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Comment by murgindrag | Hacker News Reader

I think you're being a little mean to the dark ages.

Galen was a pretty accomplished medical researcher, and Roman-era medical implements were quite sophisticated, and were well-established by the time of the dark ages. By the late dark ages, we also saw a lot of modern medical techniques coming in from the Middle East.

There's this stereotype of people being filthy, ignorant, and dumb, but it's not really true. And for many of the bad practices from then do persist in poorer parts of the world today affecting likely around a billion people (and some, like homeopathy, even in wealthy parts).

Note that I'm not weighing in on the overall debate about where modern medicine is relative to the dark ages. We've made a lot of progress. I'm just refuting the stereotype of the dark ages.

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> Galen was a pretty accomplished medical researcher, and Roman-era medical implements were quite sophisticated, and were well-established by the time of the dark ages.

Were those implements actually practiced throughout the dark ages or did they go the way of the Roman road networks?

When people talk of the dark ages they're usually talking of post-Roman Western Europe rather than Asia or the Middle East. I'm not sure if a Bohemian peasant living in 1000 AD would've benefited much from Islamic medicine advancements.

Wikipedia defines the Dark Ages as lasting through the 15th century, by which point, Islamic medical advancements would have made it into Europe. Obviously, in 500AD, they didn't yet exist.

One of the reason for the decline of the term "dark ages" is that there is increasing evidence that people in this period didn't actually crawl under a rock of ignorance. Large-scale armies and infrastructure projects were gone, but at the same time, a lot more knowledge persisted than is given credit for -- the sorts of things which don't require a massive Roman central government administration to maintain.

Right, I used it as an all-embracing term for 'very old', I'm surprised many have taken the term so literally. Perhaps it's characteristic of HN's audience.

"One of the reason for the decline of the term "dark ages" is that there is increasing evidence that people in this period didn't actually crawl under a rock of ignorance."

Despite my use of 'Dark Ages', I cannot agree with you more. Perhaps you might like to look at this image of a shoulder-clasp from Britain's Sutton Hoo Hoard (it's one of many). Considering both its age and the time in which it was created (and the limited tool available then), to me, this is one of the most remarkable and beautiful objects I've ever seen. It sends shivers down my back when I think of the sheer talent that created it. We are so lucky it's survived essentially intact across the last one and half millennia:

https://www.ancient.eu/image/5107/the-sutton-hoo-shoulder-cl...

(Make sure you click on the image to get the largest view.)

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