Medieval Medicine: The Role Of Modern Medicine In Medieval Times

In the twenty-first century people are accustomed to hospitals with trained doctors, sterile environments, and sensible techniques. However, in medieval times people relied on inexperienced doctors, filthy environments, and techniques inspired by outdated physicians and astrology. Modern medicine is advanced and expanding life spans, while medieval medicine was primitive and often greatly shortened lives. Therefore, modern medicine has not been inspired by medieval medicine, but it has been inspired by those that came after the middle ages. The first great factor of medieval medicine that displays how outrageous and uninspirational it was is the lack of training their doctors possessed. During medieval times there were so few properly trained doctors because it took ten years to qualify as a Medieval Doctor of Medicine (Medieval Doctors). Consequently, only the wealthy could afford to

In modern medicine doctors operate in clean operating rooms with sterilized instruments such as scalpels, forceps, or scissors (Kapczynski, 16, 22). However, in medieval times doctors operated in filthy, crowded hospitals with primitive tools and antiseptics such as wine or vinegar (Clark, 2). An example of these primitive tools was the probe razor which was used on patients with a condition known as wry neck (Rogers). This condition was the contraction of the sternomastoid muscle which caused the head to be tilted (Rogers). Consequently, the probe razor was invented to cut the muscle by being slid underneath the contracted muscle and pulled up to cut the muscle (Rogers). Another popular instrument was the jugum (Rogers). The jugum was an iron band that was clamped around the penis which compressed the urethra to treat incontinence (Rogers). None of these tools are used today showing how useless these tools were to future inspiration for effective operating