Journal of Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology
Open Access

Abstract

Saints and Ophthalmology: A Pattern for Emulation, A Model of Healing, and Physicians in Action

Ahmad M Mansour and Walid A Medawar

From the earliest times, medical practitioners have sought divine help and support to aid them as they go about their busy rounds. In Christian Europe of the High Middle Ages, saints played a central role in the everyday life of the ailing. Alongside healing attempts which involved magic, folk or scientifically-based medicine, the invocation of specific patron saints for the curing of ailments was a widespread practice. The miracles of vision performed by saints over the past two millennia are listed and interpreted by various reviewers along faith healing, spontaneous recovery, or physicians acting as saints. The individuals honored as patron saints of medicine were practicing physicians who served their patients and their communities well. It is their role as saints to represent the spiritual element in the healing process as well as personifying the charitable idealism of the good physician, and therefore are models for humanitarian physicians, with the ultimate model of healing being Jesus Christ.