WEBVTT - Avicenna 0:00:01.280 --> 0:00:04.200 Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class from how 0:00:04.280 --> 0:00:14.440 Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:18.119 I am Tracy Vie Wilson and I and you may 0:00:18.200 --> 0:00:21.640 have never heard of today's subject, but Avicenna was one 0:00:21.680 --> 0:00:26.840 of the first and probably the most influential Islamic philosopher scientists. 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:31.920 He's listed among the great philosophers in Dante's Inferno, and 0:00:32.120 --> 0:00:34.839 in the prologue to the Canary Tales. The doctor of 0:00:34.960 --> 0:00:37.720 physic who was in the party has studied his work. 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:40.600 There's also a portrait of him hanging in the hall 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:43.720 of the Faculty of Medicine in the University of Paris. 0:00:44.479 --> 0:00:48.080 He had this expansive, brilliant knowledge, and he was so 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:51.160 methodical and systematic, and the way that he wrote down 0:00:51.159 --> 0:00:55.240 in cataloged information that his work in medicine became sought 0:00:55.320 --> 0:01:00.000 after basically all over the place. He influenced the field 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:03.680 of medicine throughout the Islamic and Christian medieval worlds, and 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:07.680 his influence in Europe in the field of medicine lasted 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:11.360 well into the seventeenth century, to the point that schools 0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:15.800 based their entire medical curricula on his writings. He was 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:19.880 also one of the most important philosophers in history. His work, 0:01:19.920 --> 0:01:22.880 which was written mostly in Arabic, was rooted in Islam, 0:01:22.959 --> 0:01:27.679 along with Aristotelian and neo Platonist philosophy in the Muslim world. 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:32.319 This philosophy continues to be studied today, and the fact 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:36.400 that Avicenna was influential to both Christians and Muslims makes 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:42.120 him really unique among ancient philosophers and scholars of his time. Today, 0:01:42.200 --> 0:01:46.560 his work exists in more than two hundred commentaries, annotations 0:01:46.640 --> 0:01:50.960 of bridgements, and translations. So, as we usually do, will 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:54.560 start at the beginning UH and then Farsi. His name 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:58.960 is actually Ibn Sina. In Arabic, it's Abu al al Hussain. 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:04.520 Ibn Sina. Avicenna is actually the medieval latinization of his name. 0:02:04.680 --> 0:02:07.840 We're calling him that instead of calling him even Sina 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:13.600 because the overwhelming preponderance of information about him, regardless of 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:17.000 what culture it's written from, UH calls him that. He 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:19.400 became known by that name a very very long time ago. 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:24.400 He was born around nine eighty in a village near Bukara, Iran, 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:29.480 which is now in Uzbekistan in Central Asia. Bukara is 0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:32.640 in south central Uzbekistan at a river delta, and it 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:35.880 lay along the Silk Road. Today its center is a 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:39.040 UNESCO World Heritage Site, and at the time it was 0:02:39.080 --> 0:02:42.400 the capital, and it was an intellectually rich place to 0:02:42.440 --> 0:02:45.360 grow up. This was also the fourth century of the 0:02:45.560 --> 0:02:48.320 Islamic calendar, and this part of the world was really 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:52.280 flourishing in knowledge and intellect at this point. His father 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:55.520 was a governor and a scholar as well, and Avicenna 0:02:55.639 --> 0:02:58.680 was a very bright and gifted child, and he claimed 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:01.480 to have memorized the higher Koran by the time he 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:05.360 was ten years old. His father's position and the number 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:08.800 of libraries and scholars where they lived meant that his 0:03:08.880 --> 0:03:12.960 precociousness was really encouraged and nourished, and much of his 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:17.040 early study was an Aristotilian philosophy. But he surpassed his 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:19.800 teachers when he was quite young, and so he furthered 0:03:19.840 --> 0:03:22.600 his education on his own once they no longer had 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:25.239 anything they could teach him. At the age of sixteen, 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:29.040 he turned from studying philosophy to studying medicine, which was 0:03:29.160 --> 0:03:33.040 a discipline that he said he found extremely easy. And 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:35.480 when he was still quite young, the Sultan of Bukara, 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:38.360 the city where he was living, got sick and the 0:03:38.400 --> 0:03:41.520 court physicians were not able to cure him, but Avicenna 