Islamic Medicine (Continued)

 

Part III: Diseases of the Middle Ages

A. Life expectancy (how long a person was expected to live on the average) during the Middle Ages was very much lower than it is today. [Today, for example, males born in the United States are expected to live to the age of 73.6 years and females to the age of 79.4 years. - U.S.C.D.C. - 1997 statistics.]

People of the Middle Ages suffered from many diseases and problems that we no longer worry about. They had high infant mortality rates (babies often died at or soon after birth). There were few medicines to treat many illnesses and poorly trained doctors who worked without good hospitals. Health care was not very advanced in many places, but it was especially bad in Europe. Diet was generally poor. Famine (no food), war, and epidemics (rapid spread of disease) were much more common. One of the most feared of all the problems people faced was the Plague.

 

B. The Bubonic Plague (The Black Death)

Flea greatly magnified. . . .

The Plague began about 1331 in the grasslands of Central Asia. The Plague is found in rodents like ground squirrels and rats, but it is spread to humans through the bites of fleas living on infected rodents. The fleas had found their way into the caravans of the traders. It spread rapidly as people tried to escape along the trade routes of the steppe. The same Mongol law and order that made possible a century of trade and intense human exchange between China and the Atlantic coast, now quickened the progress of the plague across Eurasia. In China the outbreaks of the plague caused massive death rates and economic chaos. Italian ships carried infected rats and fleas in their cargo to the major European cities of the Mediterranean. The plague reached Egypt in 1347. One Egyptian historian tells of a ship: out of a total of 332 on board, only 45 arrived at the port of Cairo alive. All of those who had survived died soon after in the port. [Dols, The Black Death in the Middle East, p. 69]

From the sea ports caravans unknowingly transmitted the disease throughout Europe, northern Africa, and the Middle East. Estimates of the death tolls vary between 1/2 to 1/3 of the populations.

 
European painting showing the Plague.

Ibn Battuta, the 14th century Muslim traveler from Morocco, told about the effects of the plague in Damascus, Syria where the death toll was 2,000 people a day! The business of the city had come to a halt. The people begged God for the plague to stop.

"The people fasted for three successive days... [Then all the people] assembled in the Great mosque until it was filled to overflowing... and spent the night there in prayers... Then, after performing the dawn prayer..., they all went out [barefoot] together... carrying Qur'ans in their hands. The entire population of the city joined... The Jews went out with their book of the law and the Christians with the Gospel... [all] of them in tears... imploring (begging) the favor of God through His Books and His Prophets." [Gibb, Ibn Battuta, p. 143-144]

 

 

 

The people of the 14th century were uneducated and susceptible to superstitions. Some early treatments in Europe included:
  • bathing in human urine
  • wearing of excrement
  • placing dead animals in homes
  • use of leeches (a worm-like animal that sucked out blood)
  • drinking molten gold (gold heated until it melted) and powdered emeralds (a green jewel)

 

 

 

As plague epidemics occurred regularly after 1350, preventive measures emerged. Plague patients were placed in pesthouses, isolated from the general population. Ships coming from plague infested areas were forced to stay out of port for a 40 day quarantine until the disease died out. [Treatments from Janis' website.]

 

Learn more about the Bubonic Plague or "Black Death" which wiped out about 1/3 to 1/2 of parts of Europe and Asia.

"...in the middle of the fourteenth century, civilization both in the East and the West was visited by a destructive plague which devastated nations and caused populations to vanish. It swallowed up many of the good things of civilization and wiped them out. It overtook the dynasties at the time of their senility (time of extreme old age ready to die], when they had reached the limit of their duration. It lessened their power and curtailed (limited) their influence. It weakened their authority. Their situation approached the point of annihilation (total destruction) and dissolution. Civilization decreased with the decrease of mankind. Cities and buildings were laid waste, roads and way signs were obliterated, settlements and mansions became empty, dynasties and tribes grew weak. The entire inhabited world changed. ... It was as if the voice of existence in the world had called out for oblivion and restriction, and the world had responded to its call. ... a world brought into existence anew. . . ."

