Tricks and Magic

Most people would if asked, probably say that medicine and the sciences of the Middle Ages were a lot of quackery and hogwash, and that the Church forbade any delving into anything that upset God's order. But then how does one explain the philosopher and the alchemist? Learned church men such as Roger Bacon who not only invented the spectrum some 400 years before Newton, but also invented the telescope before Galileo?

What of Monastic Hospitals where certain herbs such as Yarrow and Tormentill were used to treat wounds and worms in the intestine, or even Heath Pea which staved off hunger and thirst for a several days? And few can imagine that if surgery were needed, you could actually be anesthetized by being given a potion of Henbane, Hemlock, and Opium Poppy.

These men of the church also knew the shape of the world to be round, until Washington Irving came around in 1828 and said the church said the world was flat in his biography of Columbus, who by the way found his way around the coastlines of Spain by using maps and charts created by...Who else?

The world would not have Gothic structures if The Cathedral of Canterbury hadn't burnt to the ground in 1174, and the monks let a Frenchman build the second cathedral and use flying buttresses to hold up the walls.

And we would never know what time it is had it not been for the Abbot of St. Albans, Richard of Wallingford who built the worlds first astronomical clock.

So there you have it, the combination of science and religion. Thank heavens for it, or we'd all be pushing up the daisies by now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTf2EzTd1TE&feature=PlayList&p=GXxQQqRaQHA