Medicine and Canon Law

Medicine and Canon Law- In the early centuries the practice of medicine by clerics, whether secular or regular, was not treated with disapproval by the Church, nor was it at all uncommon for them to devote a considerable part of their time to the medical avocation. Abuses, however, arose, and in the twelfth century ecclesiastical canons were framed which became more and more adverse to clerics practising the art of medicine.