Christian Church's Influence on Medical Progress

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Christian Church's Influence on the Medical Progress

The Christian Church was very powerful and had influence on many

things which you wouldn't imagine they would have, one being medicine.

The Church mainly hindered medical progress but we will see how it did

and see if it helped medicine in any ways.

When it came to developing new medical ideas the Church hindered its

progression. An example of this is when Roger Bacon, a 13th century

priest, was imprisoned for heresy after he suggested that there should

be a new approach to medicine and original research should be thought

of instead of using old ideas such as Galen's. The knowledge of the

anatomy was hindered as only one dissection was allowed per year and

this only dissection was carried out by the already knowledge teaching

assistant not the inexperienced students so they couldn't have a hands

on experience of the anatomy. Public health was hindered but

Cathedrals did have freshly pumped in water for toilets, fountains etc

but this idea wasn't spread into the community and the public weren't

allowed to use the Cathedral's facilities, so the Church were being

selfish with their medical improvement. When it came to training

doctors the church both helped and hindered its progress as they

encouraged doctors to train to improve knowledge but they hindered it

as they only allowed one dissection a year and only a select few who

could read were allowed to read selected books which were approved by

the church. The Church hindered the knowledge of medicine spreading as

usually only Priests and Monks could read so books couldn't be passed

on and the Church selected what people could read so the ideas that

were spreading were limited and the same. Caring for the sick was

slightly hindered by the church as only 10% of monks helped those in

need but this was the best they could do. The search for effective

treatments was hindered by the church as they believed that religion

was the cure for the sick. The believe that Saints could cure by touch

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