‘Arthritis’ in Byzantium (AD 324-1453): unknown information from non-medical literary sources
Most Byzantine physicians described several types of arthritis that resemble rheumatoid arthritis, chronic deformans polyarthritis and gout.
BLACK DEATH: The Causes and Effects of a Pandemic
It requires an enormous burden of proof for any microscopic organism to be held responsible for killing roughly 30-40 percent of the population of Europe, or an estimated 17 to 28 million people from 1347-1352. Since the isolation and description of Yersinia pestis at the end of the “golden age” of microbiology in 1894, by the Swiss-French bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin, it is widely held that the small bacterium was responsible for the Black Death and several more pandemics that followed in Europe and Asia.
Al Zahrawi: The Father of Modern Surgery
Among many Moslem scholars who shared in enlightening the path of medical human knowledge is ‘Alzahrawi’ who is regarded as the father of modern surgery, and rightfully so. He was a great surgeon, a pioneer in surgical innovation and a great teacher whose comprehensive medical texts had shaped the European surgical procedures up until the renaissance and later.
Defining the ‘Strano’: Madness in Renaissance Italy
It is easy to recognise madness, but how does one define it?1 This thesis explores the different ways madness was defined and portrayed in Italian texts from the early fifteenth century through to the late sixteenth century.
Plague, pox and the physician in Aberdeen, 1495–1516
This article discusses responses to disease in Aberdeen during a formative period in the provision of healthcare within the city
Azodi Hospital and University in Shiraz (10th – 14th Century AD)
Hospitals have a long history throughout the history of medicine. First hospitals are originated from Persia in ancient times in the Sassanid Dynasty (2nd to 6th century AD).
Visual-Kinetic Communication in Europe Before 1600: A Survey of Sign Lexicons and Finger Alphabets Prior to the Rise of Deaf Education
Visual-kinetic communication systems are mentioned in a wide variety of texts up through the early Renaissance, but not often described in any detail. What seems to us such a strange and frustrating omission results from the very different nature and purpose of scholarly writing in premodern times.
An introduction to the investigation into the mental health of female medieval mystics
While the Medieval ascription to madness is known, in the light of recent psychological and medical insights, I will explore alternative explanations for the extreme behaviour of devout women in the Middle Ages.
Graeco-Roman Case Histories and their Influence on Medieval Islamic Clinical Accounts
Medieval Islamic medicine has until now been studied primarily through its learned treatises. According to that theoretical corpus, written in Arabic, Islamic medicine mainly constitutes an elaborate systematization and synthesis of earlier Graeco-Roman sources.
Stress Along the Medieval Anglo-Scottish Border? Skeletal Indicators of Conflict-Zone Health
The medieval British populations living along the Anglo-Scottish border from the 10th through the 16th century were hypothesised to have significantly higher mortality and morbidity rates than contemporary populations living in other regions of Britain that were not exposed to chronic border warfare.
The mandrake plant and its legend: a new perspective
As a specialist in German mediaeval studies, until the time Peter Bierbaumer introduced me to Old English plant names and approached me with the idea of republishing and updating his Der botanische Wortschatz des AltenglischenI had no idea how fascinating Old English could be.
VAGANTES: Hālnes and hǽlþ:Anglo-Saxon Bodily Wellness
Since most of the surviving mentions of wellness relate to the health of the soul, it is not clear what constituted a healthy Anglo-Saxon body. This paper will use the Old English poem Soul and Body and Old English medical texts to explore Anglo-Saxon bodily wellness.
A brief review of the history of delirium as a mental disorder
This paper will review the most important of these concepts about delirium, from ancient times until the appearance of the two classification systems. Special attention will be paid to the question of how those concepts have dealt with the particular problems posed by prognosis and outcome.
The Poisoned Arrows of Amor: cases of syphilis from 16th-century Iceland
The number of syphilis cases at the Skriðuklaustur monastery is unexpectedly high, as nine individuals with the disease have been identified in a skeletal assemblage totalling only 198 skeletons. At least two of the cases bear the signs of congenital syphilis. The youngest individual was just an adolescent at death but still showed severe symptoms of congenital syphilis that had developed to the tertiary stage.
“What We Are, So You Shall Be”: Preparation for Death in the Late Middle Ages
It is tempting to explain the late medieval attitude toward death as a direct result of the Black Death, which caused massive loss of life and brought about a new awareness of the fact that death could come at any time. While this generalization is not completely false, there are several issues of timing. The fear of sudden death was not new.
The Origin of Quarantine
A similar strategy was used in the busy Mediterranean sea- port of Ragusa (modern Dubrovnik, Croatia). After a visitation of the black death, the city’s chief physician, Jacob of Padua, advised establishing a place outside the city walls for treatment of ill townspeople and outsiders who came to town seeking a cure. The impetus for these recommendations was an early contagion theory, which promoted separation of healthy persons from those who were sick.
The concept of quarantine in history: from plague to SARS
The concept of ‘quarantine’ is radically embedded in local and global health practices and culture, attracting heightened interest during episodes of perceived or actual epidemics. The term, however, evokes a variety of emotions, such as fear, resentment, acceptance, curiosity and perplexity, reactions often to be associated with a lack of knowledge about the origins, meaning, and rel- evance of quarantine itself.
The Health of the North in a Renaissance Encyclopaedia
In 1555 a private press in Rome issued a volume in Latin with some 400 woodcut illustrations, most of the specifically commissioned by the author, these being in the form of vignettes at head of a majority of about 600 short chapters of the work.
Public Health and the Pre-Modern City: A Research Agenda
Medieval cities are often viewed as environmental accidents waiting to happen. ‘The visual virtues of medieval towns’, reckons one textbook, ‘were grimly offset by the dismal ineptitude of public health services and municipal control over the environment … Squalor, dirt, discomfort and disease were the accepted lot of medieval man.’
Diagnostics in Late Medieval Sources
Medieval medicine as a scientific discipline was constituted generally in the 11th and 12th century on the basis of Latin translations of Arabic and Greek medical texts.
The Politics of Health Reform from a Medieval Perspective
Professor William Ayliffe provides an overview of some of London’s most important medieval hospitals, including St Bartholomew’s, St Thomas’ and St Mary’s Bethlem, and compares our own healthcare systems with those of the Tudors, in terms of cleanliness, dignity to patients and even hospital architecture.
The art of medicine: Female patients and practitioners in medieval Islam
Diseases specifically affecting women that are discussed in medieval Arabic literature largely concern the reproductive organs, complications before and after childbirth, lactation, and child-rearing.
Recipes for Health: Magical, Religious, and Pharmacological Remedies for Female Ailments in Medieval England
In England, there was a long tradition of medical texts written in the vernacular beginning in the ninth century. These texts showed a surprising array of health remedies for women, including prayers, charms, incantations, and herbal concoctions.
The biological consequences of urbanization in medieval Poland
This dissertation tests the hypothesis that urbanization in a medieval Polish population caused the general quality of life to decline. Furthermore, it will test the hypothesis that these consequences of urbanization occurred gradually and were not severe.