Katie Kessler Islamic and Byzantine Medicine Post

As far as medicine and medical advances goes, it seems that there are no two empires more different than the zealously religious Byzantine and the progressive and inquisitive Early Islamic Empire. For one, the Islamic empire, especially during its peak in the 10^th and 11^th centuries, was a pioneering force, while the remnants of the formerly progressive Roman Empire was not. The Muslims made progress by translating and questioning ancient writings, whereas the Byzantines did much less inquiring. Furthermore, the Muslim Empire, despite being Muslim, did not limit medicine and doctoral practices to only religion. This was something that occurred in the Byzantine Empire (the secular practice of medicine) which may have impaired their achievements. This can be found in the primary sources of the era, and the quantity of them; many more Islamic medical illustrations exist than Byzantine ones. Notable men from the Islamic and Byzantine Empires include Hunayn ibn Ishaq and Niketas, respectively, whose works are featured below.

The first primary source shown below, from the Byzantine Era, is a page from the medical encyclopedia Codex Niketas, circa the 9^th or 10^th century, and housed at the Biblioteca Medicea Laurentiana in Florence. It depicts, in color, three bare men under an arch or dome; one patient, an oral doctor, and an assistant. One man is looking at the seated man’s jaw, while another stands behind the man and holds his head. Research shows that the sitting man is a patient with a dislocated jaw, and the standing man is an assistant.

The second primary source is a hand-drawn, colored diagram of an eye, made by Hunayn ibn Ishaq in the 10^th century. It shows an almond-shaped frontal view of an eyeball encompassed by a circle. Stemming from each side (top, bottom, left, and right) are veins. All the veins are the same size except for the much longer bottom ones that are roughly three times as large and have two longer veins coming out from them. This anatomy was presumably used to assist ophthalmologists, possibly even in surgery.

1.         Byzantine Medical Practices made very few advances, especially compared to the Islamic Empire.

a.       Byzantine Hospitals

                                                              i.      Small, and plentiful

                                                            ii.      Close proximity to Christianity

                                                          iii.      Practitioners

1.      Clergy

2.      Priests

b.      Treatment

                                                              i.      More abstract forms of medicine

1.      Magic

2.      Demonology and Exorcism

3.      Folk Medicine

4.      Religious healing, especially of chronic illness

5.      Very humanitarian

c.       Believed Cause of Illness

                                                              i.      Four Humors

1.      Blood

2.      Phlegm

3.      Black Bile

4.      Yellow Bile

                                                            ii.      Demonic Possession

d.      Literature

                                                              i.      Translated Arabic works

                                                            ii.      Codex Niketas

                                                          iii.      Very few written works produced during this time

2.  The Islamic Empire made numerous important achievements in the field of medicine, especially during their 2 century peak in the 10^th and 11^th centuries.

a.       IslamicHospitals

                                                              i.      Large, and only appeared in important cities

                                                            ii.      Secular

                                                          iii.      Freedom for doctors to be Jewish or Christian

b.      Treatment

                                                              i.      Simple surgery

                                                            ii.      Plants and herbs from healers

                                                          iii.      Drugs

c.       Believed Causes of Illnesses

                                                              i.      “Jinn” spirits

                                                            ii.      Four Humors

1.      Blood

2.      Phlegm

3.      Black Bile

4.      Yellow Bile

d.      Literature

                                                 i.      Translated many Greek and Roman works into Arabic

                                                 ii.      Many famous writers with encyclopedias of medicine

1.      The Canon –al-Razi

2.      Hunayn ibn Isaq- translated works 

       I.            3. As far as medicine is concerned, the strictly Christian Byzantine and the progressive Islamic Empires had many noticeable differences in their practices, ranging from their hospitals to their literature.
 Works Cited:

Dawson, Ian. The History of Medicine: Medicine in the Middle Ages. 1st ed. New York: Enchanted Lion Books, 2005. p.16, 46-50. Print.