Medieval and Renaissance Medicine: An Overview

1. Myth: Medieval medicine had no rational basis, but was merely a collection of superstitions.
   
2. Medieval medicine was clearly divided between intrusive scholastic medicine practiced by male physicians and holistic herbal treatments prescribed by village wisewomen.
3. Almost no one lived to be over 60.
4. Anatomical dissection was never practiced in the middle ages and Renaissance.
5. There were no hospitals or public health services.
6. Major surgical procedures were never performed.
7. We have no information about medieval medicine or about herbal treatments used in period; or, we have no information about non-scholastic/clerical medicine in period.
1. All medieval medical recipes involve expensive and/or dangerous ingredients
2. All medieval medical recipes, being herbal, are safe to use.
8. Physicians recommended bleeding a person for every complaint.
9. Illness was universally considered just a punishment for sin. Nobody believed that disease was spread by contagion. The Churches forbade medical treatment.
10. Medicine was an arcane art in period, and ordinary people were not encouraged to learn medical knowledge.
11. Reliable herbal contraceptives were covertly available to women from wisewomen and midwives until the Church wiped them out.
    

• Greek & Roman Medicine
• Dioscorides
• Galen
• Anglo-Saxon Leechbooks
• Arabic texts
• Health Handbooks
• Tacuinum Sanitatis
• Platina
  

• University Physicians
• Physicians in the employ of nobles
• University professors and lecturers
• City Physicians
  
• Guilds
• Surgeons, Bonesetters
• barbers
• civilian surgeons
• military surgeons
  
• Apothecaries
• Empirics 
• Midwives

• Leprosy
• Plague
• Typhoid
• Worms
• 'Elf-shot' (in Anglo-saxon terms)
  
• Recurring Fevers of all types
• 'Stone'.
  
• Dysentery
• Venereal Disease
  

• Humors
• Astrology
• Urinanalysis
• Doctrine of Signatures

• Bleeding:
  Bleeding, in the medieval/renaissance period, seems to have been a primary preventive health measure. Bleeding was recommended on average about every three months. The origin of this treatment may be a now-rare condition where the blood has too much iron in it-- modern patients with this condition must have blood drawn on a regular basis.
  
• Cupping and/or cautery:
  the application of heated objects to the skin; cautery actually burns the body; cupping usually involves putting heated cup-shaped vessels to the skin, which draws out fluids and also brings fluids to the site from other body parts
• Purgatives (laxatives, emetics)
• Vermifuges
  Worms were apparently a major health hazard in pre-modern times. Treatments for worms, especially intestinal worms, generally seem to involve herbs with nerve-paralyzing properties (to stun the worms so they would detach) combined with laxatives.
  
• Febrifuges (fever reducers)
• Baths 
• Steam-baths and fumigation
  
• Simples and Compound Remedies
• Syrups and electuaries
• Waters and Wines
• Ointments, Plasters and topical applications
• Mummy, treacle and dwale
  
• Surgery (including trepanning)
• Diet changes
• Charms

Bibliography:

• Arano, Luis Cogliati, ed. The Medieval Health Handbook (Tacuinum Sanitatis), (NY, George Braziller, 1976).
• Baron, J.H. "The hospital of Santa Maria della Scala, Siena, 1090-1990." British Medical Journal, Dec 22, 1990 v301 n6766 p1449(3)
• De Vriend, Hubert Jan, ed., The Old English Herbarium and Medicina de quadrupedibus (London, 1984)
  
• Dioscorides Pedanius, of Anazarbos. The Greek Herbal of Dioscorides: illustrated by a Byzantine, A. D. 512; Englished by John Goodyer, A. D. 1655; edited and first printed, A. D. 1933, by Robert T. Gunther ... with three hundred and ninety-six illustrations.
  
• Getz, Faye. Medicine in the English Middle Ages. (Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, 1998)
  
• Glass, Nigel. "Great excavations," The Lancet, Feb 24, 2001 v357 i9256 p643.
  
