Thursday, November 19, 2015

Food as Medicine: Part 5 - Medieval Europe and the Middle East

Food as Medicine:
Part 5 - Medieval Europe and the Middle East
Part 6 - Proverbial Apples and Poultry-laden Soups
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.
 

No comments:

Post a Comment