Doctoring the Black Death

I loved this book on the plague. It’s a timely book considering we are the midst of another plague. Extremely informative.

I received Doctoring the Black Death as part of a NetGalley giveaway.

As catastrophic as it was to populations in Asia, Africa, and Europe, the Black Death also reflected novel ways of thinking about and treating disease in the Middle Ages. For a society that had largely dependent on the wisdom of the ancients to this point, this new peril was unlike anything the world had ever seen, and as such, medieval physicians had to adapt old ideas and develop new theories for a world that seemed like it was imploding.

I enjoyed this--particularly in the times we're living in, it felt relevant. Divided into four chapters--causes, signs, prevention, and cure--Aberth explores the lived experience of physicians who lived through, treated, and in some cases, caught the disease. They debated the nature of the disease (Was it a poison or was it related to the ancient notion of the four humors? Was it caused by one's immediate surroundings or the positions of the planets?), the treatment of the disease (let the 'poison' out or put medicines in?), and the societal responsibilities of those obligated to care for the ill (flee and leave them to their fate, or fulfill your duty to family and community?). What resulted was a patchwork of theories that crystallized, combined, and incorporated elements of early scientific thought, culture, and religious traditions, and in doing so, it challenges popular notions of the medieval period as one of static scientific and intellectual thought.