I am teaching a parasitology class and the textbook states "The fall of Rome, starting in approximately 400 AD, ushered in the Dark Ages, during which Parasitology, like other sciences, largely regressed. Although Chinese and Arabic texts from the Middle Ages contains some references to helminths, real advancement in our understanding of parasites would not occur until the eighteenth century."
This seems like a gross simplification to me and I am looking for some resources (other than what I can find on wikipedia) to supplement this view. I want to use this as a teachable moment about how scientific history often shapes our view of science. Unfortunately my own knowledge of global scientific history is sadly lacking having been trained and taught from similiar textbooks.
Your teachable moment might be that science history is usually written by scientists and not historians. This means it often is as riddled with errors as quantum physics written by historians would be.
To begin with, the Dark Ages when nothing was invented in Europe is an erroneous concept, long exploded in history circles, but irrationally glued into science history by scientists. The idea that everyone just squatted in the ruins and slept with the pigs for centuries is not borne out by their willingness to adopt new technology, for starters. This is part of the Victorian penchant for the "short, brutish & nasty" view. Even the 20th C idea that the Dark Ages is dark only from our side because we lacked written records is now outmoded by the rise of scientific archaeology giving us so much information.
Now, do you want information on parasitology only or science in general in the world, 400-1700?