• Grigsby, Bryon L. "Medical Misconceptions," chapter 4 of  Misconceptions about the Middle Ages, on ORB: the Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies. http://orb.rhodes.edu/non_spec/missteps/Ch4.html
• Henderson, H. M. "The physicians of Myddfai: The Welsh Herbal Tradition." in: Plants and people: economic botany in Northern Europe AD 800-1800 : symposium held at the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, 24-27 September, 1993. (Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press, 1994) published as Botanical Journal of Scotland,  v. 46, pt. 4, 1994. p. 623-627
• Hildegarde of  Bingen. Hildegard von Bingen's Physica: the complete English translation of her classic work on Health and Healing. Trans. from the Latin by Patricia Throop. (Rochester, VT: Healing Arts, 1998).
• Hildegarde of Bingen. Holistic Healing (Causa et Curiae). (Liturgical Press, 1994)
• Leechcraft: Early English Charms, Plantlore and Healing. Stephen Pollington, editor/author. (Norfolk, England: AngloSaxon Books, 2000).
• Lemay, Helen R. Women's Secrets : A Translation of Pseudo-Albertus Magnus' de Secretis Mulierum with Commentaries. (State University of New York, 1992)
  
• Majno, Guido. The Healing Hand: Man and Wound in the Ancient World. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975).
• Nostradamus, The Elixirs of Nostradamus: Nostradamus' original recipes for elixirs, scented water, beauty potions and sweetmeats. edited by Knut Boeser. (Wakefield, RI: Moyer Bell, 1996)
• Platina. On Right Pleasure and Good Health: A Renaissance Gentleman's Discourse On food, Health, and the Physical Pleasures. translated and edited by Mary Ella Milham.  (Pegasus Press, 1998)
• Rawcliffe, Carole. "Hospital Nurses and their Work", in Richard Britnell, ed. Daily Life in the Late Middle Ages, (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1998), pp 58-61.
  
• Rawcliffe, Carole. Medicine & Society in Later Medieval England. (Sutton Publishing, 1998)
• Siraisi, Nancy. Medieval & early Renaissance medicine : an introduction to knowledge and practice. (Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1990)
• Tobyn, Graeme. Culpeper's Medicine: A Practice of Western Holistic Medicine. (Harper Collins - UK, 1997)
• The Trotula: An English Translation of the Medieval Compendium of Women's Medicine: translated and edited by Monica H. Green. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001).
• Van De Walle, Etienne, and Elisha Renne, editors. Regulating Menstruation: Beliefs, Practices, Interpretations.  (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001)
• Wellcome, Henry S. Anglo-Saxon Leechcraft. (?: Rose & Nef, 1992)  [originally published by Wellcome, 1912]

Further Reading

• McVaugh, M. R. Medicine before the plague : practitioners and their patients in the crown of Aragon, 1285-1345.(NY: Cambridge University Press, 1993)
• Medieval woman's guide to health : the first English gynecological handbook / with introd., transcription of the Middle English text, and modern English translation by Beryl Rowland. (Kent, Ohio : Kent State University Press, 1981)
• Miller, Timothy. The birth of the hospital in the Byzantine Empire. (Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985)
• O'Boyle, Cornelius. The art of medicine : medical teaching at the University of Paris, 1250-1400. (Boston : Brill, 1998).
• Park, Katharine. Doctors and medicine in early Renaissance Florence. (Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 1985)
• Pouchelle, Marie-Christine. The body and surgery in the Middle Ages. (New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, 1990)
• Riddle, John M. Contraception and abortion from the ancient world to the Renaissance. (Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1992)
• Siraisi, Nancy. Avicenna in Renaissance Italy : the Canon and medical teaching in Italian universities after 1500. (Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 1987)

Copyright 1999, Jennifer A. Heise. Contact me via email for permission to reprint: jenne.heise@gmail.com
Permission is explicitly granted for limited reproduction as a printed handout for Society for Creative Anachronism demos & classes , as long as I am notified and credited and the entire handout is used.  [Jadwiga's herbs homepage:  http://www.gallowglass.org/jadwiga/herbs/herbs.html ]