monasticmedicine^.net

Monastic Medicine can be described as a precursor to modern medicine, as it laid foundational study methods and practices like sacred texts interpretation and preservation, herbal and alchemical remedies, and structured medical education that influenced later advancements. We have also extensively documented that monastic medicine was the forerunner of nature cure of Christendom and Naturopathy of the Americas.

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The Middle Ages spans a period of over a thousand years from the 5th to the 15th centuries following the collapse of the Roman Empire. During the Middle Ages, the monasteries were the primary source of formal medical care and education by the monks maintaining medical facilities such as hospitals, infirmaries and herb gardens. In the early to late Middle Ages, the dire prevalence of contagious illness and disease greatly influenced the practices and development of formal medical care. As a result of poor living conditions, contagion, malnutrition, food poisoning, and the limitations of medieval medicine, disease was a constant peril in Christendom and the Levant and often controlled people’s daily lives. In response to illness in general and to large-scale epidemics of dreaded diseases such as the black plague, leprosy, and dysentery, individuals, the Church, and societies searched for new, more effective means of medical care. In this context, medicine expanded into a large and important vocations and occupations, encompassing a variety of practices which the Church formalized into a system called monastic medicine. Parallel to this period, other forms of medicine included barber-surgery, magical medicine, folk medicine, midwifery, and herbalism.

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