martin reboul

I suppose much of their knowledge was 'empirical' as with most things in the
MA (like metallurgy). Such knowledge unfortunately gets passed on by word of
mouth and is seldom recorded, or is learned by a lifetime of experience and
then lost.

Natural immunity must have had a lot to do with it, but the basic idea of
keeping wounds 'clean' seems to go back beyond Ancient Greece? In other
words, they obviously knew that red hot irons and certain chemicals stopped
infection developing, but didn't know what 'infection' was, never mind what
caused it. They knew it was 'airborne' and associated with insects, vermin
and dirt, but I'm uncertain how they actually 'thought' about it?

It was thought that dead flesh turned into or produced insects at this time
(which I suppose it does to this day in a way?), but whether anyone took a
step back and really investigated such things 'scientifically', I don't
know? I'm inclined to think some probably did, but never recorded it for
various reasons.

How good was their surgery I wonder? The 14th century medical tracts I have
seen clearly and definitely stated that no piercing injury to the brain,
liver, kidneys, circulatory or digestive systems was survivable, yet still
held out hope that one day it might be. There was no mention of survivable
amputation either, other than fingers and toes. Obviously blinding wasn't
necessarily fatal, or the removal of ears and noses, but that was hardly
surgery?

There seems precious little information about medieval medicine. It looks as
if they looked back on a 'golden age' based on Greek and Roman medicine,
though from what I have seen, many survived very serious wounds and lived to
fight another day (archaeology has proved this at Towton for example).
Stitching and dressing must have been known about, as well as some fairly
advanced herbal medicine. What did they get away with I wonder?

Ambition and experimentation is nothing new. Many years ago, I remember
seeing a rather gruesome, but fascinating picture of what appeared to be a
'leg transplant' from ancient times (Roman I think?).
The unfortunate 'donor' was being carried away on one side, and the
(probably even less fortunate after a few days) patient was on the table.
The donor was black, the patient white, which seemed even more peculiar.
Anyone else ever seen this picture?

Grim Cheers
Martin

uwe müller

"Martin Reboul" <martin@reboul1471.freeserve.co.uk> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:bl84om$83s$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk...


have

Authors took 500 skulls from early medieval graveyards. About 10% of these
showed wounds inflicted with a sword, 40 % of those had died, 60 % survived.
Authors note that this compares favourably to modern head wound by machetes,
having a letality of 26 % despite modern medicine.
They conclude that the people at that time must have specialized knowledge
in the treatment of posttraumatic and pre- and postoperative bleeding. And
they must have known ways to prevent infection, as the low rate of
infections shows.

Authors wonder why that knowledge was lost.

From Jochen Weber, Alfred Czarnetzki and Axel Spring, Neurochirurgische
Erkrankungen des Schädels im frühen Mittelater. in: Deutsches Aerzteblatt
2001; 98, A 3196-3201 [Heft 4]

have fun

Uwe Müller

simon pugh

In message <bl84om$83s$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk>, Martin Reboul
<martin@reboul1471.freeserve.co.uk> writes

Didn't they recognise the connection between bad smells and disease, but
made the mistake of thinking that it was the bad smell that caused the
disease?

I'm not sure that they had a concept of "airborne" though, they had the
idea that bad air caused disease but not that air could carry a disease
causing agent from one person to another.

The idea of a transmissible or contagious disease simply did not fit
with medical theory at the time. Of course people realised that plague
could go from one person to another but no real concept how this might
happen. Plague victims are supposed to have smelt pretty bad so that
could have done it and also there was the idea that it could be
transmitted by a glance or talking to someone with plague. It was really
after the French disease that theories of contagion were developed.

The idea of spontaneous generation wasn't finally disproved until
Pasteur in the 19th c.

Piercing injuries of the abdomen were a problem because penetration of
the gut released bacteria and the resulting infection was almost
certainly fatal, and rupture of organs such as liver and spleen was
likely to produce uncontrollable bleeding.


Wasn't this discussed on shm a year or two ago, treatment of battlefield
injuries must have been much more sophisticated than commonly realised.


--
Simon Pugh

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paul j gans

I'm sure they did just that.


Right. Bad air was an entity of its own.


But they did note that drinking water downstream from the latrines
made folks sick. That was known even in pre-classical times.
So empirical observations had some strength.


It still isn't very good. Once an infection sets in even
today you are in bad shape.

I think so.


---- Paul J. Gans

tron furu

"Paul J Gans" <gans@panix.com> skrev i melding
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"Miasma"?

Empirical observation has always been used, but they had no prosthetical
extensions of the sensory apparatus like microscopes or telescopes. Does
wonders for observation.
Hence they were, I would think, unable to form new theories, as there were
few new data.

T

tron furu

"Simon Pugh" <News@mrzsp.demonX.co.uk> skrev i melding > >> And we should
not make common errors. >

......whether anyone took a

Medical science at the time would be houmours and vapours; doctors still
used Hippocrates, Galen, Dioskurides, to some degree Arab influence (IIRC -
Avicenna?) (Yes. Google cheating gives e.g.
http://www.strangelove.net/~kieser/M...medicine.html). Even the later
Culpeppers (?) 17. century (?) Herbal is very much concerned with
astrological influences and signature theory.
Valerius Cordus is middle 16. century; Brunschwig is dubious, as his book
was published in 1500 exactly ... (partly off Topic?)


