VERSION|0.5.1|NAME|Dinah|DATE|1385675121|CONTENT|Although the monks of old may have been very compassionate when it came to tending the sick, it may not be a good idea to over-romanticise their ministrations.  Medical science as we know it would hardly have existed then, and probably the only treatments on offer would have been blood-letting, purging, and herbal remedies including some rudimentary pain relief.  Most of these would have done more to kill than cure the patients.  Indeed, up to the late nineteenth century, doctors with their limited medical knowledge usually did more harm than good.  Placing the sick into over-crowded, unhygienic hospitals, hospices and infirmaries meant infections and diseases would spread quickly, with deadly effect.

Perhaps the monks, like Mother Theresa were more concerned with the cure of souls than of bodies, and considered that saving their patients from damnation was more important than saving their lives.
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