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:45.000 did cure him, but as a reward, the Sultan gave 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:47.839 him access to the royal library, which opened up all 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:52.320 kinds of avenues for his own personal study. Getting access 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:54.720 to books and knowledge through his practice of medicine for 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:58.320 wealthy patrons actually became a pattern that he repeated throughout 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:01.160 his life. The self taught knowledge that he got from 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:03.480 all this was so broad that he also claimed to 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:06.200 have mastered all of the sciences by the age of eighteen. 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:13.560 Brilliant slash a little egotistical yes that comes up often 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:17.679 and writing about him that in addition to being extremely smart, 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:20.040 he knew he was extremely smart and could be kind 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:22.960 of conceited about it. Uh So, when he was a 0:04:23.000 --> 0:04:26.040 young man, his father died and he for a while 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:29.839 held an administrative post. It's possible that he succeeded his 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:32.480 father and the governorship, but the records are not entirely 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:35.200 clear on that point. So we knew a fair amount 0:04:35.200 --> 0:04:38.839 about Avison's life because he dictated an autobiography to a 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:43.960 protege named Algis Johnny, and this protegee also added additional 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:49.280 biographical information. Some of Avison's own correspondents also survives, but 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:52.800 we don't really have a whole lot of contemporaneous accounts 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:57.560 to balance out this perspective. UM, and the existence of 0:04:57.600 --> 0:05:01.000 the autobiography also seems to have had this unintended side 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:04.800 effect of prompting less scholarship about his life. It was 0:05:04.839 --> 0:05:07.840 basically like, there's already all this information here, so we 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:10.040 don't need to go on a quest to find more 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:13.400 of it. And especially when it comes to his youth, 0:05:13.800 --> 0:05:17.280 the autobiography is all we have uh, and its discussion 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:19.400 of his childhood is really more like the study of 0:05:19.400 --> 0:05:21.760 a scholar set out in such a way as to 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:24.359 act as evidence of avice and his own thoughts on 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:28.239 knowledge and wisdom. It basically recounts his learning. It moves 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:32.359 through increasingly difficult material and sequence uh and often his 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:37.400 own without instruction, so he basically kind of does maps 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:39.960 out the natural progression of I learned a little bit, 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:42.200 I learned some harder things. Eventually I had to seek 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:44.960 out my own knowledge because no one could teach me right. So, 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:47.640 rather than sort of being a story about how he 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:50.600 grew up, this autobiography, when it comes to his youth 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:53.440 is more like an illustration of how a person can 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:58.520 acquire wisdom and knowledge through intuition, So it's almost more 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:02.240 like a curriculum for learning things and an example of 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:05.320 having done it, rather than an autobiography as we would 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:08.320 think of it today. And in his adulthood, he was 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:10.800 known to be a gregarious person who loved life and 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:15.560 its pleasures, including drinking and sex. He was witty and charismatic, 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:18.039 and he was often in the company of friends, and 0:06:18.080 --> 0:06:21.560 at the same time, as is often the case with geniuses, 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:25.600 he could also have periods of brooding and loneliness. So 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:31.600 go figure, no surprise, really not really, As in many religions, 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:35.200 excessive sex and alcohol consumption were quite frowned upon among 0:06:35.240 --> 0:06:39.000 strict Muslims where he lived, So there these same traits 0:06:39.080 --> 0:06:41.760 that kind of defined him also put him at odds 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:45.200 with Islamic conventions and social norms, and they earned him 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:48.320 a lot of enemies as well. He had to move 0:06:48.400 --> 0:06:51.080 from place to place and from patron to patron as 0:06:51.120 --> 0:06:54.200 he rubbed people the wrong way with his flaunting of 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:58.400 religious and social expectations and of you know, being kind 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:01.200 of pretentious and hard to get along way and As 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:04.560 we said earlier, he was also a little conceited and arrogant. 