medieval medicine – Page 2

On Medical Milestones, the Myth of Progress, and Textbooks, Part II

My loves, it’s a week later and I am still Big Mad at J. Stuart Showalter, textbook writer and noted basic. Now, this is understandable give that my man is low-key racist with his shall we say “approach” to the medicine of the Islamic world. However, that sort of racism is just the worst and most harmful type of ignorance of the several which permeate said timeline, this textbook, and our society’s approach to medieval history. There’s a whole lot more incorrect where that came from, and that is what we are going to discuss today.

On Medical Milestones, Being Racist, and Textbooks, Part I

Because my family allegedly loves me very much, and shows that by sending me screen shots of things that are guaranteed to wind me up, my cousin sent me a screen shot from her actual fucking university level textbook this weekend. This particular picture was so wrong, so ignorant, and has wound me up for so many reasons that I am going to have to spread my rage about it over two blog posts.

Are you ready for it?

You are not.

I assure you, medieval people bathed.

I can’t believe I have to write this down right now, but my dear friends, medieval people bathed regularly.

Yes. I assure you. I am very serious. It is true.

In fact, medieval people loved a bath and can in many ways be considered a bathing culture, much in the way that say, Japan is now. Medieval people also very much valued being clean generally in an almost religious way.

This is not to say that getting clean was as easy for medieval people as it is for us now. But medieval people were very clever and had ways of getting around that.