Early history of wound treatment
In the fourth century AD the cultural centre of the Mediterranean area shifted to Byzantium (Constantinople) and from there medical knowledge in the form of Galenic teaching spread to the Arabs by way of the exiled Nestorians…
History of epilepsy in Medieval Iranian medicine
The history of epilepsy in Medieval Persian medicine is not well-known in the Western world. This article presents the clinical approaches according to which Medieval Iranian practitioners viewed epilepsy and dealt with its problems.
Anatomy during the Italian Renaissance: A Brief History of How Artists Influenced its Development
The earliest dissections took place in the homes of the wealthy and became quite common by the 1400’s. However, dissections were still only performed on criminals of low birth and were regarded as a great humility.
The Culture of Death in late Medieval and early Renaissance Italy
An attempt will be made to show that it is precisely during this period that certain fundamental changes in the conception of and attitudes towards death took place, changes that can be seen as the starting points of a long process that would eventually lead to the medical and utterly despiritualized view of death prevalent in the contemporary Western world.
Magic
No one knew the risks and rewards of magic better than Agrippa. His notorious handbook, De occulta philosophia, circulated in manuscript by 1510, though it was printed only in 1533, over the complaints of Dominican inquisitors.
A tragic case of complicated labour in early Byzantium (404 A.D.)
The study of the works of celebrated physicians of that era reveals that many of them had especially been occupied with the specialties of gynecology and obstetrics.
Dancing with the Dance of the Dead : cemetery of the Innocents and the ramifications of the Macabre
Glaring at us from the pages of illuminated manuscripts, royal sepulchers, and frescoes of Late Medieval churches and cemeteries, macabre cadavers, with their gaping, vermin-infested torsos, emaciated bodies, and grimacing faces, shock and repel.
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….
Dreaming of dwarves: Nightmares and Shamanism in Anglo-Saxon Poetics and the Wid Dweorh Charm
Psychological and psychiatric ailments must have baffled early medical practitioners.
Joan of Arc, creative psychopath: is there another explanation?
Many of these facts can be explained by the hypothesis that Joan of Arc suffered from tuberculosis with a temporal lobe tuberculoma and tuberculous pericarditis.
The School at Salerno: Origin of the European Medical University
Despite oppression of scientific learning through the Dark Ages, the medical school at Salerno emerged in the ninth century, reviving the tradition of the Ancient schools. How is it that a school founded by monks was able to flourish, promoting the development of future European Universities?
Scientists discover existence of brucellosis disease in the Middle Ages
The scientists are the first to confirm the existence of brucellosis, an infectious disease still prevalent today, in medieval skeletal remains.
The Paleodemography of the Black Death 1347-1351
The Black Death of 1347-50 has fascinated both researchers and lay people for over six hundred years1. The medieval epidemic had profound consequences both culturally and demographically and it did much to shape human history.
People with leprosy (Hansen’s disease) during the Middle Ages
Leprosy or Hansen’s Disease represented a major social, moral, and health concern during the Middle Ages. Few diseases have evoked the social responses that leprosy did during the Middle Ages
Healing Leaves
Medieval French literature provides the modern researcher with references to the healing arts in many passages that are incorporated into prose or poetic works.
Foolish Medicine: Reflections on the practices of modern clown-doctors and medieval fools
Fools have been found in almost every human society and have been known by many names including parasite, clod, sot, buffoon, stultor, jester and today simply as clown.
Skeletons point to Columbus voyage for syphilis origins
More evidence emerges to support that the progenitor of syphilis came from the New World.
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…
The fatal disease of the Byzantine Emperor Andronicus III Palaeologus (1328-1341 AD)
Byzantine historians and chroniclers describe many diseases of leading figures of their state and Church, especially the emperors. These constitute a source of valuable information about the clinical application of medicine during the Byzantine period
Eunuchs in the Byzantine Empire: A Study in Byzantine Titulature and Prosopography
The presence of innumerable eunuchs at the Byzantine court seems to be in conflict with the laws that severely prohibited eunuchism. The Roman emperors early formally prohibited this practice, at least within the boundaries of the empire.
Traditional healing with animals (zootherapy): medieval to present-day Levantine practice
Since ancient times animals and products derived from different organs of their bodies have constituted part of the inventory of medicinal substances used in various cultures; such uses still exist in ethnic folk medicine.
Lovesickness in “Troilus”
The history of lovesickness in the Middle Ages is the record of physicians’ attempts to understand what happens to the body and the mind when passion renders a lover a patient.