The Conceptualization of the Terms Cholera and Plague in the Islamic Period before the Black Death
Tārīkh-i pizishkī i.e., Medical History,
Vol. 16 (1403),
7 May 2024
,
Page 1-17
https://doi.org/10.22037/mhj.v16i.44377
Abstract
Background and Aim: The titles given to the plague disease before the Black Death were general and unclear. Also narrative treatises dealing with this disease were vague and incomplete and included all types of epidemics. Although some medical treatises also aimed to know the cause of epidemic diseases and with titles such as air pollution and contagion in this time, but the medical works that study the plague from medical, theological and other aspects are the product of the period after 748 AH/1347 AD.
Methods: The current research aims to investigate the conceptualization of the terms cholera and plague in the Islamic period, prior to the outbreak of the Black Death in the 7th century AH/14th century AD, using a descriptive-analytical approach and library resources.
Ethical Considerations: In this research, honesty& trustworthiness in the use ot sources have been respected.
Results: The findings of this research show that a famous physician like Ibn Sina used the word plague in the fourth century AH to describe epidemics with fever and swelling and high mortality, while other words such as cholera was also common. In 748 AH, a deadly disease spread in the world with symptoms of painful swelling and black spots on the thighs, armpits and neck, which resulted in high casualties in a short time and became known as the Black Death or the black plague. The geographical spread and long duration of this type of plague throughout the world led to the term "plague" being used in many cases in Eastern medical dictionaries for the epidemic of the 8th century AH/14th century AD and its subsequent recurrent waves. In other words, although various types of plague had always plagued humanity before and after the outbreak of the Black Death, the bubonic plague was called plague in the general sense; as if this type of plague had been the only one that had spread in human history.
Conclusion: Under the influence of the medical paradigm inherited from the Greeks in the era of translation, epidemics, fevers that caused epidemics and fatal diseases were generally called plague, cholera and epidemics in Islamic medical works and were discussed more. Over time, each of these terms was applied to a specific disease and its clinical symptoms were followed up more specifically. From this time, paying attention to the effect of the four humors and maintaining the balance between them in diseases became the dominant intellectual model of the medical community. Doctors believed that not only plague but also many diseases were phenomena that appeared and spread when the air deteriorates.
- Plague
- Traditional Medicine
- Black Death
- Miasma
- Conceptology
How to Cite
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