 

C. Smallpox also spread in epidemics. Smallpox was an ancient disease from at least 10,000 B.C. and it was greatly feared. It killed common people and kings alike. The first Abassid caliph, Abbul al-Abbas al-Saffah ("the blood shedder") died from it. In the late 18th century in Europe, 400 000 people died of smallpox each year and one third of the survivors went blind. When Spanish explorers brought it to the New World, whole populations of the native peoples were almost totally wiped out.

The symptoms of smallpox appeared suddenly. They included high fever, chills, headaches and back pain. Nausea and vomiting were also common. After 2 to 4 days, the fever went and a rash appeared on the face and inside the eyes. Then the rash would cover the whole body.

Rhazes (Abu Bakr Muhammad Ibn Zakariya al-Razi) wrote the first medical description of smallpox about AD 910. Rhazes also noted that the illness was transmitted from person to person. His explanation of why survivors of smallpox do not develop the disease a second time is the first theory of acquired immunity.

In the late Middle Ages it was common knowledge that survivors of smallpox became immuned to (couldn't catch) the disease. As a result, people in Asia learned to intentionally (on purpose) infect healthy persons with smallpox in the hope that the infection would be less severe than the natural disease and would create immunity. Children were exposed to organisms from people with mild cases of smallpox. In China, powdered scabs of smallpox blisters were blown into the nostrils of healthy persons through a tube to prevent the disease. In India, the scabs or pus from a person with smallpox was scratched into the skin of a healthy person. In the 16th century in China, healthy people took pills made from the fleas of cows to prevent smallpox.

These techniques were spread by the caravan travelers. They were practiced frequently in the Ottoman Empire (with the capital in Turkey) , where it had been introduced by traders around 1670. These methods were later introduced to Europe. About 1810 Jenner in England made a vaccine for smallpox and the disease began to be controlled on a wide scale worldwide. Today the disease of smallpox no longer exists.

[Abridged and simplified from HISTORY OF MEDICINE: Smallpox: The Triumph over the Most Terrible of the Ministers of Death over Smallpox]

 
D. The Evil Eye - It was widely believed (and still is) that certain people could spread bad luck through their eyes. Even the Prophet Muhammad had told of this: "The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: No spell is to be used except for the evil eye, a snake bite, or a scorpion sting."

To prevent the "evil eye" there were magic spells and magical objects. One such way to prevent the evil eye was to wear the "hand of Fatimah" (the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad), now common in Berber jewelry, or to raise the left hand as a way of protection.

See other Hadith about medicine and health
 
 
Part IV: Some Common Medieval Medical Procedures:
Painting from "Maqama (Story) of Hajr and Yamama - doctor bleeds patient". Maqamat of al-Hariri (1054 - 1122). Reproduced in Pages of Perfection. This man is being bled with "cupping".

A. Cupping: Cupping was a common treatment during the Middle Ages. With wet cupping, a small cut on the skin (usually on the back, but sometimes on the head or elsewhere) was made and a cupping glass created a suction to pull out a small amount of blood. With dry cupping, the glasses were applied to the skin with heat from a flame to make a vacuum in the glass. No cut was made in dry cupping. Ibn Sina, the famous doctor, recommended cupping at certain times of day and times of the year. Cupping was to draw inflammation away from deep parts to the surface and away from important organs, to take away pain, and to bring warmth and blood to an affected organ and take "humors" from it. Cups were applied for 10 to 15 minutes. [The Traditional Healer's Handbook - A Classic Guide to the Medicine of Avicenna, by Chishti, Healing Arts Press, Vermont 1988, page ]
 
B. Henna: Henna, which was used as a decoration on the hands and feet, also had medical qualities.
 
The Prophet Muhammad gave medical advice that was common during his time. He told someone complaining of a headache to get himself cupped, or of a pain in his legs, he told him to dye them with henna. "Narrated by Salmah: the maid-servant of the Prophet - Book 28, Number 3850. See other Hadith about medicine and health.]

 

 

 

 

 

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