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Ideas on Health and Illness

Introduction

In antiquity, health was considered as a very significant asset and one that required care and effort in order to preserve it. Thus, it is mentioned in the Hippocratic writings that an intelligent man should realize the importance of health and must learn to treat his illnesses according to his own judgment. All through the Middle Ages and during classical times, there is observed a continuous struggle for survival, as they strived hard to sort out treatments for hazards of childbirth, childhood infections and common epidemics, with the availability of limited services in order to improve their physical health. Spiritual, social and mental dimensions of health were emphasized under these certain conditions.

Discussion

Galenism (c. 129 -?200)

In the Roman times between 129 to 200 AD, a famous philosopher, surgeon and physician named Galen born in Pergamon, introduced many revolutionary ideas about scientific disciplines based on medical research and logic. At one time the personal physician of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, he greatly contributed towards Greek medicine. However, his works while being greatly informative and famous like his research on urine (Galen, 30-34), which was further translated into languages like Arabic, also served to stifle medical progress in the later periods. This was due to the fact that his works gained so much popularity as to be incorporated into the Islamic culture which influenced the Western as well as the Eastern medical trends.

Despite being refuted during the 16th century Renaissance school of thought, Galenism which by then had become its own form of Greek medicine, held sway over the rise of western science. Galen's views on the philosophy of science and medicine however promoted study of the theories rather than the practice of it, due to which authentic advancements in the concerned fields became stunted for a long time. Despite this, Galenism can greatly contribute towards the contemporary health sector by re-introducing concepts of antiquity in medicine, thus making it richer. His insistence and emphasis on the values of experimentation in combination with empiricism encouraged the authentication of many Islamic works and other works during the Renaissance. His medical philosophy dominated much of the Middle Ages until the beginning of the modern era in the scientific field (Porter, 44-60).

Critical Analysis

Galenism was a way of thought or philosophy of medicine which was contrasted due to Galen's own emphasis on the important of experimentation. New observations by medical researchers in the later times like the Islamic scholar Ibn Zuhr and Ibn Nafis, refuted the humorism theory as well as his theory of the heart which was refuted by medical experimentation resulting in the notion of pulmonary circulation. Further criticism of Galenism came during the time of the Renaissance anatomists like Paracelsus and Vesalius in the 1500s who by way of observation also denounced his earlier theories. For example, Vesalius struck Galen's theory of the hearts interventricular septum (Galen, 345-396), proving that it was indeed permeable. However, at the time of Galen, human experimentation was not legal which ...