(University) educated doctors were probably few and far between, and my
standard Dark Ages-assumption is that the general populace did not have the
means to pay their fees.
Another dark Dark Ages rumour must be that people would fight such doctors
off from their sickbed if they were fit enough to lift their arms.

Science was (and is) "hierarchical arrangement of concepts in logical
order"; quantification - i.e. "natural science" - was a) not thought of, b)
difficult for lack of observation instruments (data procuring prosthetical
extensions of the sensory apparatus like microscopes or telescopes) and c)
for the lack of quantification devices, i.e. reliable measuring apparatus.
The experimantal method rests on isolation of factors, and was also not
thought of yet.
Ontology hadn't quite arrived at materialism and empiricism, and ethics
hadn't quite arrived at maximization of conspicuous consumption.

The one record I know of from Heimskringla is in the Saga of Olav
Haraldsson, where Tormod Kolbrunarskald is wounded by an arrow in the side
at the battle of Stiklestad. He reaches a hut where women tend wounds. One
of them (in my translation referred to as "legen", "the doctor") sits inside
and in a pot made of stone cooks a stew "of pounded onion, with sundry
grasses", which was fed the wounded to see if their wounds smelled of onions
(punctured stomach - hopeless case).
That is at least a sign that there was a) some organized care of the
wounded, by b) people who had probably not graduated from Padua, but whose
(practical) skill was recognized by a title (if this is not mistranslated)
using c) not only herbal medicine, but an actual "diagnostic device",
however crude.
If U. Eco is to be believed, garlic was known and highly regarded as a
strong antiseptic; perhaps there were more than one kind of onion in that
stew (I hope so, anyway).

(Tormod refuses treatment, saying "Not have I graut-sott ("porridge
illness")"; He has the doctor carve out enough meat for pliers to grip the
tang of the arrowhead. Pulling out the arrow, he saw that it was barbed, and
that the flesh on the barbs was white. Then he said - Well has he fed us,
the King; the roots of my heart are fat yet. "Later he leaned back and was
dead. Here ends the tale of Tormod....")


Perhaps much _was_ lost in the toll taken by the Witch Hunters.

T

martin reboul

My doctor still consults his astrological tables whenever I go to see him. I
assume so anyway, though he might just be hiding under his copy of the Financial Times?

I'm not sure their fees were always impossibly high, or that they didn't do
'good work' for the sake of their reputation or just because they were
generous? Simon's offering earlier in this thread gave me 'hope' somehow?
Not that medieval medicine tickles my fancy I'm afraid...


Certainly the tools were lacking for investigating the cause and effects of
disease then. They must have wondered however, and must have recognised
epidemics and been curious about how disease spread? They don't seem to have
discussed it much however, not in writing anyway?


It doesn't seem to have made much difference? The magical properties of
garlic (cleaning the blood, preventing infection, boosting the immune system
etc.) are I suspect entirely based on the fact that if you eat lots of the
filthy stuff, everyone stays out of your way and doesn't cough and sneeze
all over you.

Poor Olav - he should have asked for a second opinion.

Those women are now nurses at my local hospital I suspect...


Time they visited Edgware General if you ask me!
Cheers
Martin

tron furu

"Martin Reboul" <martin@reboul1471.freeserve.co.uk> skrev i melding
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do

I wonder what where the ratios of doctors to people in any region at any
given time.
1:1000? 1:10.000?


of


No .... God provided portents aplenty, did he not? "Red cloud in the west, a
hail of herring your faith to test in the morning." Bad rhyme, but old folk
wisdom. Disease was as much a moral as a "natural" thing; inflicted by a
jealous god for the sins of the people.

They must have wondered however, and must have recognised


I suspect God was the "least implausible Hypothesis" still.

They don't seem to have


May have had something to do with God's local representatives...?

system


Hey, there's that english common sense agian. What about penicillin's magial
properties?
Medicinal properties of plants aren't "magical". Plants are chemical
factories and produce everything from sugar and flavour to stink and poison.
Turpentine, the Agent Orange if pine forests. Yew bark (salix), salisylic
(sp?) acid = aspirin, blessing of those ..... days. Dioskurides'
pharmacopoeia gives almost 1000 medicines. And garlic, like pepper, is
antiseptic. I mean, if people, who are much bigger than garlic, run away,
what do you think it does to microscopic amoeba...?

T

bogart.lloy

Best to eschew the yew -- potentially deadly.

Willow bark (different) is the original source
of salicylates.

Lloyd
*****

tron furu

"Lloyd" <bogart.lloy@uwlax.edu> skrev i melding
news:7f56d4d8.0309300751.3ca054bb@posting.google.c om...

Sorry, that was my english failing me. AFAIK (now) salix = willow.

Thx

T