The history of foxglove poisoning, was Edward IV a victim?
The history of foxglove poisoning, was Edward IV a victim? Peter Stride (University of Queensland School of Medicine, Australia) Fiona Winston-Brown (Librarian, Redcliffe…
Anesthesia Drugs in the Medieval Muslim Era
In the Middle Ages, Christian Europe was in a state of intellectual stagnation and the theological doctrine that pain serves God’s purpose and must not be alleviated militated against the improvement in methods of narcosis. Nuland points out that the Middle Ages in Europe were dark ages so far as advances in the pharmacology of anesthesia were concerned.
Theodora, Aetius of Amida, and Procopius: Some Possible Connections
Behind the purported facts of Theodora’s career as a common prostitute and later as empress are the hidden details of what we might call feminine pharmacology: what were the drugs used by prostitutes and call-girls in sixth-century Byzan- tium? Were there ordinary pharmaceuticals employed by such professionals to stay in business?
Horticulture and Health in the Middle Ages: Images from the Tacuinum Sanitatis
The relationships between plants and health have been and continue to be of great concern for humankind considering both diet and medicinal uses.
Fishponds as garden features: the example from the Archbishop’s Palace, Trondheim
Until the 1990’s, however, little was known of the nature of the buildings in the eastern and southern wing of the courtyard in the palace for the time until 1640.
Flowers for the Book-binder’s Wife: An Investigation of Florilegia and Early Modern Women’s Writing
To an early modern, nothing could be fully learned through a “hands off” approach. Heidi Brayman Hackel corroborates this with her book, Reading Material. Critical to early modern thoughts on comprehension was “taking note,” a phrasing that carried the double implication of both noticing and annotating…
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.
Fossils as Drugs: pharmaceutical palaeontology
The present paper surveys the medicinal applications of a number of fossils which were well known in classical, mediaeval and renaissance times….
Herbs of the Field and Herbs of the Garden in Byzantine Medicinal Pharmacy
An interested student or scholar wishing to inquire about the essentials of herbalism in the Byzantine Empire likely will be led into the Greek texts on gardens, well illustrated by the Christian “dream garden” as published in Greek…
Italian Renaissance Food-Fashioning or The Triumph of Greens
Conceptions of food in the Renaissance were also still influenced by the humoral-Galenic theory, which said that to keep the different ‘humors’ of the body in balance, a good diet had to be the result of foods balancing the moist/water and the dry/air, the warm/fire and the cold/earth, recalling again the four Aristotelian elements.
The Cucurbitaceae and Solanaceae illustrated in medieval manuscripts known as the Tacuinum Sanitatis
The Cucurbitaceae and Solanaceae illustrated in medieval manuscripts known as the Tacuinum Sanitatis By Harry S. Paris1, Marie-Christine Daunay and Jules Janick Annals…
Pharmacy in medieval Islam and the history of drug addiction
Drug addiction, especially through the use of poppy (Papaver somniferum Linn.) and hemp (Cannabis sativa Linn.), is the main concern of this paper. Although the use of these two plants in medieval Islam was extensive, yet little has been written on this timely subject by historians of medicine and pharmacology.