0:07:05.080 --> 0:07:06.840 He was brilliant and he knew it, and he was 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:09.200 not afraid to tell people how much he knew or 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:12.560 how very good he was at any particular thing. And 0:07:12.600 --> 0:07:14.640 this is the one that always makes me go, oh 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:18.440 no Avicenna. Uh. He was also not shy about embarrassing 0:07:18.440 --> 0:07:21.640 and shaming his rivals if they rubbed him the wrong way. Yeah. 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:24.800 So he was pretty outspoken about his greatness and everyone 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:27.880 else's not greatness. Right. He would do things like show 0:07:28.160 --> 0:07:33.680 someone a forgery, knowing that it was a forgery, to 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:36.240 see if that person would spot that it was a 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:39.680 fart a forgery in front of others, and when the 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:42.160 person did not spot that it was a forgery, make 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:46.960 fun of them. It's kind of a brilliant jerk. Yeah. But, 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:51.200 as we are about to talk about, extensively, hugely influential 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:55.320 and important, especially in the worlds of philosophy and medicine. 0:07:55.720 --> 0:07:58.880 By about the age of twenty one, Avicenna had started 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:01.360 to write, and before his death he had written more 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:05.520 than two hundred and forty books, treatises, and other works, 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:10.600 and these spanned all kinds of subjects including math, science, philosophy, music, 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:13.880 and poetry. And as we just said today, he is 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:16.800 most known and was most influential for his work in 0:08:16.880 --> 0:08:19.520 medicine and philosophy. So we're going to talk about his 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:24.400 philosophy first and his medicine second. His most important philosophical 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:27.560 work is the Katab al Shifa, also called The Cure, 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:32.559 which was an encyclopedia of logic, physics, math, and metaphysics. 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:35.040 And this work was modeled after the work of Aristotle 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:38.360 with a grounding in Islam, and it was translated into 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:41.959 Latin in Spain during the twelfth and thirteen centuries, after 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:46.120 which it became hugely influential in Europe. The physics volume 0:08:46.320 --> 0:08:49.160 wasn't just what we think of as physics today. It 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:55.080 also included what we classify more as biology, meteorology, mineralogy, 0:08:55.120 --> 0:09:00.320 and even psychology. The math volume also includes geography, a star, eontomy, 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:04.280 and music in addition to the arithmetic and geometry that 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:06.600 would immediately come to mind when we think about math, 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:11.160 and he also wrote about dream interpretations, talisman and alchemy 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:14.120 as well, although in the end he rejected the idea 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:17.840 that base metals could be transmuted into other things As 0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:21.080 a philosopher. One of his most notable thought experiments was 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:24.120 called the flying Man, also known as the floating Man, 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:28.640 which reflected on what a completely blank slate of a 0:09:28.679 --> 0:09:32.600 person could be aware of. So, in this thought experiment, 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:36.800 imagine that God has just created a fully formed adult 0:09:36.840 --> 0:09:40.079 person and kind of a sensory vacuum. This person has 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:43.760 no memory, he has no sensory input at all. None 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:45.920 of his body parts are even touching each other, so 0:09:46.000 --> 0:09:48.680 he's not even aware of his own body. So, in 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:52.440 this thought experiment, what would this newly minted person be 0:09:52.520 --> 0:09:56.920 aware of. According to Avicenna's philosophy, he would be aware 0:09:57.120 --> 0:10:00.760 that he existed. So to Avicenna the Smith, that self 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:04.160 awareness is a fundamental part of life, and that also 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:06.920 suggested to him that the soul is different from the 