Medicine in the Middle Ages

This book is devoted to Medieval medicine—mysterious, strange, and surprising. How did people in that era manage to protect themselves from many illnesses, including deadly ones, that struck them? Could medicine exist if all the sciences were subservient to theology? Could a doctor test medicines without ending up on the pyre of the Inquisition? Do we know medieval recipes? Can we trust the medicines that existed back then? Or would we have died from them at the first sneeze?

And would we survive if we ended up in the hands of a surgeon who had no medical education and operated without anesthesia? Did this surgeon know anatomy? And what if he tried to get rid of our headache by drilling a hole in the skull? Would we survive if, during a plague epidemic, people ate snake meat and drank broth made from it at the doctor’s advice? How long would we have lived in such conditions?

Did medieval medicine just stand still or was it a source of useful knowledge?

Nowadays people are again becoming victims of new, unfamiliar epidemics. The question arises: did Medieval doctors have lost recipes that could be useful today?

By answering these questions, the book gives a vivid picture of the history of Western European medicine. Open it to any page—you’ll find interesting historical facts, and sometimes even secrets of medieval healers. We’ll learn their recipes for all occasions, how to win someone’s love—and how to get rid of the person who annoys you.

The book is aimed at a wide range of readers: both those who are interested in or work with medicine, and those who try to stay away from doctors.