Were Physicians in teh Middle Ages there for helping or just concerned with making money?

Question

The book “Medicine before Science” explains how physicians in the Middle Ages were concerned with their being able to predict the outcomes of cases. It was all about how they built their reputations and convinced their wealthy clients to trust them (the "Business of Medicine"). So then, were they really there for the good of the clients? Or did they just want to make money?

Answer 1

Medicine in the middle ages, being in a very primitive state, had a correspondingly low success rate for just about everything. Most everyone still thought disease was the result of demonic possession. Bacteria and viruses were unknown concepts.

As a result, it was important to incubate a sense of trust between a doctor and his patient. When a patient recovered (even if the "treatment" had nothing to do with it, or even in spite of the "treatment"), that trust allowed the doctor to claim credit for the cure. If the patient was wealthy, he could then be persuaded to become a doctor's benefactor, providing funds for living, materials & research.

Of course if the patient didn't survive, then he wasn't around to complain.

I don't think doctors back then practiced in the hopes of getting rich. But they needed to make a living and funds to do research, and wealthy patients were the logical best source.

Answer 2

If you look back the business of medicine in those times was a dirty business. They had a group of people that were grave robbers and they even had people killed so they could advance their ability to forecast. It was done for the money first; however, not all did it only for money. Money was the hook and after some of them saw the suffering they could no live with themselves if they did nothing. A few had the peoples well being in thier heart and through out history thier stories are less known. They were the small town doctors. They were not in it for money.

Live Long Live Free

Answer 3

There is a reason that "Follow the money" is good advice for finding motives and perpetrators of an act. Some practitioners were undoubtedly concerned with their patients, some were scientifically curious about the workings of the human body, but all were concerned about making a living and staying alive. Without a patron, they could have been charged with witchcraft, satanic ritual, etc. With a patron, the odds of survival were much better.

Answer 4

At times of utterly insufficient means for diagnoses and cures, the reputation of being an efficient healer would benefit not only its bearer, as any advertisement would, but also his patient since it would have similar psychological effect to the belief in an all-mighty, caring god. Therefore, I don't think that business and genuine interest for people's welfare are mutually exclusive; after all, aren't these the two faces of the modern medical world as well?

Answer 5

I know nothing of the business associated with the medicine of the time. But from my observations it seems that in those days, where science was in its infancy if not non-existent, that medicine was indeed about helping people. But it was intertwined with spiritualism to such a degree that "helping people" constituted purging the body of the evils that cause symptoms and disease... and thusly saving souls.