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"Introduction" [2020] ELECD 412; in Tistounet, Eric (ed), "The UN Human Rights Council" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2020) 1

Book Title: The UN Human Rights Council

Editor(s): Tistounet, Eric

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Section Title: Introduction

Number of pages: 5

Abstract/Description:

During the Western European Middle Ages, there was no rational medicine. Surgery was the province of barbers, executioners and bathkeepers. Dissecting dead bodies was not authorized and those who tried to behave as scientists had no other choice than to carry on their anatomical research in secret. Ideas about biology were certainly odd and surely not even remotely connected to reality. It was considered that, for instance, women had more water in their bodies than men and thus, if there were frequent rains during pregnancy, the baby was more likely to be born female. In the same vein, the liver was supposed to secrete yellow bile, the spleen black bile and the heart blood. Contrary to Greek philosophers, it was taught that the brain was merely a phlegm-secreting gland. Persons with disabilities were regarded as possessed by evil spirits and medicine was carried out using exorcism, consecrated bells, relics, readings of holy texts and even torture. Fortunately for all concerned, reason emerged from the darkness of time and over the forthcoming centuries the doctrine of the Middle Ages was seriously challenged and progressively abandoned, the antique knowledge came back to light and breakthroughs were achieved with the study of anatomy, which started flourishing in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.