What is a midwife? History of childbirth
A Roman carving of a midwife at a birth (Isola Della Sacra, Ostia, 1st century AD) Who delivered babies in the ancient world? A midwife is a woman who helps [...]
A Roman carving of a midwife at a birth (Isola Della Sacra, Ostia, 1st century AD) Who delivered babies in the ancient world? A midwife is a woman who helps [...]
(Bosch, the Ship of Fools) - medieval disabilities Were a lot of people disabled in the past? In the ancient and medieval worlds, many more people were physically and mentally [...]
Native American science: Sunflowers growing in a field Domesticating sunflowers Probably the greatest contribution of Native American people to science before 1500 AD was the domestication of several plants, especially sunflowers in eastern North America. These plants [...]
An Apache woman holding a baby in a cradleboard Most kids in North America lived with their mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters. Most families lived in one room [...]
Sick children from medieval Europe What sicknesses did medieval Europeans get? During the Middle Ages, most people were sick with something for most of their lives. Newborns were often born small [...]
Anna Comnena, author of the Alexiad Who was Anna Comnena? Anna Comnena was born a princess in 1083 AD. She was the oldest child of the Byzantine emperor Alexios. She was named [...]
Saladin's castle in Cairo, where Maimonides worked Maimonides and health care In the 1100s AD, when Maimonides wrote his book about medicine, doctors didn't have very many medicines or medical treatments that worked. The Guide [...]
Islamic medicine: From an Ottoman manuscript, two doctors telling the pharmacist how to make different medicines Writing medical encyclopedias Doctors made big scientific advances in medicine during the Islamic empire. The [...]
Where ibn Sina came from: Uzbekistan Ibn Sina and the Samanids in Uzbekistan Ibn Sina (known to Europeans as Avicenna) was a scientist. He was born about 980 AD in the north-eastern part of [...]
al Tabari's homeland in Tabiristan Where did al Tabari come from? Al Tabari was from a Christian family in the Abbasid Empire, near the Caspian Sea (modern Iran). His father, Sahl, was himself [...]