Why Go Medieval?

Medieval herbal lore represents the accumulation of experiences and observations over hundreds of years regarding drugs made from natural products.

The effects of a treatment have been tested in humans and results observed over a period of several generations.

Earlier research[1] shows medieval drug therapies are, in general, solidly based on experience, developing an interplay between tradition and innovation.

These therapies did offer relief to patients, if not healing.

The advantage of using older written material by the side of modern ethnographic descriptions and in addition to them is the vast amount of material at hand. The ancient and medieval pharmacological texts contain a wealth of information that surpasses in the amount of indications for use most of the modern folk medicine traditions.

The basic presupposition behind this research is that while medieval Arabic and Latin medicine was not necessarily objectively effective, in the sense of a complete healing, it did objectively improve a patient's physical state in connection with the disease.[2]

This presupposition is based on the following points:

Arabic medicine was based on a written tradition already more than 1000 years old, and beginning with the medical writings of classical Greece. Added to this is folkloristic and protoscientific knowledge of peoples subjugated by, or in commerce with, the Arabs. This tradition was rich and necessarily tried by experience.

Practical experience of medical practitioners who often describe cases they themselves treated, along with the results.[3]

The high reputation of Arabic medicine in medieval Europe.[4]

Modern knowledge of the efficacy of effective herbal remedies, some of which - or drugs derived from them - are still being used in current western medical practice.[5]

The continuity of the Mediterranean medical tradition makes it possible to assess, by comparing texts from different times, which of the usages stood the test of time, that is, were approved by a majority of the authors.

[1] Paavilainen HM. Medieval Pharmacology - Change and Continuity. A Case of Kitab al-Qanun fi-l-Tibb by Ibn Sina. Unpublished PhD Dissertation, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; 2003.
[2] Riddle, JM. Contraception and abortion from the ancient world to the Renaissance. Cambridge, Harvard; 1992.
[3] See Kudlien, 1973.
[4] See Woodings, 1971; Watt, 1972; Dols, 1996.
[5] See Riddle 1985, pp. 58, 330; Holland, 1996, pp. 1-3.