This post on medieval medicine is super interesting and informative. It gets really good when elfpen weighs in with tons of info about Bald’s Leechbook, which they did their Master’s thesis on. Bald’s Leechbook is an Old English medical text compiled around the the ninth century. The term leechbook is a modernisation of the Old English word “lǣce-bōc”, which means “book of medical prescriptions”. Anyway, the moral of the story in this post is to never write something off because it’s old. 1,000 years is a long time ago, but human ingenuity and intelligence are hardly modern inventions. The science of the world hasn’t changed; only our tools and our perspective. This is a long post, but worth the read:
Further reading on medieval medicine and Bald’s Leechbook:
- The 2015 Ancientbiotics report: A 1,000-Year-Old Antimicrobial Remedy with Antistaphylococcal Activity
- NPR: ‘Ancientbiotics’ Researchers Look For Old Fixes To Modern Ailments
- Mental Floss: 20 Anglo-Saxon Remedies from Bald’s Leechbook
- Read a paper about how scholars are building on the work of the Ancientbiotics project to better understand how to apply ancient ideas effectively to modern medicine.
- Look through Royal 12 D XVIII for yourself! Bald’s eyesalve recipe is on f. 12v
(via: Just Sock Thoughts)
