Food as Medicine:
Medieval Europe and the Middle East
After Rome was sacked by barbarian hordes
and crumbled under its own decadence, a sheer mind-boggling amount of knowledge
was lost. This signalled Europe's long and dreary dip into the Dark Ages. While
medicine in China and India flourished, Europe floundered. However, while
Europe sussed out how to fight disease through the employ of doctor barbers,
there was yet another medical revolution going on in the Middle East. The
Jewish and Muslim people made leaps and bounds in medical field during this
time, even founding schools, hospitals and training the first proper doctors.
While they used more scientific techniques, food was also still employed as
treatment.
Both Europe and the Middle East still
loosely practiced medicine using the Hippocratic humours theory. However,
instead of providing just purely food and herbs, surgery became a more reliable
means of treatment. This was particularly helpful as diseases like tonsillitis
or appendicitis were fatal without surgery. However, certain advancements were
made using food such as using wine, vinegar or salt water to clean wounds in
order to prevent infection or the use of poppy seeds (opium) as a pain killer.
As prominent doctors like Al-Razi and Ibn Sina had the forethought to compile medical knowledge, medicine underwent a
renaissance which boomed and would eventually reach Europe around the same time
the arts underwent their more famous Renaissance.
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