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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“If passion within you wax hot,

Pray don’t eat and drink like a sot.

Give wine no license;

From rich food abstinence;

And luxurious peace is your lot.”

The author then advises that the mouth and gums be well taken care of, that the teeth be neatly cleaned after each meal, and the entire buccal cavity be rinsed out with an infusion of bitter-sweet plants or leaves.

“Puis apres si froterez

Vos dents et gencives assez,

Od les escorces tut en tur

D’ arbre chaud, sec. amer de savur

Kar iceo les dents ennientit,” etc.

Notwithstanding their want of scientific form, these precepts still strongly contrast with the superstitious practices employed by the monks in the treatment of disease. When holy relics failed the priesthood had resource to supernatural power; they believed in the faith cure; the touch of a Royal hand could heal disease. They took all their scrofulous and goitre patients to Phillip I. and to Saint Louis. These sovereigns had not always an excessive faith in the miraculous gifts they were desired to bestow, but reasons of State policy forced them to accept this monkish deceit, which was regularly practiced by the clergy every Pentecost Day.