Healing with animals in the Levant from the 10th to the 18th century

Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine
Efraim Lev

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 o...Continue Reading

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Citations

Nov 4, 2006·Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine·Madan Mohan Mahawar, D P Jaroli
Jun 6, 2007·Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine·Madan Mohan Mahawar, D P Jaroli
Mar 10, 2011·Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine·Rômulo R N Alves, Humberto N Alves
Jun 2, 2012·Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine·Ricardo Sánchez-PedrazaAndrés L González-Rangel
Nov 22, 2014·Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine·Maxwell K BoakyeRaymond Jansen
Sep 20, 2012·Anais Da Academia Brasileira De Ciências·Michelle S P RochaJosé S Mourão

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