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MEDICINE IN THE TIME OF SAINT CUTHBERT L. T. WEAVER* Introduction Thirteen hundred years have passed since the death of Cuthbert, now best remembered as a Northumbrian saint whose final years were spent in seclusion on the Farne Islands. Cuthbert possessed considerable skill as a healer, manifest not only in his humane response to illness but also in his practical management of it. He enjoyed an active early life, first as a monk at Melrose and later as Bishop of Lindisfarne, spending many of his years traveling the border country between England and Scotland, preaching and healing. After his death in 687 his grave became a shrine attracting the sick and disabled to Holy Island. In his Life of Cuthbert [1], written soon after the saint's death, Bede describes a keenly observant man with a strong interest in natural history and disease. The reputation that Cuthbert earned as a healer during his lifetime may explain why his burial place continued to be a goal for sick pilgrims even after his body finally found rest at Durham 400 years later. In this article, Bede's Life ofCuthbert is used as a source to examine his reputation as a healer and the practice of medicine in Anglo-Saxon England. An attempt is made to identify the use of empiric modes of treatment and to assess the influence of classical (Graeco-Roman), traditional (Anglo-Saxon), and Christian (biblical) medical knowledge on Cuthbert's logical and rational approach to clinical management. This is followed by an account of the fate of Cuthbert's remains, which have been a source of interest to historians to the present day [2]. As first of all a monk, and second a historian and biographer of many churchmen, Bede wrote an account of Cuthbert's life that is both reverential in tone and accurate in fact. The subject was close to him in time, place, and spirit, and many of his facts have been confirmed from other sources [3]. These were The Anonymous Life [4] by a monk of Lindisfarne The author is grateful to Drs. J. M. Parkin and M. C. Carey for their helpful comments. *MRC Dunn Nutrition Laboratory, Milton Road, Cambridge CB41XJ, United Kingdom .©1989 by The University of Chicago. AU rights reserved. 003 1-5982/89/3203-0625$01 .00 Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 32, 3 · Spring 1989 \ 387 and the witnesses he mentions in the introduction to his own work. Bede stresses: "I have written nothing about the saint without first subjecting the facts to the most thorough scrutiny and have passed on nothing to be transcribed for general reading that has not been obtained by vigorous examination of truthful witnesses." In a hagiographical style typical of the period, Bede observes that Cuthbert "became famous for his miracles, for his prayers restored sufferers from all kinds of disease and affliction. He cured some who were vexed by unclean spirits not only by laying on of hands, exhorting and exorcising—that is by actual bodily contact—but even from afar, merely by praying and predicting their cure." Such language should not be allowed to conceal the clear descriptions of medical practice based on sound observation and rational principles that are contained within Bede's Life of Cuthbert. Accounts of several recognisable diseases with their symptoms, signs, natural histories, and logical treatments emerge, providing a picture of the state of medicine in Anglo-Saxon England. Historical Background Although the span of Cuthbert's life overlapped with that of Bede by 14 years, the historian probably never met the saint. Bede lived and worked atJarrow, on the mouth of the river Tyne. Largely uninhabited, the region extending northward from the river to the Scottish border was the kingdom of Bernicia. Its main military stronghold was Bamburgh on the coast, and its religious centre Hexham, further up the Tyne [5]. Losing the security of Roman protection in the fourth century, Northern England was thereafter ruled by a series of warrior kings. Aethelfrith , who secured the throne in 593, is depicted by Bede as "a very brave king, eager for glory" [6]: he conquered more territory than any earlier English king and established a line that was...

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