Do you know that at this very moment, there is stardust rushing through your veins? In fact, it won’t be an exaggeration that it took stars to die for you to live because the iron in the haemoglobin of your blood actually originates from the stars that exploded 8 billion years back.
Since your thoughts have already drifted billions of years in the past, allow them to wander just about ten centuries back in the medieval world, as well. There, you might come across the belief that good Doctors are Good Astronomers.
Are you made out of luminescent objects hundreds of light years away? What made a good doctor in 11th-century Baghdad? These questions are an absurd pairing, yet they are deeply intertwined together.
In medieval times, there was no way for physicians to know what stars were made of or what made the blood red, yet they applied their knowledge of stars to their methods of blending antidotes. In fact, Astronomy and Anatomy was a strikingly good pairing. Astronomy was the backbone of Medieval Medicine in the 11th century. Interestingly, many great scientists such as Copernicus, Paracelsus, Faeacastoro, and Ibn-e-Sina belonged to both Astronomy and Medicine.
Up till the 15th century, physicians relied on their knowledge of the movement of stars and phases of the moon for bloodletting, the most effective times for retrieving medicinal herbs, and the best time for purging. It was strongly believed that the zodiac signs and setting or rising times of planets and stars could influence various conditions.
Furthermore, the physicians would ensure that the patient’s birth dates and age corresponded with the phases of the moon before conducting phlebotomy and bloodletting. It helped determine when and how much blood had to be drawn. Interestingly, the word ‘lunatic’ originates from the Latin word ‘lunaticus’ to refer to epilepsy or madness because it was thought to be caused by the phases of luna, Latin for moon. Even today, it is believed that the best time for blood cupping is by the full moon in the early morning, as endorsed by Ibne Sina ( Avicenna).
In the Mediaeval times, a theory that became the backbone of medicinal procedures was ‘ The Four Humours of Hippocrates’ Contrary to the popular misconception that it originated from the Greeks, Indian and Chinese versions of the Four Humours also existed with the addition of Yin and Yang in the Chinese version. The Theory suggested that all illnesses came from the imbalance of four major components in the human body- blood, black bile, yellow bile and phlegm. If the patient felt melancholic, it meant that he had access to black bile, which had to be removed by vomiting. Even the act of ‘ Black Vomiting’ had to be done on specific dates, keeping in view the alignment of the planets in order to ensure an effective recovery.
Works Cited from:
Wood, R. (2013) Stardust in your veins, Wired. Available at: https://www.wired.com/2013/03/stardust-in-your-veins/ (Accessed: 06 October 2024).
(No date) 1982JBAA...92..164s page 164. Available at: https://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1982JBAA...92..164S#:~:text=By%20observing%20the%20stars%20a,a%20patient%20could%20be%20purged! (Accessed: 06 October 2024).
Browse history (no date) Judy Duchan’s History of Speech-Language Pathology. Available at: https://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~duchan/new_history/middle_ages/astrology_and_medicine.html (Accessed: 06 October 2024).
Relation between Moon and cupping therapy - by Dr. Izhar Hasan (no date) Lybrate. Available at: https://www.lybrate.com/topic/relation-between-moon-and-cupping-therapy/16a9bd809b9c45111ec1bd8fc1b0703a (Accessed: 06 October 2024).
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