Read it through once

These quotations are enough to show how the real medical knowledge of those times was encrusted with all sorts of faith-curing devices, sheer falsehoods, and superstitions. The most learned men of the Middle Ages were almost invariably monks and hermits, for there was nothing in the world of those strenuous times to attract a studious, sensitive disposition. The spirit of their learning can be judged from the wearisome disquisitions and lengthy volumes written about the Barnacle Goose and Scythian Lamb.