Pictures from the Past of the Healing Arts / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 18-19. (Budapest, 2000)
Pictures from the Past of the Healing Arts - Guide to the Exhibition
Maimonides, Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon or by his Arab name Mose Majmuni (1138-1204) was a distinguished Jewish philosopher, master of Rabbinic literature and court physician to the world-famous Sultan Sala-ud-din (1138-1193). Maimonides was born in Cordoba and was educated by his father and many Arab masters. Later he had to leave the Iberian peninsula and settled first in Fez but soon moved on to Cairo. He was most well-known about his philosophical treatise The Guide for the Perplexed. Nevertheless, his other texts arc indispensable sources for the public health of the Arabic, Jewish and other communities of the contemporary Muslim world. We have commemorated him with a copy of a page from his other famous work, the Misneh Tora (No. 2), which was written in 1180, (The original codex is in the possession of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences ). This book contains descriptions about some customs of late 12th century Jewish life under Arab rule in Iberia and Northern Africa. 5. Medicine in medieval Europe Scholastic medicine was the other great school beside the Arabic in medieval times. It probably had lasted by the middle of the 15th century. The period from the 6th to the 12th centuries is usually labelled as monastic medicinc. At that time nursing and healing were regarded as part of the mission of the monastic orders. The monks could read in Latin and combined their knowledge obtained through observation with the elements of classical medicinc and natural sciences. From the 12th century onwards education at most of the universities was based on reading the classics of antiquity. Medical tuition was not an exception at all. Practice, and especially surgical practice was pushed into the background. Scholastic medicine was probably well characterized by the words of Arnoldųs de Villanova (1235-1312) who pointed: ' The physicians of Paris study only for the sake of the university and not in order to obtain knowledge and practical skill.' We have presented medieval medicinc in two glass-cases. The first one illustrates Hungarian medical practice, mainly from the period of the first Hungarian royal dynasty, the Árpáđs (1000-1301). The oldest object you can see here, is a trephined skull of a 30 years old man (No. 15.); (from the collcction of the József Attila Múzeum, Nyíregyháza). It was found in a grave of a Hungarian warrior at Rétközberencs (Upper Tisza area), and it is dated from the times of the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin, c.896 AD. The hole on the top of the skull was covered with a silver plate. The text of a benedictio (No. 12), placed on the right wall of the ease, is from the Codex Pray (written between 1192 and 1195; the original one is in the collection of the National Széchényi Library). Its application enlightens the lack of obstetrical practice of these times: by merely citing the text the pain of the parturient was supposed to be relieved. 32
