Medieval Medicine

Time: 12:00pm

Location: Curtis 213, Jefferson University

The Dark Ages represent a good example of a perfect storm against human intellect. The conspiring forces included: 1) The rise of Christianity (which shifted interest from this life to the “after” life); 2) The loss of Greco-Roman wisdom that followed the fall of the Roman empire (in fact, the very loss of the Greek language in the West, which will only be reintroduced in the 15th century with the arrival of refugees from Constantinople… which, in and of itself might have actually been the trigger for the Italian Renaissance); and lastly 3) The stultifying influence of Galenic theories.

The result was a thousand year long freeze on medical and scientific thought.

There were a few sparks of light (the Medical School of Salerno, Byzantium, and the Arabic centers that gave us Maimonides, Averroes and Avicenna), but overall the Dark Ages were pretty dark.

The lesson for us is that civilization is thin and fragile, and can easily slip back into anarchy and chaos.

Please join us on Tuesday as we revisit the Dark Ages. We will offer drinks and desserts but lunch is on your own.