Читать книгу Medicine in the Middle Ages. Extracts from "Le Moyen Age Medical" by Dr. Edmond Dupouy; translated by T. C. Minor онлайн

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Notwithstanding sarcasm, in spite of epigrams and calumny, medicine has always been a source of sublime consolation to the sick and afflicted, the sufferer—rich and poor. At all ages the priest has been inclined to indulge in the practice of physic, and it was at their instigation that those nuns known as Sisters of Charity practiced medicine to a certain extent in the Middle Ages. In the twelfth century we see the nuns of the Convent of Paraclet, in Champagne, following the advice of Abelard, essaying the surgical treatment of the sick. It is true the first abbess of this nunnery was Heloise, in whose history conservative surgery is not even mentioned. The nuns who dressed wounds were called medeciennes or miresses. Gaulthier de Conisi has left a history of their good works:

“And the world wondered when it did learn

That woman had found a new mission;

When the doctors of Montpellier and Salern(o)

Saw each nun to be a physician.

A fever they knew, a pulse they could feel,

And best of it all is, they managed to heal.”