Deterioration of medicine during the middle ages

Abstract

The object of this thesis is to show that in my opinion not sufficient attention has been paid to the fact that not only did the practice of Medicine make no progress during the middle or dark ages,but that on the contrary it underwent a profound deterioration or degradation.The term "Middle Ages "is a very elastic one. it has been employed to cover a comparatively limited interval,as in the case of literature,where the dark ages extended from the fall of the Roman :empire (c.476) to the eleventh century.For the purpose of this inquiry however,it is desirable to extend the period of deterioration not only backwards but also forwards to a much later date.it is impossible in the limits of this investigation to enter with any detail into the state of medicine during the Egyptian, Assyrian,Greek or Roman periods, it must be taken for granted that the reader is more or less familiar with them, It is sufficient to say that Medicine, surgery and therapeutics had reached a high (though unequal) stage of development in each of these empires.