<P> The Middle Ages contributed a great deal to medical knowledge . This period contained progress in surgery, medical chemistry, dissection, and practical medicine . The Middle Ages laid the ground work for later, more significant discoveries . There was a slow but constant progression in the way that medicine was studied and practiced . It went from apprenticeships to universities and from oral traditions to documenting texts . The most well - known preservers of texts, not only medical, would be the monasteries . The monks were able to copy and revise any medical texts that they were able to obtain . Besides documentation the Middle Ages also had one of the first well known female physicians, Hildegard of Bingen . </P> <P> Hildegard was born in 1098 and at the age of fourteen she entered the double monastery of Dissibodenberg . She wrote the medical text Causae et curae, in which many medical practices of the time were demonstrated . This book contained diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis of many different diseases and illnesses . This text sheds light on medieval medical practices of the time . It also demonstrates the vast amount of knowledge and influences that she built upon . In this time period medicine was taken very seriously, as is shown with Hildegard's detailed descriptions on how to perform medical tasks . The descriptions are nothing without their practical counterpart, and Hildegard was thought to have been an infirmarian in the monastery where she lived . An infirmarian treated not only other monks but pilgrims, workers, and the poor men, women, and children in the monastery's hospice . Because monasteries were located in rural areas the infirmarian was also responsible for the care of lacerations, fractures, dislocations, and burns . Along with typical medical practice the text also hints that the youth (such as Hildegard) would have received hands - on training from the previous infirmarian . Beyond routine nursing this also shows that medical remedies from plants, either grown or gathered, had a significant impact of the future of medicine . This was the beginnings of the domestic pharmacy . </P> <P> Although plants were the main source of medieval remedies, around the sixteenth century medical chemistry became more prominent . "Medical chemistry began with the adaptation of chemical processes to the preparation of medicine". Previously medical chemistry was characterized by any use of inorganic materials, but it was later refined to be more technical, like the processes of distillation . John of Rupescissa's works in alchemy and the beginnings of medical chemistry is recognized for the bounds in chemistry . His works in making the philosopher's stone, also known as the fifth essence, was what made he became known for . Distillation techniques were mostly used, and it was said that by reaching a substance's purest form the person would find the fifth essence, and this is where medicine comes in . Remedies were able to be made more potent because there was now a way to remove nonessential elements . This opened many doors for medieval physicians as new, different remedies were made . Medical chemistry provided an "increasing body of pharmacological literature dealing with the use of medicines derived from mineral sources". Medical chemistry also shows the use of alcohols in medicine . Though these events were not huge bounds for the field, they were influential in determining the course of science . It was the start of differentiation between alchemy and chemistry . </P> <P> The Middle Ages brought a new way of thinking and a lessening on the taboo of dissection . Dissection for medical purposes became more prominent around 1299 . During this time the Italians were practicing anatomical dissection and the first record of an autopsy dates from 1286 . Dissection was first introduced in the educational setting at the university of Bologna, to study and teach anatomy . The fourteenth century saw a significant spread of dissection and autopsy in Italy, and was not only taken up by medical faculties, but by colleges for physicians and surgeons . </P>

Where did they get oil from in medieval times