Byzantine medicine
The Byzantine medicine , that is the medicine of the late antiquity and the Byzantine Empire 395-1453, is an epoch in medical history that the antiquity after the disintegration of the Roman Empire follows. Medicine during the Byzantine Empire was mainly based on ancient tradition. The most important medical works were of a compilation type up to about 642. Only then was there a certain expansion through clinical experience. These works often had detailed medical descriptions and detailed descriptions of certain ailments.
First phase of Byzantine medicine (395–642 AD)
The first phase of Byzantine medicine begins with the division of the Roman Empire in 395 and lasts until the Islamic conquest of Alexandria in 642.
It is characterized by the compilation, i.e. the collection, the collation, the copying of ancient knowledge. A consequence of these compilations, supplemented by annotations, was the simplification and dissemination of the medical knowledge of Hippocrates , Galen and other authors of the time.
The main representatives of the compilers were Oreibasios of Pergamon , Alexandros of Tralleis , Paulos of Aigina and others. The main work of Oreibasios consists of a compilation of Galen's writings and comprises 70 books. But Oreibasios not only quotes Galen, but also adds other important findings of good doctors. Probably the most important Byzantine collector of medical knowledge, he created numerous revisions in which older false methods were eliminated. Several of his works, along with that of numerous other Byzantine medicinals, have been translated into Latin and finally, in the Age of Enlightenment and Rationalism , into English and French.
Around the year 512 in Constantinople, the Dioscurides from Vienna was created, the first permanently datable picture herbarium of late antiquity. The work was a gift from the citizens of Honoratae (Pera) to the Imperial Princess Juliana Anicia . The illustrated Dioscurides herbarium forms the largest part. It is based on Dioscuride's standard work De materia medica from the 1st century AD. The herbarium was in use until the beginning of modern times, as shown by transcriptions in Arabic, Latin and Hebrew script.
Paulos von Aigina described in the 6th book of the Pragmateia (manual of practical medicine) gynecological operations with the speculum . Written at the end of the 7th century, this work was an official textbook for 800 years.
One event that marked the end of the first phase of Byzantine medicine was the Justinian plague (541-542 AD).
Second phase of Byzantine medicine (642–1453 AD)
The second phase of Byzantine medicine extends from 642 to the Islamic conquest of Constantinople and the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453.
During this time, too, scientists such as Michael Psellos and Nikolaos Myrepsos were busy compiling ancient knowledge, but now began to include their own clinical experience in the compilation.
In late antiquity, many sources mention hospitals whose specific history extends in the military direction back into the Roman Empire and beyond. Constantinople was the center of these activities in the Middle Ages due to its geographical position, size and accumulated knowledge.
A Byzantine treatise of the 13th century by Nikolaos Myrepsos reached the status of pharmaceutical master text in the Paris Medical Faculty until 1651. The Byzantine treatise of Demetrios Pepagomenos (13th century) on gout was to be translated into Latin by the humanist Marcus Musurus and published in Venice in 1517 . The idea that Byzantium was just a “transmission belt” of ancient medical knowledge up to the Renaissance have proven to be out of date. It is known today that the Latin medic Roger von Salerno was influenced by the treatises of the Byzantine doctors Aetius , Alexander von Tralles and Paulos von Aigina at the end of the 12th century .
Furthermore, there was an opening of science to the healing knowledge of other countries and peoples such as Persia, Arabia and India.
Hospitals
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A major contribution of Byzantine medicine was the establishment of medical facilities that - supported by churches or the state - already corresponded in some respects to modern hospitals. Such facilities of ancient Greece and Rome served as a military hospital or hospital . They were in cities like Constantinople and later Thessaloniki .
The first hospital was a hospital of Basil of Caesarea at the end of the 4th century, with other institutions of this type only being established in the urban regions during the 8th and 9th centuries. Byzantine medicine was practiced mainly as an inpatient or outpatient in special parts of the hospital complex. Even then, a certain hierarchy developed between the chief physician ( archiatroi ), head nurses ( hypourgoi ) and nurses ( hyperetai ).
Christianity
Christianity played a key role in the construction and maintenance of hospitals in most areas of the empire . Bishops established and maintained numerous hospitals in their dioceses. Hospitals were often built near churches because of the emphasis on healing through salvation. The application of the medical art was connected with the prayer addressed to certain saints like Cosmas and Damian , killed by Diocletian in 303 , who became patron saints of medicine and doctors.
Transition from Byzantine medicine to Persian-Arabic healing knowledge
The transmission of ancient knowledge of diseases, diagnosis and treatment options and the first medicines to the Persian-Arabic culture and language area mostly took place in the border regions of the great Byzantine Empire.
The transfer of knowledge was often linked to conquering larger cities. Other reasons for the clash of cultures were the emigration of Christian Nestorians who moved to Persia due to internal political and theological disagreements.
From the symbiosis of Byzantine and Persian-Arabic medicine (for example with Symeon Seth) several currents developed, which among other things led to the establishment of medical training centers.
literature
- Albrecht Berger: The bathroom in Byzantine times . Institute for Byzantine Studies and Modern Greek Philology, Munich 1982.
- Paul Diepgen : On gynecology in the Byzantine culture of the Middle Ages (= treatises of the Academy of Sciences and Literature. Humanities and social science class. Born 1950, Volume 1). Verlag der Wissenschaft und der Literatur in Mainz (commissioned by Franz Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden).
- Wolfgang U. Eckart: History of medicine . 5. corr. and updated edition. Springer, Heidelberg 2005, ISBN 3-540-21287-6 .
- Karl-Heinz Leven: Ancient medicine. A lexicon . Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-52891-0 .
- Kamal Sabri Kolta, Doris Schwarzmann-Schafhauser: Byzantine Medicine. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , pp. 224-226.
- Owsei Temkin : "Byzantine Medicine: Tradition and Empiricism". In: Dumbarton Oaks Papers , 16, 97-115 (1962). at JSTOR
supporting documents
- ↑ Pedanius Dioscurides - Der Wiener Dioskurides; Codex medicus Graecus 1 of the Austrian National Library . Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt (Highlights of Book Art, Volume 8.) Commentary by Otto Mazal p. 3 f.
- ↑ Georg Harig : From the Arabic sources of Simeon Seth. In: Medizinhistorisches Journal 2, 1967, pp. 248-268.