9/4/14
Mat
25:36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in
prison and you came to me.'
Over two millennia, Christian doctors and nurses, inspired
by the example and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, have been at the forefront of
efforts to alleviate human suffering, cure disease, and advance knowledge and
understanding. Rosie Beal-Preston examines how the Christian Church has played
a major role in developing and shaping the practice of Medicine.
The hospital movement
Before Christianity emerged, there were several
hospital-like centers in Buddhist regions. The ancient Greeks practiced a very
simple form of medicine and Greek temples included places where the sick could
sleep and receive help. The Romans are believed to have established some
military hospitals. However, it was the Christians of the Roman Empire who
began to change society's attitude to the sick, disabled and dying, by their
radically different outlook.
The Greco-Roman world in which Christianity appeared was
often cruel and inhumane. The weak and the sick were despised. Abortion,
infanticide and poisoning were widely practiced. The doctor was often a
sorcerer as well being a healer and the power to heal equally conferred the
power to kill. Among the pagans of the classical world only the Hippocratic (Greek
physician, commonly regarded as the father of medicine) band of physicians had
a different attitude to their fellow human beings. They swore oaths to heal and
not to harm and to carry out their duty of care to the sick.
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