Public Health Between Roman and Middle Ages

656 Words3 Pages
Between the Roman and middle age there was no particular progress made concerning: public health, treatments, medical knowledge, medical treatment of the sick etc. In addition any of the progress that was made by the Romans was barely used or continued. The loss of the Roman work, ideas and innovations could also be the consequence of war and movement. Most of the things the Middle age man used would have just been continuity from the Romans. Public health in the middle ages compared with the Roman times is just nonexistent for example the Roman had Aqueducts, fresh water, latrines and sewers however in the middle Ages the people would get their water, from rivers. As well as rivers being water supplies they also worked as sewers where people discarded their waste. These people didn't understand about hygiene and clean water like the Romans. The dirty water resulted in cholera outbreaks and other diseases colonizing. Medical training kind of got better in the Middle Ages because doctors could train in purpose built universities were ran by the church. This was bad because the church adopted the teaching of Galen and Hippocrates. So students would attend lectures and read books by Galen and Hippocrates, dissections were also led by their books. The unfortunate thing is that in roman times dissection was not allowed, meaning a lot of their work was wrong. One of the senior students would read out something like ‘the heart has 5 valves’ when it has actually only got 4. Mistakes like this in the universities were not allowed to be questioned or challenged, or any new view against Galen was frond upon. Students would have to be very shallow minded. However unlike ever before student would have to learn astrology, the movement of the planets to also help cure patients. No progress was made, only continuity, this is bad because between Roman and the Middle Ages no one
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