Avicenna

Iatrochemists: why iron salts cure anemia

1 Comment / History, Medicine, Philosophy, Science /

A fun anecdote from the history of medicine. (Fun in hindsight, though not necessarily fun for those who lived through the medical history.) The late-medieval Iatrochemists believed that progress could be made by uniting medicine with alchemy. Their intellectual leader was Paracelsus (1493-1541), a Swiss physician whose goal was to reform medical chemistry by rejecting […]

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The great Renaissance medical bloodletting controversy

Leave a Comment / History, Medicine, Philosophy /

Why accurate translation and skilled editing are important: Bloodletting was a common practice in medieval medicine and did not die out until the nineteenth century. The practice was encouraged by the belief that the excellent Greek physicians Hippocrates and Galen practiced it. Most phelobotomists followed the Persian genius Avicenna‘s editions of the Greek texts, which

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