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:09.760 body because you could be aware of yourself without being 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:13.280 aware of your body. And this was significant because it 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:15.640 was different from much of the theology at the time, 0:10:16.040 --> 0:10:19.120 which largely taught that the soul was a material substance 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:23.079 that had an atomic makeup like it was an actual 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:26.920 physical thing. This whole idea also draws a parallel between 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:30.960 humans and God, because Avicenna saw God as a self 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:35.720 thinking intellect. So in Avicenna's view, both humans and God 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:38.640 have this ability for self awareness, and that makes self 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:43.920 awareness something extremely special. According to ancient and medieval philosophy 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:47.520 professor Peter Adamson, this is one of the first times 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:51.040 that philosophy put forth this idea and this connection between 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:54.320 man and God. And Avicenna also created a proof that 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:57.560 he believed proved the existence of God, which takes a 0:10:57.559 --> 0:11:00.920 great deal of explaining, so we will link to a 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:04.079 full explanation of it in the show notes rather than 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:06.920 kind of taking you through the proof here. Yes, I 0:11:06.960 --> 0:11:09.080 listened to you a thirty minute podcast that was just 0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:12.600 an explanation of this proof, So rather than spending thirty 0:11:12.640 --> 0:11:16.920 minutes on that, we will of all of the various logic. Yeah, 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:19.040 there's a lot of logic and a lot of sort 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:22.199 of philosophical groundwork that has to be put down first. 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:25.040 That if you're not already familiar with the takes explaining itself. 0:11:25.240 --> 0:11:29.960 So um, before we move on to his discussion of medicine, 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:32.320 let's take a moment and talk about our sponsor. That 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:36.960 sounds okay, and now we'll get back to some extremely 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:41.040 important scientific work from very long ago, so Avicenna's most 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:44.680 influential medical work was the five book work The Canon 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:49.160 of Medicine Alcanum fiel tib which was influential both in 0:11:49.280 --> 0:11:52.120 his region of the world and in European medical schools. 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:54.760 And some of this medical writing was based on the 0:11:54.760 --> 0:11:58.079 Greek physician Galen's idea that of the four humors, which 0:11:58.120 --> 0:12:01.960 are blood, flegm, black by and yellow bile, along with 0:12:02.000 --> 0:12:04.959 the Greek idea of four elements of earth, air, fire, 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:08.280 and water, and the Cannon of Medicine also draws heavily 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:12.920 on the work of Hippocrates. There's also work on anatomy, 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:18.000 the causes and treatments of diseases, hygiene, medicines, pathology, basically 0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:21.720 the whole world of known medicine at the time in 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:25.240 one five volume work. And the fifth book of the 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:28.559 Cannon of Medicine is actually a drug formulary, which was 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:31.160 a completely new idea in the field of medicine at 0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:34.440 the time, sort of the first pharmacist manual. Yeah, so 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:37.480 the Canon of Medicine was basically one work that distilled 0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:40.640 the whole of medical knowledge into five volumes. So it's 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:43.200 really not at all surprising that it became the mainstay 0:12:43.400 --> 0:12:47.319 of medical education and that lasted for hundreds of years. 0:12:47.880 --> 0:12:50.600 When schools in Europe finally drifted away from it, it 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:53.800 was also moving away from the whole idea that humors 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:57.760 caused disease when they are out of balance. So basically, 0:12:57.840 --> 0:13:02.080 avison Is work was the core of medical education until 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:05.040 medicine moved away from the entire idea that a lot 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:07.960 of it was based on. And although this whole idea 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:12.720 of humors isn't part of mainstream medicine today. Uh. Overall, 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:17.120 Avicenna's medical writing was well tested and it was evidence based. 