Заразне болести на тлу Србије у средњем веку према медицинским списима и археолошким сведочанствима

Abstract

Science has long ago indicated the need to comprehensively elaborate the problem of contagious diseases in Serbia throughout history, by collecting in one place all knowledge about some phenomenon based on all available sources: medical texts, narrative sources, documents, notes and inscriptions, fresco paintings and archaeological findings. In this manner, a true picture would be formed about a problem significant for knowledge of health circumstances and health culture among Serbs, but also about a better understanding of some events in Serbian political history. This paper elaborates infectious diseases based on data from medical records and archaeological findings. In the Middle Ages, epidemics of contagious diseases had periodically affected all lands around the Serbian state, so logically, they spilled over onto the territories populated by the Serbs. Serbian medieval medicine had developed under the strong influence of medical schools in Salerno and Montpellier, which is especially obvious from the most significant Serbian medical text – The Chilandar Medical Codex No. 517 – in which explicit references were made to the authorities like Hippocrates, Galen, Sextus Placitus, Avicenna, Constantine the African, Platearius, Gerardus de Solo etc. The text on infectious diseases from The Chilandar Medical Codex No. 517 and other medical texts identify outbreaks of bubonic plague, malaria, leprosy, smallpox and variola vera, spotted typhus, dysentery, rabies, skin anthrax and venereal diseases (syphilis towards the end of Middle Ages). Scarlet fever, diphtheria, and tetanus were probably also present. So far, archaeological findings have not confirmed existence of graveyards that could be connected with any mass burials due to epidemics. In some archaeological sites, skeletal remains were found in unusual positions (a deceased person would be buried face down or crouching), there were lime residues, two children buried at the same time etc, but such findings are insufficient for deriving precise conclusions. However, in a grave found in the nave of the St. George’s Church at Ćelije near Lajkovac a skeleton of a male person of about 60 years of age who died from third stage syphilis. This finding was dated back to the end of 15th or beginning of 16th century and may be justification of the thesis of Pre-Columbian i. e. European origins of syphilis. The paleopathological analyses are made even more difficult by the fact that contagious diseases, particularly the bubonic plague, hardly ever leave traces on the bones. Written sources undoubtedly confirm that there were hospitals in medieval Serbia dedicated to treating acute treatable diseases, as well as hospices dedicated to care of the leprous, invalids and senior citizens. Archaeological researches have not disclosed any remains of buildings that could be classified without doubt as hospitals, although it is known that they had existed within the monastery complexes of Studenica, Dečani and that of St. Archangels’ at Prizren. The situation is nothing better when speaking of medical equipment and tools. Unfortunately, the information from medical texts are aggregated while the archaeological findings and results of physical-anthropological researches are too fragmented to be able to form a wider picture about the health of Serbian population in the Middle Ages, especially in case of contagious diseases, to make temporal and spatial mapping of large epidemics quite definite, although they undoubtedly had occurred on the territory of today’s Serbia.