Arune Gulati
Guerilla Teaching
Considering the fact that this was my second presentation of the material, I decided to do it differently than I had the first time, which was in front of the class. I began by asking my uncle, Rahul, what he knew about Medieval Medicine, hoping to base my presentation on the information he gave me plus any questions he might have. That way, instead of me teaching him like a teacher would teach a curriculum, he could ask me what he was interested in. However, being an accountant and with no prior knowledge of medical history, Rahul was dumbfounded and responded after some thought with “Wasn’t it a period in time in which there was little scientific study?”
I agreed with him with a “Kinda, sorta, maybe,” wondering if I could get more out of him.
But he quickly responded with “So is this a trick question? Like I’m supposed to think medicine existed but it really didn’t?” I could see that we weren’t going to get anywhere from this approach so I decided to change direction and asked him if he knew any major diseases of the time period. After I received the desired answer, the Black Plague, I asked him how he thought doctors at that time treated such a disease. He responded “Well, I assume that they would perform dissections and stuff like that.” It was a good guess but not the correct answer.
“The truth is doctors didn’t know how to treat the black plague. They were determined on finding the source or cause of its spreading but the best they could do was come up with the theory that the air surrounding a victim was infected.” I told him.
“What do you mean?”
“Well the scientists had no idea that the disease was being passed onwards from contact between humans since they did not know what a contagious disease was. So instead, they noticed that the disease could be isolated to certain villages or parts of cities and they came to the conclusion that the air above that certain community was infected with the virus.”
“So they never conducted experiments on the victims?” he asked.
“To some extent they did, but because dissections were considered illegal by the Church, doctor’s were prohibited from using cadavers.” At this point, Rahul seemed to be confused by the reference to the church. Seeing the look on his face, I went on, “You see, the Church was extremely influential in science at the time. If anything at all in science contradicted Church law, or Canon, it was prohibited. Basically anything the Church said goes and anyone who dared to challenge was threatened with excommunication, kind of like Galileo.”
I saw him understand so I took the opportunity to ask him a different question about the humors of a person’s body. He obviously had no idea what I was talking about judging by the look he gave me so I presented him with this chart.
HUMOR / TEMPER / ORGAN / NATURE / ELEMENTBlack bile / Melancholic / Spleen / Cold Dry / Earth
Phlegm / Phlegmatic / Lungs / Cold Wet / Water
Blood / Sanguine / Head / Warm Wet / Air
Yellow Bile / Choleric / Gallbladder / Warm Dry / Fire
I gave him a minute to read it through and then began to explain it. I told him about the 4 main humors and their meaning in the body. I pointed to the Organ column and told him that the organ listed was believed to produce the corresponding humor. The Element column corresponded to the doctors’ beliefs in what the humor was composed of. Rahul understood so far. But when I got to the Temper and Nature columns he was a little more confused. He had trouble grasping the idea that variations in climate could bring about changes in your body. Thinking quickly, I came up with the example that in cold weather, mucus production in the nose increases in some people, causing many to have a runny nose. This seemed to help him understand. As to the Temper column, I myself am still not sure of the details and significance of each temper so I briefly explained their relevance to the chart and moved on.
I chose to move onto the different types of healers. “There are four main types of healers: Physicians, Folk Healers, Monastic healers, and Women. Some say that saints played a role in Medieval medicine but I tend to not believe that because judging by the fact that Saints are few and far between, they could not have treated so many people with their miracles to have made a significant contribution in the field.”
“What do you mean by miracle?” he asked.
“Well saints were the healers of the Church. They were believed to have possessed mystical powers from God to perform miracles and heal the people of the Church. Typically only the peasants would go to see a Saint because the rich aristocracy could afford to employ a physician.”
“Ok. So what did a physician do that was so special?”
“Physicians were the most educated of all healers. They studied from the classic Greek and Roman texts and based their knowledge on every scholar before them. Physicians diagnosed a patient based upon the humors in their body. From there, he could prescribe certain herbal remedies or in rare cases, would attempt surgery.” I replied.
“Surgery wasn’t very common?”
“No, not at all because doctors at that time really didn’t much of a clue as to what they were doing when they opened a patient up so more often than not, the patient died.”
“Oh, well I guess that could stop someone from wanting to have surgery.” he joked as he got up to go finish packing his suitcase.
Although it was a fairly short presentation of the material, about 6-7 minutes long, I think he learned something he didn’t know which was the main goal. So, I’d say mission accomplished!