Medicine in the Middle AgesAfter the collapse of the Roman Empire in the mid-first millennium AD, many of its former provinces suffered regression. As the rich empirical resources had been taken away with the retreat of the empire in Britain's Roman armies, few had the knowledge or skill to continue their work or preserve the foundations of a great society. In the chaos following the retreat of the Romans, as Britain was invaded by Vikings, Saxons and Normans, much of their knowledge was lost. Very few people could read or write, so the books the Romans had learned from were useless. When the British people were conquered by nations who had never been under Roman influence and therefore had no understanding of their literature or practical beliefs, they regressed to a similar lifestyle they had been leading since before the Romans arrived. Roman doctors had followed practical methods of diagnosis, prognosis, treatment and surgery but this approach was soon replaced by superstitious and spiritual remedies. The Romans had many gods, but their religion had never really been accepted in Britain and the natives had mainly pagan beliefs. With these beliefs came medicinal treatment methods based on appeasing specific spirits or superstitions. When Britain became a Christian nation, these beliefs continued, and although spiritual healing was mostly replaced by prayer, it still had little effect. The Romans had acquired much of their knowledge from the Greeks, who developed many theories about the cause of disease. The most popular was the Theory of the Four Humors, according to which the sick... middle of paper... fled to the countryside while the poor remained to die in overcrowded cities. People who contracted the plague were locked in their homes with their families. Many theories were developed about how the plague spread. Most people thought it was spread by bad odors in the air and no one attributed it to mice. The Middle Ages were a time of severe regression and very little progress was made. This is mainly due to the influence of Christianity and the hysterical witch hunts that led people to be too scared to oppose the Church's decisions. His influence was so powerful that until the time of Henry VIII the Church had more power than the king. People forgot the Roman way of thinking and instead adopted and relearned the pagan beliefs of Britain's conquerors, including those that influenced medicine..