5.1.3

Religion & Superstition

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Religion and Superstition

Religion and supernatural beliefs played an important role in changes in medicine throughout the period.

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Christianity

  • The Church forbade dissections unless they were on criminals that had been executed. This meant that Claudius Galen's mistaken beliefs about the anatomy (holes in the heart and blood being absorbed instead of circulated) could not be corrected. The same beliefs affected Islam.
  • But, Christians also believed in creating hospitals with good hygiene to care for the sick.
  • Conclusion: Christianity had both positive and negative effects on the development of medicine in Britain.
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Islam

  • The Quran's support for scientific discovering and learning benefited medicine.
  • Muslim hospitals were better developed than Christian hospitals. After Abulcasis' work, surgery was much more effective.
  • Conclusion: In the early part of the period, the Islamic Empire was particularly important for driving medical progress.
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Supernatural beliefs

  • In medieval times, beliefs that illnesses could have supernatural causes stemmed from Ancient Greek, Roman and Egyptian ideas.
  • Astrology, witches and God were all supposed supernatural causes of illness. This was common during the Black Death (1348).
  • Subnatural beliefs were common until humanist thinkers such as Erasmus started to argue against them.
  • Conclusion: As late as the 1800s, supernatural beliefs can be blamed for slowing progress within medicine.

Jump to other topics

1Medicine Stands Still

2The Beginnings of Change

3A Revolution in Medicine

4Modern Medicine

5Themes in Public Health

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