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:20.440 There's some really solid medical thought in there that still 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:24.040 holds true today. He also kept clinical records which were 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:26.560 intended to be used as an appendix to the canon 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:29.920 of medicine. UH. Those haven't survived until today, but we 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:34.040 do know some specifics about his medical practices. One was 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:37.240 that he recommended wine as a wound dressing, which was 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:41.000 a common treatment in medieval Europe and actually since then. 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:45.280 It contains alcohol can be effective at helping to prevent infection. 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:49.720 He also used reduction techniques like pressure and traction to 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:53.720 treat spinal deformities, which is something that Hippocrates had written of, 0:13:53.840 --> 0:13:57.559 and this whole practice disappeared from medicine after Avicenna's time 0:13:57.640 --> 0:14:01.400 until a French surgeon picked it up and then nineteenth century. 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:07.839 He also correctly used sweet tasting urine to diagnose diabetes. 0:14:08.760 --> 0:14:11.640 So did he taste it? Probably that is the thing 0:14:11.679 --> 0:14:15.760 that people would do, uh, and that is definitely identify 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:18.480 sugar in it, definitely an indication that a person could 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:21.680 have diabetes. We know that he performed surgery, and there 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:25.120 are surgical instruments that belonged to him in museums and 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:27.200 within the world of surgery. One of the things that 0:14:27.240 --> 0:14:30.120 he did was to describe how to find the healthy 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:34.400 margins of a surgical site when performing an amputation. He 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:37.240 also wrote about how to cut an umbilical cord and 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:40.800 how to clean, swaddle, and feed a newborn baby, so 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:43.920 this is basically all over all kinds of areas of medicine. 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:46.640 At this point. A lot of his writing was also 0:14:46.720 --> 0:14:50.320 about generally being healthy, how to get well and stay well, 0:14:50.360 --> 0:14:54.040 and it included the effects of recreation, the home, family life, 0:14:54.040 --> 0:14:56.920 and all sorts of other factors on human health. So 0:14:57.040 --> 0:15:00.480 consequently he's been referred to as the four Runner of 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:05.520 preventive medicine, which is something we take for granted today. Yeah, 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:08.080 he really, uh you know, was the first to put 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:10.880 forth the idea of sort of a holistic health view 0:15:12.000 --> 0:15:17.080 versus just treating incidents of health issues. So Avirisona was 0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:21.000 extremely influential and extremely important, and unfortunately his life was 0:15:21.040 --> 0:15:24.720 not particularly long. At the age of fifty seven, he 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:27.800 was traveling with his patron and he developed colicue, which 0:15:27.840 --> 0:15:31.000 he decided to treat himself, and ultimately this wound up 0:15:31.080 --> 0:15:33.960 leading to his death. The course of treatment that he 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:39.120 wanted to undergo involved getting eight celery seed enemies a day, 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:43.240 and it's unclear whether this was intentional on the part 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:45.880 of one of his attendants, but the formula that he 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:49.960 gave to himself was prepared to contain more than double 0:15:50.040 --> 0:15:52.520 the amount of active ingredient that it was supposed to. 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:57.800 His intestines became ulcerated as a result, and to treat 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:01.240 the ulceration, he used a mild form of opium, and 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:04.200 at this time we know that there was a tampering 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:08.000 that was intentional. A slave laced this opium with an 0:16:08.040 --> 0:16:11.560 extra dose. His health started to go downhill, and he 0:16:11.880 --> 0:16:14.880 refused to leave his patron. He kept traveling with him, 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:17.600 but his condition got worse and worse, and he finally 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:21.680 died in ten thirty seven, and Amasona is buried in 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:25.120 Hamdan and his tomb, which had fallen into disrepair, was 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:28.360 refurbished in the nineteen fifties and now it's home to 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:31.840 a mausoleum in an eight thousand volume library. Yeah, there's 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:37.440 a big sort of pillared monument there. It's very striking 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:40.920 to look at. As we said earlier, although his his 