In 1243 the Dominican order forbade
medical treatises to be brought into their monasteries, and
finally all participation of ecclesiastics in the science and art
of medicine was effectually prevented.[[36]]
VII. THEOLOGICAL DISCOURAGEMENT OF MEDICINE.
While various churchmen, building better than they knew,
thus did something to lay foundations for medical study, the
Church authorities, as a rule, did even more to thwart it among
the very men who, had they been allowed liberty, would have
cultivated it to the highest advantage.
Then, too, we find cropping out every where the feeling
that, since supernatural means are so abundant, there is
something irreligious in seeking cure by natural means: ever and
anon we have appeals to Scripture, and especially to the case of
King Asa, who trusted to physicians rather than to the priests of
Jahveh, and so died. Hence it was that St. Bernard declared that
monks who took medicine were guilty of conduct unbecoming to
religion. Even the School of Salerno was held in aversion by
multitudes of strict churchmen, since it prescribed rules for
diet, thereby indicating a belief that diseases arise from
natural causes and not from the malice of the devil: moreover, in
the medical schools Hippocrates was studied, and he had
especially declared that demoniacal possession is "nowise more
divine, nowise more infernal, than any other disease.
Pages:
780
781
782
783
784
785
786
787
788
789
790
791
792
793
794
795
796
797
798
799
800
801
802
803
804