Historical Summary

WHEN a patient recovered in the Middle Ages, it was a tribute to his rugged constitution. He had indeed triumphed over his physician. Medical knowledge was a jumble of Aristotelian anatomy, old wives’ remedies, and incantations and charms thrown in for good measure. Surgery was performed by barbers and was considered so hazardous that Gregory of Tours counselled his contemporaries to emulate the saints and endure their pain with fortitude rather than submit to an operation.

On the European continent, Salerno in the south of Italy was the only seat of the healing art worthy of the name. Here Greek and Arabic doctors kept alive the scientific spirit in medicine and surgery, made important additions to our knowledge of pharmacology, and did advanced work in physical therapy. It was a long and tortuous road from the dogmatic medicine of Western Europe to Rembrandt’s Lesson in Anatomy and the Mayo Institute.

Kings and princes were much choosier than their subjects, invariably preferring Jewish and Arab physicians, if they could be had, to their own coreligionists. The contrast between Oriental medical skill and European butchery is brought out in an illuminating passage from the memoirs of Usamah, who reported the narrative of a rationally trained Syrian physician named Thabit, who happened to be a Christian. Usamah was an intrepid Syrian warrior, hunter, and man of letters, who wrote his memoirs in his very old age, when his hand was "too feeble to carry a pen, after it had been strong enough to break a lance in a lion’s breast." His firsthand observations of the Crusaders reflect prevalent Moslem opinion. To the Moslems the Franks were astonishingly free and easy in sex matters, unscientific in medicine, and backward in the administration of justice.

When the governor of Lebanon wrote to Usamah’s uncle, asking him to dispatch a physician to treat certain sick persons, Thabit was sent. When he returned after only ten days’ absence, his friends exclaimed: "How quickly have you healed your patients!" This was the story he told them:

Key Quote

Or the patient’s dilemma.