Medieval Beliefs about Medicine

What did Medieval People think caused disease?

The ideas of Hippocrates and Galen influenced strongly the thinking of Medieval Doctors, this was partly because there were few alternative ideas but also because if the role of the Church.  During the early Medieval period books had been largely handwritten by Monks and stored in Church libraries. The Church also controlled many aspects of education and licences doctors, midwives, apothecaries and surgeons.  The development of the Design Theory of creation also meant the Church promoted  Hippocrates and Galen's ideas.  The complexity of the human body  was seen as evidence that man must have had a creator and that creator was God.

This then meant that many people started to believe that serious illnesses and plagues were the work of God or the Devil.  They were supernatural acts that were sent to test peoples' faith, to punish people for sinful lives or were the work of Satan who was simply causing harm and trouble.

There were other ideas about the causes of illness, for example a popular idea was miasma. Miasma was a believe that illness was caused by foul air that had harmful fumes.  In many ways this was a sensible and logical idea - however, we now know it is not true.

Astrology was another common belief for illness.  Some believe that disease was caused by the alignment of the planets and the stars.  Although this might seem silly to us now - in many ways it was an early attempt to be scientific and rational.

Check out BBC Bitesize here.  Check out Medieval Medicine here.