Medieval Information

Doctors were in the higher social class. They had the power to cure a person, but unfortunately; their knowledge was limited.

In order to become a doctor after the XV century, one had to study for up to six years in a school. For this reason, doctors began to improve and they were given more importance as medieval people realized that the power of God did exist - but not in everything. Doctors were not the best friends of the church as the church was still antiquate and they believed that everything happened for a reason and doctors were useless.

Of course this was wrong and as the centuries passed, it was proved to be the other way around which was a clear contradiction with what the church had previously said.

In the early Middle Ages, doctors were severely restricted. This was combined with the fact that there was not much information about medicine as the Greek manuscripts containing all that information were in Greek and nobody could understand it. It wasn't until a couple of centuries later when the Arabs translated it into Latin.

Of course this translation led to many mistakes and thus; health was still at stake because of this fact. Additionally, since the Library of Alexandria had been burnt, much information was lost there as well.

In the Dark Ages, medicine was, in a way, just beginning as everything was completely lost. Doctors themselves were very important and many people believed in them.

Doctors used ants to cure patients who cut their skin (instead of stitches). Additionally, a doctor would not have a definite cure for a patient, but the doctor would use whatever cure he thought would work for that specific case. This, of course, led to many deaths but it did help in a way.

Read the Medieval Health article for more information.