Medicine and remedies of the Middle Ages

The long medieval period, which extends in the West almost a thousand years has gradually expanded knowledge in the medical field, with contrasting phases of growth and stagnation. Numerous and extremely varied, tempting some medicinal preparations by their sweetness and their effectiveness are still used today. Other remedies are full of paradoxes as science, religion, magic and cruelty combine to those who suffer, sometimes causing the worsening of their ailments. Some prominent researchers have however contributed to the advancement of knowledge.

The founders of medicine

Admired by the Greeks, Egyptian medicine refers in Western medicine for millennia. The medical papyri mention more than seven hundred substances curative

plant, animal, mineral component over a thousand remedies often associated with various incantations to the gods and demons.

In the fifth century BC, Hippocrates himself admired the Egyptian whom he took the drug forms mentioned in his "Aphorisms of Corpus Hippocratum" whose principles will be part of medical education until the eighteenth century.

Aulus corrnelius Roman physician Celsus, is the author of a valuable collection of tips and remedies called "re medica".

Pliny the Elder, compile in its "natural history" remedies known. His works are copied and distributed during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Contemporary of Pliny, Dioscorides, Greek military physician is the author of the book "From matéeria medica" especially regarding medicinal plants.

With human dissections permitted to 300 BC, the Alexandrian school improves knowledge of anatomy. After the fire of Alexandria, Constantinople became a major medical center in the fourth to the seventh century.

Medications social classes in the Middle Ages

In addition to a medicine that somehow coexists proven medicine hazardous, dangerous, which offers many treatments and medications could not be more incongruous.

By the end of the eleventh century, the addition of new ingredients and expensive widening the gap between the preparations for the rich and the poor. Expensive or not, the treatment components include increasingly diverse over the centuries and foreign contributions.

Apothecaries, grocers, pharmacists

The separation between doctors and compounders of medicines is done gradually, at different times and places. The monastic orders whose mission is to heal the sick and cultivating medicinal plants consult Réceptaires (collections of remedies) and combine the functions of doctors and'apoticarius'. The few doctors laity prepare their own remedies to the early thirteenth century and the first appear preparers and sellers of medicines belonging to the guild of grocers.

Also called apothecaries, they should apply to the letter the requirements of doctors, without substituting a plant by another. A variety of causes (prohibition to the monks by different councils of care in the convents, the influence of physicians trained in faculties) results in the separation of the two professions. Over the centuries, the profession of pharmacy replaces the apothecary and requires studies of longer and longer.

The four humours

Hipocrates established the importance of the human body humors: yellow bile, black bile, blood, lymph, which, by analogy with the four elements (fire, air, land and water) each have an inherent quality: Hot , dry, cold and wet. Their imbalance, causing many diseases, among other things is determined by examination of the urine and pulse. To compensate for deficiencies or excesses of these moods should use plants (or other) having the opposite effect. This balance requires a precise choice of ingredients depends on the views of practitioners but they sometimes skeptical about the effectiveness of certain revenues or certain plants, advocating one thing and its opposite which is not very reassuring !

Paracelsus in 1527 appointed to the chair of medicine at Basel, is against the theory of humor without being able however to eliminate the principle.

The culture of "simple"

Medicine practiced in convents, based on plants grown in gardens in squares (solid-lined box carefully "the herbularii") is implemented in the people and carried out orally. These herbs called''simple''is used even today for their various properties, in conjunction with conventional medicine (without the incantations of the time).

Sage, thyme, rosemary, mint, lavender, tansy, savory, marjoram, lily of the Madonna, hyssop, rue, bay leaf sauce, pulmonary, comfrey, cumin, borage, fennel ... etc. .. prepared alone or in combination can relieve many minor ailments. Some of these recipes have survived amended or supplemented as evidenced by many works herbal medicine.

Hildegard of Bingen

Famous for his work on medicine, Benedictine abbess Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) marked throughout Europe by its influence in various areas (political, musical, philosophical and medical) and his prophetic visions. Master in psychosomatic medicine and the art of healing with plants, it treats both the bodies and souls, proclaiming that the spirit of the woman is fully comparable and equal to that of man which does not fail to shock the high clergy and the German nobility. His medical works have challenged even by the time reference.

Health, diet and cooking in the Middle Ages

The close relationship between medicine and food known for millennia. Diets are prescribed depending on the time of year, age of the patient, his temperament and his health problems. No way to give the angry foods hot and dry like pepper and onion, with phlegmatic profitable, however.

