MEDIAEVAL CREDULITY

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 735, 7 August 1929, Page 18

MEDIAEVAL CREDULITY

PROGRESS IN MEDICINAL STUDY LECTURE SERIES ENDS Mediaeval credulity in the r *ers of medicines was explained ? Ir. Kenneth Mackenzie, vice-pr: ,nt of the Auckland University College, in an illustrated lecture on “Elizabethan Medicine,” in the college hall last evening. The address was the last of an excellent series of nine lectures on- Shakespeare and the Elizabethan period. Mr. Mackenzie revealed the affinity of medicinal study with the works of Shakespeare, and the index furnished on beliefs and characteristics of Elizabethan days. In a sketch of the development of medicinal study up to the period, Mr. Mackenzie said that the Greeks, Empedocles and Pythagoras originated the science and, before the eclipse of study in the Dark Ages, the schools of Hippocrates. Alexandria and Galen had carried research further. In the revival of learning, dominant figures in study were Paracelsus, Vesalius and Pare. Pare’s influence was especially apparent in the work of Elizabethan surgeons. Epidemics, high mortality among infants —these affected public health in the Elizabethan period. Sanitation was poor; London drew its water supplies from contaminated wells. Although St. Bartholomew’s, St. Mary’s and St. Thomas’s Hospitals had existed for centuries, the suppression of monasteries had impeded hospital growth. SUPERSTITION RIFE

In the murk of the age, superstitious beliefs were rife among the community. Astrology as a power of healing held sway—the earliest printed treatises on medicine were astrological almanacs. Royal ability to heal was also believed in, and even “sympathetic” salves impressed the public. The horn of a unicorn was considered to be the most powerful antidote to poison.

Mr. Mackenzie said it was debatable whether the three centuries from the period had greatly advanced the discrimination and lessened the credulity of the public. The part occupied in Elizabethan cures by herbal medicines was instanced. Hemlock, rosemary, nettle, samphire and mandrake were all invested with extraordinary powers to cure. The mandrake had a real anaesthetic power, but it had been lost sight of.

Shakespeare’s knowledge # of medicine, or tis departments, at least, was shown in his works. Shakespeare was versed in all phases of life, and his writings contained references to the surgeon, the apothecary, the nurse, the midwife, the toothdrawer and the physician. A modern opinion that smoking caused cancer of the mouth was borne out by fact, the lecturer said. An historian had recorded that prior to the introduction of tobacco in Elizabethan times, there had been very little cancer.