Topics in Christianity (349-0-20)

Topic

Medicine, Miracles, & Magic: Healthcare in the Mid

Instructors

Lily Clara Stewart

Meeting Info

Kresge Centennial Hall 2-420: Tues, Thurs 3:30PM - 4:50PM

Overview of class

Today, religion and science are often regarded as separate spheres of knowledge and practice, but was this always the case? In this class, we will explore the overlapping uses of medicine, miracles, and magic in premodern healthcare. We will ask what kinds of people were able to practice medicine (priests? physicians? nuns? magicians?), why a person's barber was also their surgeon, how the dead supported the health of the living, and why rituals like confession could treat stomach aches and other ailments.

We will learn what a vial of urine could tell a medieval physician about a patient's habits, consider how an individual's astrological sign influenced their treatment plan, and discuss what an excess of garlic in a person's diet might tell us about the moral state of their spirit. By the end of this course, students will be able to identify and analyze the complex, nuanced systems that medieval people used to theorize the body and its relationship to the soul, and will be able to articulate how physical, spiritual, and even supernatural medicines were often combined to treat both.

As we study the nuances of premodern medicine, we will also work to rethink the relationship between religion and science in our own world, and consider whether and where our modern healthcare practices align with the past as much as they depart from it.

Counts toward Religion, Health, and Medicine (RHM) major concentration.

Teaching Method

Class Attributes

Ethical and Evaluative Thinking Foundational Disci
Ethics & Values Distro Area