Abstract
Animals and products derived from different organs of their bodies have constituted part of the inventory of medicinal substances used in various cultures since ancient times. The article reviews the history of healing with animals in the Levant (The Land of Israel and parts of present-day Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan, defined by the Muslims in the Middle Ages as Bilad al-Sham) in the medieval and early Ottoman periods.Intensive research into the phenomenon of zootherapy in the medieval and early Ottoman Levant has yielded forty-eight substances of animal origin that were used medicinally. The vast majority of these substances were local and relatively easy to obtain. Most of the substances were domestic (honey, wax, silkworm, etc.), others were part of the local wildlife (adder, cuttle fish, flycatcher, firefly, frog, triton, scorpion, etc.), part of the usual medieval household (milk, egg, cheese, lamb, etc.), or parasites (louse, mouse, stinkbug, etc.). Fewer substances were not local but exotic, and therefore rare and expensive (beaver testicles, musk oil, coral, ambergris, etc.).The range of symptoms that the substances of animal origin were used to treat was extensive and included most of the known diseases and maladies of that era: mainly hemorrhoids, burns, impotence, wounds, and skin, eye, and stomach diseases.Changes in the moral outlook of modern societies caused the use of several substances of animal origin to cease in the course of history. These include mummy, silkworm, stinkbug, scarabees, snail, scorpion, and triton.
Highlights
Since ancient times animals, their parts, and their products have constituted part of the inventory of medicinal substances used in various cultures
Changes in the moral outlook of modern societies caused the use of several substances of animal origin to cease in the course of history. These include mummy, silkworm, stinkbug, scarabees, snail, scorpion, and triton. Their parts, and their products have constituted part of the inventory of medicinal substances used in various cultures
Historical sources of ancient Egypt mention the medicinal uses of substances derived from animals, for example, cattle milk, bee honey, lizard blood, ox organs, swallow's liver, bat limbs, ambergris from the sperm whale, and the glands of the musk deer [3,4,5,6]
Summary
Their parts, and their products have constituted part of the inventory of medicinal substances used in various cultures. Muslim physicians such as the 9th-century al-Tabari [14] and al-Kindi [14] describe the medical uses of several animals, in Iraq and Iran, such as bear, beaver testicles, camel, cattle fat, coral, crab, dog, fish stone, horse, lizard, medical skink, mouse, pearl, pigeon, rabbit, rhino and goat horns, scorpion, snake, squid, turtle, and wolf, and animal products such as honey, wax, milk, and eggs Together these comprise about 7% of all medicinal substances [25,26]. The present study takes a new approach to the use of animals in medicine in the medieval (10th–16th century) and early Ottoman (16th–18th century) Levant (the Land of Israel and parts of present-day Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan, defined by the Muslims in the Middle Ages as Bilad alSham). Several animals and their products were disregarded since they were used by quacks or for mystical medicinal uses: these are subjects for different research, the two fields are not always fully distinguished [67]
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