Why was medical knowledge restricted in the Middle ages?

Answer 1

Medical knowledge was restricted by European universities. Although we have no real records of why this happened, it is fairly easy to guess that the university professors, who had renewed access to ancient texts, wanted to promote European science over Islamic, which was also available at the time. As a result, they took the stand that Aristotelian science was correct and anything that disagreed with it was wrong.

There were two great problems with this. The first was that by insisting on conformity to Aristotelian science, they prevented any progress going beyond Aristotelian science. The second was that the Islamic science, being dynamic, encouraged research and observation of empirical results, and so was superior. This situation ended when the Church stepped in by issuing the Condemnations of 1277. These made teaching the idea that Aristotle was always right a heresy, which effectively freed science from the strictures imposed by the universities.

Unfortunately for all, the thinkers European Renaissance, in their conscious attempt to resurrect the culture of ancient Rome, threw out much of the new science that had been developed in the Middle Ages. It took until the 19th century for Europe to recover to the point that physicians performed such simple tasks as washing their hands before operations, which had been standard practice in the Middle Ages.

Answer 2

Actually, there were huge improvements in medicine during the Middle Ages. Most of them happened in Arab lands, but the knowledge was transmitted to Europe, especially in the Byzantine Empire, Spain, and Italy.

Problems developed with the establishment and spread of universities, which were directed by people who regarded Aristotle as almost infallible and any change as anathema. These were counteracted to some extent by the Condemnations of 1210 to 1277, in which the Church, unhappy with the idea of an infallible pagan, reestablished empiricism as a respectable practice (one suspects Aristotle might have approved).

Unfortunately, with the coming of the Renaissance, academics, especially historians, made it fashionable to regard ancient Rome as the pinnacle of civilization and learning, with anything that had developed since as inferior. Ever since that time, practitioners of medieval medicine have been regarded as ignorant, superstitious, and resistant to change, and the superstitions of the Renaissance, such as witch-hunts, were successfully transferred to the Middle Ages.

The improvements in medicine of the Middle Ages included:

• Development of the scientific method, developed greatly by Roger Bacon
• Science based experimentation
• Empirical analysis of results
• Hospital care with wards to treat patients with similar problems together
• Emphasis on having professionally trained physicians
• Drug purity laws
• Early anesthetics
• Early antibiotics, especially use of alcohol and soap

There may have been as much or even more advancement in the 12th through 15th centuries as there was in the 15th through 18th. Remember, it was not until Ignaz Semmelweiss made the doctors in Vienna wash their hands between working in the morgue and operating on patients that renewed emphasis on hygiene became an object of discussions; that happened in 1847, and he was roundly discredited until Pasteur developed germ theory, twenty years later.

This is not to say that the Middle Ages had wonderful medicine and only science prevailed. The advances really only took place in places where the medical community was interested in advance and where the results of good practice could be seen. More traditional medical practice prevailed over much of Europe, with the result that most of what was happening in medicine was no better than it had been in ancient times.

There are links below to articles on the history of the scientific method, the Condemnations of 1210 to 1277, and the history of medieval medicine.