Adalékok a szerzetesi orvoslás történetéből : medicina, orvostudomány, gyógyászat, ápolás

Absztrakt

What is the cause of illness, suffering and inevitable death? Monks, from the very beginnings, answered these eternal human questions with acts. Until the 15-16th centuries, for nearly one and a half millennium, it was the monks belonging to different orders who had taken care of the sick and carried out the evangelical task of healing. This is testified among others by the earliest rules (Pachomius, Basil, Augustine, Benedict, Isidore of Seville), the stories of the Apophthegmata Patmm, ground-plans of hospitals and illustrations of orchards where herbs were grown, as well as by collections of recipes. The name of ConstantinusAfricanus OSB who had translated into Latin different Greek and Arabic works and with whom the second epoch of the Salernitan School of Medicine began, also has to be mentioned. In the Middle Ages medical centres equipped with pharmacies came into being around the Benedictine, Cistercian and Carthusian monasteries. During the Crusades the different orders of the knights also joined healing activity and the spread of leprosy created a new order. We have only sporadic data concerning healing activity from the history of the Byzantine Empire. The most complete description has survived to posterity in the typikon of the xenodocheion (hospital) founded by st. Irene (Piroska in Hungarian) wife of John II Comnenus and daughter of St. Ladislas, King of Hungary. The first data demonstrating the healing activity of monks in Hungary survived from the 12 th century. Since laws issued by the Church soon prohibited priests from making surgical actions, healing and taking care of the sick henceforth remained for the monks. Albeit, medical education in Europe increased the number of erudite doctors of medicine, monks could hardly take part in this training. Cardinal Péter Pázmány when founding the university in the town of Nagyszombat also planned to set up a medical faculty, which, unfortunately he was unable to realize. With the appearance of new orders (Fratres misericordiae, Camillians) the service of the sick became more organized. Jesuits were famous for their activity in the field of pharmacology. Male monks could get admittance to universities of medicine only in the 19th century, while nuns much later, only in the 20th century. Further information can be obtained from books both in Hungarian and foreign languages.