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Darrera modificació: 2017-05-10
Bases de dades: Sciència.cat
Kealey, Edward J., Medieval Medicus: A Social History of Anglo-Norman Medicine, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981, x + 211 pp.
- Resum
- The medieval medicus is a slippery character who rarely adopts this unambiguous style, but the patient researches of Edward J. Kealey have pinned down ninety of his kind from the period 1100-1154, and have succeeded in restoring from difficult materials the widely differing careers and' characters of eight court physicians (some doubling as chaplains and administrators) of Henry I. This King not only relished the company of doctors (although foolishly ignoring their sound dietary prescriptions) but, with his Queen, presided over an unexampled explosion of medical and welfare facilities in his British kingdom. It is this surprising fact which Professor Kealey is most concerned to reveal and explore, In doing so he overturns some preconceptions: for instance, that the Church was opposed to the practise of medicine, or that it was the experience of the Hospital orders in the East which led to an improvement in standards of health care.
Perhaps the most important observations in this book are those concerning medieval hospitals. The ratio of beds to population was extraordinarily high (perhaps between 1:1,000 and 1:600). They were often founded by hermits, sage and practical men who were a focus for local social concern. The newly prevalent scourge of leprosy affected rich and poor alike (thus attracting generous foundations), and was regarded with sympathy, not the self-righteous horror and contempt of a later period. Professor Kealey reproduces and comments in detail on the early Rule of the leper hospital of St Mary Magdalene, Dudston, a pleasantly low-key and human document. He also emphasises that medical treatment was offered in medieval hospitals, and that, although there is not much to be gleaned about methods of intervention, patients did benefit from intelligent counselling and a regime which soothed and rested both body and soul.
- Matèries
- Història de la medicina
Hospitals
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