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

5 страница из 45

A medical and surgical service was organized at the Hotel Dieu, which hospital was erected before the entrance of Notre Dame, under the direction of the clergy. On certain days the priests would assemble around the holy water font of the cathedral, supra cupam, in order to discuss questions in medicine or the connection of scholastic learning with the healing art.

The University only recognized as students of medicine persons who held the degree of master-in-arts. They absolutely separated the meges and mires, surgeons, bonesetters, and barbers, who had made no classical studies, and to whom was abandoned as unworthy of the real physicians all that concerned minor surgery. These officers of health, so-called, of the Middle Ages were unimportant and little respected persons; they kept shops and never went out without carrying one or two dressing cases; they were only comparable to drug peddlers; and the University imposed no vows of celibacy in their case.

In many literary works in Latin it is often a question whether to call in a physician or mire, and certain passages admirably serve to prove this historical fact. In the Roman de Dolopatos,[2] for example, the poet tells how to prevent the poisoning of wounds, as they are easy to cure when the injury is recent: