Byzantium Medicine

Byzantium medicine was characterized by the creation of hospitals and the compilation of great compendia permitting the application of the discoveries of ancient and Arab medicine to the greatest number of patient.

In 330 AD, when Constantine the Great transferred the capital of the still united Roman Empire from Rome to Constantinople, the center of gravity of the Western world shifted toward the eastern city and from then on, Byzantium medicine could be called Roman medicine.

Although the division d the empire became permanent after Theodosius the Great (395 AD) Byzantium could be viewed as part of the Roman world up to the fall of Western Empire.

As the consequence, it can be considered that the period of Roman medicine to extend from foundation of the Eternal City to the fall of the Western Empire (486 AD).

At that time medicine was thought within the Byzantium Empire in centers of advanced learning, particularly in Alexandria but also in Constantinople itself, up to the seventh century and beyond.

Byzantium medicine, is considered to extend from 476 AD to the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453 and includes the medicine to late Alexandra (which part of Byzantium empire) until the conquest of the city in the first half of the seventh century, first by the Persians and then by the Arabs.

The teaching of medicine was dispensed in public schools. At Constantinople this teaching was entrusted to the ‘didascalos’ of the doctors.

The teaching was based principally on the medical writings of the Greek ‘classic’, Hippocrates and Galen (AD 210), but other authorities, such as Dioscorides, continued to be studied well.

Byzantium doctors successfully reworked, recombined and reorganized earlier traditions with new observations.

Their major ongoing activity in these pursuits is evident in the major medical works of Oribasius (325 AD-400), Aetius of Amida (AD 527-565), Alexander of Tralles (AD 525-605) and many others.

One of the most distinguished of these was Oribasius, a voluminous compiler, a native of Pergamon and so close a follower of his great townsman that he has been called ‘Galen’s ape’. He left many works, and many facts relating to the older writers are recorded in his writings.

In a society that balanced concern for health and for salvation, the Byzantium physician is shown to support the application of charms, amulets and folk remedies.
Byzantium Medicine