Theory Of Pestilence

Firstly, it is necessary to contextualise the medical knowledge that informed perceptions of pestilence during the fourteenth century. The views held by doctors and medical experts (those who studied at university or through apprenticeships, and were therefore literate and able to record their conceptions in the consilia and treatises available to the historian) were largely based on the authority of ancient texts. The work of Galen, who lived through the great pestilence of the second century, was drawn upon heavily by the authors of plague tractates. As a result, the views of doctors and medical experts with regard to the pestilence differ to a limited extent, since they were all informed by the same theory.
Galenic medical theory posited …show more content…
Ibn Khatimah in Description and Remedy for Escaping the Plague explained how contracting the plague was only possible since ‘there has to be a disposition [in man] to make its work possible.’ Even if this statement was to abide by teachings of his religion (as will be later explored), it is safe to assume that the author subscribed to humoural theory because the ancient Greek texts that disseminated across Europe had been augmented and translated by Muslim scholars who followed Galenic and Hippocratic tradition. Due to the nature of the dissemination of these texts and almost universal subscription to Galenic medical theory, views of the