MEDICINE IN MEDIEVAL SERBIA

Serbian medieval medicine developed under the influence of Byzantine Empire and Italian states. In the middle regions, church was the one who was spreading that kind of medicine, and in the coastal area – intermediators were sailors who traded with Italian states.

In Byzantine apocryphal medicine, evil that causes all deceases is embodied in one particular person, but in Serbia there were multiple evil spirits which cause deceases and accidents in human life. Devils, moras, witches, she-devils, evil Nazor, Vila, are just some of them.

 

Maybe the most interesting one of these spirits is Нежит. It is an evil spirit which causes disease of all body's organs. There is a prayer, from a XVII century prayer book for this evil thing.

“Oh, you Nezit, come out of this God’s servant (and then they say the name of the ill person), out of his head, his eyes, nose, ears, neck, shoulders, hands, fingers, nails, heart, stomach, his liver, his back, knees, his feet, bones, out of his blood and all inside organs. Christ casts you out, now and forever.”

 

To find out more about medieval Serbian medicine, oldest prayers for snake bites, and medieval remedies from famous Serbian medical codices watch my video:

 REFERENCES:

-          Medicina kod Srba u srednjem veku, Relja Katic, Izdavacka ustanova srpske akademije nauka, Beograd, 1958.

            (Medicine within Serbs in middle ages, Relja Katic)

-          Hilandarski medicinski kodeks, Beograd 1989

     (The Chilandar Medical Codex, Belgrade 1989)