Butter, considered a real drug treats dry cough, lung wounds, softening and purifying as it matures'''wounds. Cereals, wheat, barley, rye, oats and especially spelled have many virtues. Garlic, which often use''ugly''and the noble little is still known for its quality but its use is restrained by the tenacity of its fragrance. The''base''porated cabbage and leeks are cooked slowly so as not to cause a''black smoke that rises to the head''! ..

Cabbage, considered one of the best remedies prevents drunkenness and one keeps the urine of one who has eaten as a remedy for the nerves, where you can bathe young children in prevention of debility. Asparagus added cumin dissipate flatus''''of the stomach and colon, clarify vision, relieve chest pain and back.

Fruits

Fruit wines rarely come recommended in many preparations especially figs (assumed off fever and cause sweat) and grapes, but according Platearius they feed, but make the flesh more swollen than''firm''. Quinces cooked with honey confirm digestion, as pear cooked with fennel and honey according to the recipe of the Paris Mesnagier they take away the headache, annihilate all the bad mood imaginable. Eating chestnuts before and after dinner treats liver and brain and eaten raw gives strength and joy of living with depression.

Unusual Remedies

Soot from chimneys popular, is a treasure of medicine to keep carefully to heal inflammation and frostbite. Fine powder of slate, horn horse's hoof, calcined oyster shells embedded in the lard or butter used as ointment against pain and bruising.

Able to perform miracles "béozard" (gall stone condensed into small ball in the stomach of certain animals) is very popular, prepared cheese, alone or in wine, set in a precious jewel, worn around the neck heals melancholy, cured the plague, epilepsy, smallpox, dysentery, protects snakes and enchantments.

The "castoreum" extract from the musk gland of the beaver, dried and pulverized into many recipes for treating convulsions, paralysis, colds, stomach pain, possibly associated with ivory, coral , gold cooked, silver, pearl ...

Minerals

Incorporated in many remedies appear disturbing mineral extracts: green vitriol (sulfuric acid name, introduced by the Persian physician and alchemist Rhazes) gray-green, silver foam, mercury, oil (called rock oil) to attract highly sought after moods. The contributions of ancient medicine or Arabic, the writings of the school of Salerno (transmitted by the Crusaders among others) allow additions of stones, various minerals, exotic plants alcohol etc. .. for medicinal preparations.

Urine and feces

Infallible in its properties, the urine collected in a glass vial called "Matula" remained one of the base of medicine as his simple observation is used to indicate the weaknesses of the patient and consumed, it also serves as the medication he'' no more sovereign remedy the world''because it cures ringworm and suppurating ulcers, wounds inveterate and often mixed with plant cure''from head to foot.''

Droppings and other human excrement in particular, (based on the principle of man decreed as the noblest of creatures) are cooked or mixed with other ingredients in medical preparations. Feces of a young healthy man mixed with honey are sovereign against sore throats and those of a red-haired man in distilled water heal wounds and ulcers ... !

Droppings dog or wolf, cow, pig, and goats, as the case prepared in mixtures (sometimes soaked in white wine or beer) are useful in cases of dropsy, insect bites , spitting of blood, jaundice, or small pox etc..

Remedies with animals and insects

The opotherapy universal millennium, is a therapy with products of animal dead or alive (leeches, snail, snake venom, earthworms cooked in goose fat, frogs, chickens, lamb and cut into two and applied while hot on injuries etc ...

Insects are no exception: lice, kept on the head supposed to suck as bad blood, (grilled or mixed with egg yolk) are spit (not surprisingly!) Plenty bronchitis. Sow bugs, spider webs, scorpions cooked, charred, chopped and incorporated with other ingredients to cure tertian fever, bleeding or prevent ear infections ...

Bloodletting, cupping, leeches and enemas

Every physician knows the practice of bloodletting to purify bad moods. Some patients are bled up to forty times a year!. Homes are developed bleeding due to the popularity of this method practiced by barber-surgeons who also pose leeches and cupping. The bleeding may have the effect of weakening or even complete the''sick''. Enemas are widely recommended by doctors.

The remedies mentioned here are islands in the ocean revenues come down to us, but they allow us to better understand, locate (or complain) our ancestors and their medicine. Many among the organic elements, minerals, animals or plants that entered in the compositions should provoke reactions sometimes painful, in any case require a stomach and an unfailing sense of smell!

As we can see by reading the various Antidotaires, Réceptaires and other books of medicine, the reality of this medicine has something to thrill! We can ask ourselves: how patients at the time they have survived some of that care?

And the views of Celsus: "Better to try a cure uncertain if not try any" was certainly not a great comfort ....

Sources and illustrations

- Remedies in the Middle Ages , by Michele Bilimoff. Editions Ouest-France, in June 2011.