. They shout out, "Quick, get him to a Reading Room!".

Are you an Advocate/Apologist for the relationship of Christianity and Science James or a Judge? If you are a Judge than are you also looking for examples of the Church holding attitudes that Conflict with Science?



Joseph

Christianity - "Has delivered eternal life to none and premature death to many." - History

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

James Hannam

Absolutely. I am very keen to discover examples of conflict as well as concord. Do you have any? However, I'm a historian so I'm not so interested in modern examples. As for Christian Scientists, I can think of some pretty crazy atheists if we are allowed to tar everyone with the same brush.

Best wishes

James

Ray Moscow

I ask with due humility:

How about the biblical notion that illnesses were either caused by God (as in the Hebrew Bible) or demons (as in the gospels)? How did this play out in church policies toward medicine in the medieval and renaissance periods?

Surely they didn't just ignore the Bible in favour of Galen or Hippocrates?

Ray