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:45.200 medical writing is not really part of modern medical thought, 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:49.320 his philosophy is still widely studied among Muslims today. He's 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:51.800 one of those people that's so influential. It's almost surprising 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:53.800 that you don't hear of him. I had never heard 0:16:53.840 --> 0:16:55.640 of him before I started. Well, I had heard of 0:16:55.720 --> 0:16:58.440 him because I've read the Canterbury Tales in Dante's Inferno, 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:01.320 but his name had not stuck into my head, and 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:04.960 still until I started doing research on this podcast. It's 0:17:04.960 --> 0:17:07.119 pretty rare that somebody living at that time would have 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:11.840 been that influential among both Christians and Muslims. Yeah, it's 0:17:11.880 --> 0:17:14.840 a it's a really interesting story. I actually do kind 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:16.879 of want to go read his proof, which I have 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:20.639 not yet. I have only listened to the analysis and 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:24.920 description of it that that took like thirty minutes to explain. Um, 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:28.399 perfect lunchtime listening it is. It is pretty pretty perfect 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:32.959 lunchtime listening. There are some awesome philosophy podcasts, some of 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:36.480 which I used as sources for this. We will link 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:38.399 them all up in show notes because I don't have 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:41.760 them noted right in front of me. But yeah, Avicenna, 0:17:42.000 --> 0:17:45.840 possibly unknown person credited with the health and were welfare 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:48.760 of much of medieval Europe. All right, do you have 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:51.280 some listener mail to share with us? I do. I 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:53.639 have two pieces of listener mail, and they're both about 0:17:53.640 --> 0:17:57.720 the Boston massacre. The first is from Paul, and Paul 0:17:57.800 --> 0:17:59.840 writes to us. It's a rather long letter, so I'm 0:17:59.840 --> 0:18:01.600 not going to eat all of it. But he writes 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:04.719 about where he listens. He apparently cannot listen to us 0:18:04.720 --> 0:18:07.120 while driving because it requires too much of his attention, 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:11.320 but he has been listening while he runs, which is 0:18:11.320 --> 0:18:14.680 pretty cool. Uh. Then he says, as a history major 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:17.760 and a trivia aficionado, I particularly look forward to subject 0:18:17.840 --> 0:18:20.680 matter that I think I know well. I'm always pleasantly 0:18:20.760 --> 0:18:23.440 surprised by the new facts or perspectives that you bring 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:25.560 to the shows. Of course, I love hearing about all 0:18:25.640 --> 0:18:28.280 matter of subjects that I knew nothing of. I have 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:31.000 learned more about communicable diseases than I maybe would have 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:34.240 cared to learn on my own. For instance, I did 0:18:34.320 --> 0:18:37.920 want to put yeah, I knew you and us both 0:18:38.000 --> 0:18:41.240 we did have a whole run of tuberculosis and small box. 0:18:42.240 --> 0:18:43.800 I did want to put in my two cents about 0:18:43.840 --> 0:18:46.720 your boss the mask per episode. As a proud Bostonian, 0:18:46.760 --> 0:18:49.199 I felt it my duty. I was really excited for 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:51.920 this episode as a Colonial America buff and a local 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:54.080 of the Boston area. I did want to add another 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:56.720 cause for tensions that led to the riot, namely the 0:18:56.800 --> 0:19:00.359 Quartering Acts, where Boston colonists were forced to house the 0:19:00.359 --> 0:19:03.199 British regulars who were sent there to essentially suppress the 0:19:03.240 --> 0:19:06.760 Bostonians and their dissatisfaction with the towns and acts. The 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:10.080 soldiers were sent in part as a reaction to the 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:13.840 non importation Acts revived in Boston, where the city refused 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:16.240 to buy any imported goods as a measure that was 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:20.640 adopted across the Northern colonies. Eventually This hit the English 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:23.520 merchants in their wallets, and that had been an effective 0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:28.080 method in repealing the stamp acts. Boston's resistance became a 0:19:28.119 --> 0:19:31.560 spark that eventually ignited the rebellion. The true presence was 0:19:31.600 --> 0:19:34.159 a catalyst that made loyal subjects of the crown rethink 0:19:34.200 --> 0:19:37.400 their positions. Imagine four thousand soldiers of occupying a city 0:19:37.440 --> 0:19:40.920 of twenty thousand. I know the word massacre is an exaggeration, 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:43.439 but I always wondered why a mob of hundreds didn't 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:46.520 