Medieval Medical School

Today I went on a free guided tour of Bologna offered by Johns Hopkins. We went to many really neat places around the city, but one place that really stuck out to my was the University of Bologna. The school is over 1,000 years old and considered the oldest university in the Western World. While the school was originally best known for its law school, they also dabbled in medicine!

As most academic disciplines, medicine was closely watched by the church in the early days. All in an effort to ensure that academic teachings were in-line with the accepted church views of the day. Opening a dead body up for science was considered an extremely sinful thing to do. So the only time the University of Bologna was allowed to have an anatomy class with a cadaver was during the period of carnival, this is because it was more acceptable to be sinful during this period of the year. So at the time of carnival every year the University would conduct classes with cadavers.

marble slab for the cadaver in the middle of an ornately carved wood paneled room

Cadaver slab with teaching pulpit in the background

While the University was able to teach anatomy with actual examples during this period it did not mean that the Church turned a complete blind eye to what occurred in the classroom. On the wall opposing the teaching pulpit there is a scripture verse carved into the woodwork. This part of the wall is actually shudders with another small room behind them. Inside the room at all times would be a priest or other church official would listen to all the lecturing in the classroom and if anything went against the acceptable religious beliefs the shudders would be thrown open and the church official would immediately engage in debate to correct the professor and ensure that the holy truth prevailed.

Obviously church-science relations have come a long way since (and I have great respect for both religion and science), but I still find it intriguing to see some of the things that were done in order to maintain the order of the church.