Medieval
It is said that 'An apple a day keeps the dentist away.' This has becomea common saying among Society today. We do not stop to think of how it reflectsour outlook of Medicine in our lives. We have come to understand the value ofsimple practices in order to keep ourselves healthy. This is not, however, thecase of Medieval England. Most 'medical practices' of the time were based uponsuperstition, ancient texts, myth, or the direction of the church. Medicalpractices of Medieval England often based upon nothing more than superstitionproved unbeneficial if not harmful to the people of England. Part of the obvious problem was the fact that the common person hadlittle care or sense for improving their own health. The life and livelihood ofan average person was less than desirable even from the time of birth. In the villages chronic inbreeding must have produced many children whostarted life with a built in weakness, either mental or physical. Many woulddie in childhood, but others who grew into manhood, might drag out a uselessexistance, dependent on charity for their sustenance. In general, infantmortality was extremely heavy....Once the child was free to crawl about
Most of these had no scientific basis and were instead rooted insuperstition and/or the church. The earlier one shows thephysician cauterizing a shorn head, while an attendant in a room below isheating a relay of instruments in a furnace. In summary of medical practice to the end of 1400, it may be saidmedicine was practiced mostly by the clerics in monasteries and the laity whoselocus of operation was the apothecary shop. The problem is furthered by the fact that these 'practices' proved oflittle benefit. Lepers, cripples, and the blind were not uncommon in Medieval England. It was herethat the medieval superstition reigned supreme. ------------------------------------------------------------------------**Bibliography**. It is hard toimagine that anyone could see any benefit to the practices of the time. More is written of this, "Two of the manuscripts show the doctor in his drugstore, instructing his apprentice in the compounding of medicines. "It should be clear that the health conditions for people in England of this timewould be so unbearable that it would not be desirable by anybody. "Provision for lepers,who were the outcasts of society, was the motive for the foundation of many ofthe earliest hospitals, which were intended not for the cure of the sick but asrefuge for the incurable and the dying.
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Medieval England,
Hospitals Provision,
England Cripples,
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Acceptance Essays