retaliate more violently against eight soldiers after they had shot 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:51.000 into a crowd. Certainly, armed people killing unarmed people is 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:54.120 an act that barrison scrutiny. I always found Adam's description 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:56.920 of the crowd, which is laden with racial overtones, quite 0:19:56.960 --> 0:19:59.879 illustrative of how at least some of the four of 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:03.439 others truly did not believe that all men were created equal. Anyway, 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:06.680 enough rambling, keep up the great works, sincerely, Paul, Thank you, Paul. 0:20:07.880 --> 0:20:11.840 Uh we did not quite say explicitly that, yes, Adam's 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:15.480 description of the people who writed is quite laced with 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:21.800 judgment and uh bigotry. I think it's the word um 0:20:21.840 --> 0:20:25.400 so that is that is letter one about the black 0:20:25.440 --> 0:20:28.719 and masker. I have letter to about the Boston massaker, 0:20:28.800 --> 0:20:30.679 and then we will kind of talk about both of them. Uh. 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:32.600 The second one is from our Facebook while and it's 0:20:32.600 --> 0:20:35.199 from Shawn Sean says Dear Tracy and Holly. I'm a 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:37.399 big fan of the podcast and recently listened to the 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:40.520 episode on the Boston massacre. During the podcast, you mentioned 0:20:40.520 --> 0:20:43.080 repeatedly how the term massacre seems an odd choice to 0:20:43.160 --> 0:20:45.840 modern ears to describe the event, given the seemingly small 0:20:45.880 --> 0:20:48.639 amount of lives cost and the incident compared to what 0:20:48.680 --> 0:20:51.439 we are sadly used to today. Well, I agree with 0:20:51.440 --> 0:20:53.560 you guys that the use of the term was undoubtedly 0:20:53.640 --> 0:20:57.320 driven by political and propaganda aims. I was also curious 0:20:57.320 --> 0:20:59.560 that somehow the concept of what would pass as a 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:02.280 massacre in the eighteenth century was influenced by the weapons 0:21:02.280 --> 0:21:05.360 available at the time and the carnage they could dispense. 0:21:05.760 --> 0:21:07.879 Let's keep in mind that the British soldiers involved in 0:21:07.920 --> 0:21:10.360 the event were all armed with large caliber, single shop 0:21:10.440 --> 0:21:14.120 muzzle loading muskets. These were inaccurate at best, and even 0:21:14.119 --> 0:21:16.720 the best trained soldiers, such as the Heshan's the tie 0:21:16.720 --> 0:21:19.639 in another podcast topic, could only be expected to manage 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:22.520 three shots per minute and the best of conditions. So 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:25.639 far I can tell none of the soldiers involved fired 0:21:25.680 --> 0:21:29.240 more than once, and some victims were hit multiple times. 0:21:29.240 --> 0:21:32.240 Perhaps it is therefore unlikely to have expected a greater 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:36.280 number of casualties than what actually occurred, Although estimates ary 0:21:36.600 --> 0:21:39.480 the number of combat dead in the U s Revolution 0:21:39.560 --> 0:21:41.879 may have been less than eight thousand people. I do 0:21:41.960 --> 0:21:44.080 not mean in any way to diminish the loss of life, 0:21:44.160 --> 0:21:47.240 but merely venture the opinion that just as the use 0:21:47.320 --> 0:21:50.000 of the term massacre seems uncalled for to us today 0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:53.400 because of our cultural conditioning, perhaps our forefathers looked upon 0:21:53.440 --> 0:21:56.800 it exactly that because of theirs. At any rate, keep 0:21:56.880 --> 0:22:00.159 up the awesome work. Uh. And then he suggests a 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:04.280 podcast episode topic for the future. So thank you also, 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:08.240 Sean Um. We we got a fair amount of flak 0:22:08.359 --> 0:22:11.879 from people about how we talked about the Boston mastheaw um. 0:22:11.920 --> 0:22:15.040 And after getting this particularly reason the question from Sean, 0:22:15.160 --> 0:22:20.280 I went and did some looking because I wondered I 0:22:20.320 --> 0:22:23.720 was pretty contextually qualified as a massacre. I was pretty 0:22:23.760 --> 0:22:25.480 I was pretty up front at the beginning that I 0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:29.200 think of massacres today is something like horrifying and terrible, 0:22:29.480 --> 0:22:33.840 and it turns out it's always meant something horrifying and terrible. 0:22:34.160 --> 0:22:37.879 So the word massacre comes from French words that relate 0:22:37.960 --> 0:22:40.840 to butcher's knives and blocks, so that's what it meant 0:22:40.840 --> 0:22:45.040 originally before it became something that meant slaughter. Its first 0:22:45.200 --> 0:22:48.240 uses in English came from the sixteenth century and referred 0:22:48.280 --> 0:22:52.200 to the bloody massacre at Paris, and that's the math, 0:22:52.320 --> 0:22:56.080 the massacre of St. Bartholon New's Day. So to catch 0:22:56.119 --> 0:22:57.960 everyone up if you have not heard of this before. 0:22:58.640 --> 0:23:03.480 In this massacre, Catherine Demonici, who was Catholic, orchestrated the 0:23:03.560 --> 0:23:07.200 murder of the Hugueno nobility who were Protestant. And these 0:23:07.240 --> 0:23:12.000 were people who were in Paris for a wedding. It's 0:23:12.000 --> 0:23:14.960 not in any way aggressive. Well, I mean there was 0:23:15.040 --> 0:23:18.040