Transmission of Medical Knowledge - Assignment Example

Option Transmission of Medical Knowledge In what ways did European practitioners respond to writings on medicine by Islamic and why? The above question is an assessment on how practitioners in Europe reacted to the medicine texts from the Islamic world and how that reaction is expressed in the text written by European practitioners. Thus, it is important to consider the reaction of European practitioners to writings on medicine by Islamic authors. Did Greek practitioners embrace Islamic Ideas on medicine? It is important to consider that in the 7th century, CE, Greek humoural medicine was able to point out that the body has four most important elements and they were fluids (humours) such as blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm. The imbalance of these four fluids will result to sickness that the best thing to do is to remove the excess which causes the imbalance. This idea was introduced to Islamic culture by the Greek practitioners. That time, the Islamic medicine was based on Islamic culture while humoural medicine was based on accepted theoretical framework by Greek medicine. Analysing on this situation, it can be clearly justified that Greeks considered their ideas on medicine superior to that of Islamic belief. The idea of humoural medicine that time seemed to cover all the essentials about human medicine that the Islamic world did not hesitate to accept about its underlying ideas and principles. In fact, to prove that the Islamic world embraced humoural medicine, several of Greek texts about humoural medicine were converted into Arabic in the 11th century. The reasons for conversion were not so clear but somehow there were issues that came out related to political, social and intellectual. Supposed these three were the truth behind the translation process, the intellectual aspect may be further differentiated so as to come up some important arguments. If it was based on intellectual, then it is just simply saying that Islam practitioners adhered to the fact that the idea about humoural medicine must be superior from Islamic medicine which was based on Islamic culture and belief. The best point of this is that in the 7th century it was not the Islamic medicine which was translated into Greek words which only proved the fact that the Greek practitioners were not really that interested about Islamic medicines. In fact, the very truth about translation is to be able to apply exactly the idea of the text by putting it into actual practice. The Greek medicine was a strong influence to Islamic medicine but not the other way around in the early part of the century. The term “embrace” can be demonstrated equally as good as trying to translate an idea into something that can be understood. However, there was no account that the Islamic ideas on medicines were translated from its natural text into Greek text. In fact, it was the other way around. Thus, this is a clear implication that the Greek practitioners did not actually embrace Islamic ideas on medicine but it was the other way around. However, in the following centuries, much of Islamic ideas on medicines were accepted by the Greek practitioners. However, the reason they were able to accept theses ideas was due to the fact that they were still influenced by humoural medicine. Did Greek practitioners reject Islamic ideas on medicine? As mentioned earlier, it was not the texts on Islamic medicines were translated into Greek texts in the 7th century but the other way around. However, as time goes by, Greek practitioners were able to begin to trust on the medical compilations by Islam even if some of them were still influenced by Islamic culture, tradition and beliefs. The most important for Greeks was the whole idea of it still followed the basic of humoural medicine. In fact, the discovery of chicken pox was credited to an Arab and the explanation of the disease was based on the concept of humoural medicine. One thing for sure that was totally rejected by Greek practitioners when it comes to Islamic ideas on medicine was when it comes to Islamic beliefs and traditions. This was able to work out for as long as all of those ideas on Islamic medicines that were accepted by Greek practitioners were all related to humoural medicine. However, there was another important contribution of Islamic ideas on medicine to Greek medicine. One of them is the use of drugs. Greeks recommended the use of diet and changes in lifestyle in order to treat diseases. On the other hand, Islamic practitioners emphasised on the use of drugs. In the 11th century, it can be noted that Greeks were already using medicinal plants as an influenced of Islamic ideas on medicine. Most of those medicinal plants prescribed by Islamic practitioners were needed to be imported. However, such activity may only delay medical activities in the Greek community so they decided to look for alternatives. It was also in the 11th century that Islamic texts on medicines were translated into Greek and Latin texts. The result of this translation was very significant. The newly translated Greek and Arabic medical writings provided European scholars with a much more sophisticated form of humoural medicine compared to the old existing one. The combined efforts among Greek practitioners and Islamic practitioners on medicine provided more detailed information in order to make enhancement and refinement on the idea of humoural medicine. On the other hand, surgical operation was considered the last resort among Greek practitioners if ever some treatments may never work out at all. However, with additional information from Islamic medicine on surgery, Greek practitioners were able to adapt highly improved system on surgery. In fact, many Islamic practitioners were able to create representation of human anatomy. Not only that, the pain associated with surgical operation was minimised due to the study on anesthesiology among Islamic practitioners. As can be observed, the contributions of Islamic practitioners on medicine were very influential to the actual practice of medicine among Greek practitioners. The Islamic ideas on medicine were actually able to enhance further the understanding of Greek practitioners on their humoural medicine. This trend continued from 11th century but not until 16th century to 20th century. The reasons are discussed further in the next section. Did the responses of Greek practitioners on Islamic ideas on medicine change over time? As mentioned earlier, Islamic texts on medicine were translated into Greek and Italian texts. Even though there were several evidences to support that Greeks were hesitant to accept some of Islamic ideas on medicine which were related to Islamic beliefs, tradition and culture, Greek were able to resist such by trying to change some translations. The trend of acceptance for 11th century was never the same as what happened from 16th to 20th century. In this time, practitioners began to criticise Islamic authors and favor Greek texts. Greek practitioners began to show their distrust on Islamic medical authors because they were considered unreliable. For instance, according to Leoniceno and Champier, Greek practitioners, Ibn Sina made some errors on his translations on botanical and anatomical terminology. However, the content of canon was not critisised by these two Greek practitioners since it provided coherent and systematic account of humoural medicine. As can be observed the responses of Greek practitioners become more self centered towards the humoural medicine. Greek practitioners become more focus on the accuracy of humoural medicine and started to reject the Islamic ideas on medicine. This led to a situation when Greek practitioners began to consider their works more superior over those of Islamic practitioners. The point that hey considered the works of Islamic authors as unreliable was an indication that they were rejecting Islamic ideas on medicine. How did the European context influence their reactions? The development of Greek ideas on medicine was able to go different stages and more discoveries on it were contributed by Islamic ideas on medicine. In fact the greatest development started from 11th century until 18th century. In this span of time the humoural medicine already influenced various parts in Asia, Middle East and particularly in Europe. In this case, Europe has become the center of information when it comes to remarkable concept of medicines with definite theoretical framework and systematic approach. Greek practitioners were considered leading practitioners in Europe when it comes to the field of medicine. Thus it is important to consider that they have to be advanced and always ahead as far as new discovery of information is concerned. The context of medical knowledge in Europe as stated in the reference was influenced by the idea of humoural medicine of Greek practitioners. In fact, among any translation, it was not hard to do it on Latin text as well as it was not hard to influence people there on the concept and idea about houmoural medicine. Furthermore, neighboring countries such as Germany and England among any other were not that hard to convince about the idea of humoural medicine. The acceptance of humoural medicine was widespread across Europe and it was not hard to stick on to the fact that the reaction of Greek practitioners on the “unreliability” issue of Islamic ideas on medicine should matter a lot. After all, the Greek practitioners were considered leading practitioners in medicine across Europe. Read More