OCTOBER 2021 | SCANDINAVIAN MONTHLY
Health and Medicine in the Viking Scandinavia Text Shawn Mack
Thousands of years ago, people were very superstitious, and believed in supernatural powers. With minimum medical knowledge, people would relate illnesses to several unrelated events. It is quite difficult for us to fully comprehend the ancient history of medicine and health in the 21st century. Mostly because all we know about that era is the tip of an iceberg. Learn more about health and medicine in the Viking Scandinavia. We know for a fact that this was an underdeveloped era so people had no idea about germs, functions of human organs, and the different processes carrying out inside the human body. Therefore, whenever an illness would
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Scandinavian Vikings had developed various unique ways to cure the illness
come, they would try to cure it using different remedies and quackeries. In this article, we will look closely at the history of health and medicine in the Viking Scandinavia. But before that, let’s have a brief introduction of the time period. The Vikings of Scandinavia The Viking culture has always been an interesting chapter for many historians, archeologists, and people from the entertainment industry. With some remarkable discoveries leading to the ancient Vikings period, history unfolds some amazing aspects of that age. The Scandinavian Vikings were portrayed as brutal invaders and raiders. Well, it is very difficult for us to figure out what is true, false, or exaggerated. But we can surely say that the Vikings of Scandinavian origin were great adventurers and very much modern.
Looking back at the year 800s, we see that the Scandinavian Vikings had developed various unique ways to cure the illness. Let’s look at a few. Health Many studies from the 11th and 12th centuries show that the people of Skeljastaðir, Iceland were mostly in good health. However, it does not mean that the diseases never existed at that time. It’s just that the ancient remains of Skeljastaðir depicted that people were mostly long-lived and possessed good oral health. Further detailed analysis proved that those Vikings had a well-balanced diet as compared to modern diets. They used less sugar, took unprocessed food, and ate lesser refined meals. The dental record showed considerable wear with very less decaying. The only serious dental problem was calculus that results in losing teeth and building-up infections in the jaws.
