Author: Patrick Outhwaite
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1914049268
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 300
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Book Description
A consideration of the allegory of Christ the Divine Physician in medical and religious writings. Discourses of physical and spiritual health were intricately entwined in the Middle Ages, shaping intellectual concepts as well as actual treatment. The allegory of Christ as Divine Physician is an example of this intersection: it appears frequently in both medical and religious writings as a powerful figure of healing and salvation, and was invoked by dissidents and reformists in religious controversies. Drawing on previously unexplored manuscript material, this book examines the use of the Christus Medicus tradition during a period of religious turbulence. Via an interdisciplinary analysis of literature, sermons, and medical texts, it shows that Wycliffites in England and Hussites in Bohemia used concepts developed in hospital settings to press for increased lay access to Scripture and the sacraments against the strictures of the Church hierarchy. Tracing a story of reform and controversy from localised institutional contexts to two of the most important pan-European councils of the fifteenth century, Constance and Basel, it argues that at a point when the body of the Church was strained by multiple popes, heretics and schismatics, the allegory came into increasing use to restore health and order.
Author: Peter Biller
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1903153077
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 273
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Book Description
Medicine and religion were intertwined in the middle ages; here are studies of specific instances. The sheer extent of crossover - medics as religious men, religious men as medics, medical language at the service of preaching and moral-theological language deployed in medical writings - is the driving force behind these studies. The book reflects the extraordinary advances which 'pure' history of medicine has made in the last twenty years: there is medicine at the levels of midwife and village practitioner, the sweep of the learned Greek and Latin tradition of over a millennium; there is control of midwifery by the priest, therapy through liturgy, medicine as an expression of religious life for heretics, medicine invading theologians' discussion of earthly paradise; and so on. Professor PETER BILLER is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of York; Dr JOSEPH ZIEGLER teaches in the Department of History at the University of Haifa.Contributors JOSEPH ZIEGLER, PEREGRINE HORDEN, KATHRYNTAGLIA, JESSALYN BIRD, PETER BILLER, DANIELLE JACQUART, MICHAEL McVAUGH, MAAIKE VAN DER LUGT, WILLIAM COURTENAY, VIVIAN NUTTON.
Author: Carole Rawcliffe
Publisher: Medieval Institute Publications
ISBN: 1580445160
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 132
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Book Description
The material contained here derives from a wide variety of printed and manuscript sources, chosen to give some idea of the rich diversity of evidence available to the historian of English medicine and its place in society during the fourteenth, fifteenth, and early sixteenth centuries. Latin and French have been translated into modern English, while vernacular texts have been slightly modified, and obsolete or difficult words explained. Middle English has otherwise been retained to give the past an authentic voice and to emphasize the similarities as well as the differences between the experience of modern readers and that of the inhabitants of late medieval England
Author: Carole Rawcliffe
Publisher: Alan Sutton Publishing
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280
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Book Description
From a social context and using contemporary sources, this text explains how the medical profession (physicians, surgeons and apothecaries) developed and functioned in late medieval England. Against a backdrop of high morality, widespread disease and persistent problems of public health, it considers what alternatives were available to the patient, from society doctors to wise women, quacks and hospitals for the sick poor. Medical theories and practices of the time are investigated, along with the often satirical and sometimes hostile attitudes of the man on the street.
Author: Meg Leja
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812298500
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 393
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Book Description
Embodying the Soul explores the possibilities and limitations of human intervention in the body's health across the ninth-century Carolingian Empire. Early medieval medicine has long been cast as a superstitious, degraded remnant of a vigorous, rational Greco-Roman tradition. Against such assumptions, Meg Leja argues that Carolingian scholars engaged in an active debate regarding the value of Hippocratic knowledge, a debate framed by the efforts to define Christian orthodoxy that were central to the reforms of Charlemagne and his successors. From a subject with pagan origins that had suspicious links with magic, medical knowledge gradually came to be classified as a sacred art. This development coincided with an intensifying belief that body and soul, the two components of individual identity, cultivated virtue not by waging combat against one another but by working together harmoniously. The book demonstrates that new discussions regarding the legitimacy of medical learning and the merits of good health encouraged a style of self-governance that left an enduring mark on medieval conceptions of individual responsibility. The chapters tackle questions about the soul's material occupation of the body, the spiritual meaning of illness, and the difficulty of diagnosing the ills of the internal bodily cavity. Combating the silence on "dark-age" medicine, Embodying the Soul uncovers new understandings of the physician, the popularity of preventative regimens, and the theological importance attached to dietary regulation and bloodletting. In presenting a cultural history of the body, the book considers a broad range of evidence: theological and pastoral treatises, monastic rules, court poetry, capitularies, hagiographies, biographies, and biblical exegesis. Most important, it offers a dynamic reinterpretation of the large numbers of medical manuscripts that survive from the ninth century but have rarely been the focus of historical study.
Author: Gary B. Ferngren
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421422905
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 293
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Book Description
Ancient Near East -- Greece -- Rome -- Early Christianity -- The Middle Ages -- Islam / by M.A. Mujeeb Khan -- The early modern period -- The nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries
Author: Christi Sumich
Publisher: Rodopi
ISBN: 9401209472
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 312
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Book Description
Divine Doctors and Dreadful Distempers examines the discourse of seventeenth-century English physicians to demonstrate that physicians utilized cultural attitudes and beliefs to create medical theory. They meshed moralism with medicine to self-fashion an image of themselves as knowledgeable health experts whose education assured good judgment and sage advice, and whose interest in the health of their patients surpassed the peddling of a single nostrum to everyone. The combination of morality with medicine gave them the support of the influential godly in society because physicians’ theories about disease and its prevention supported contemporary concerns that sinfulness was rampant. Particularly disturbing to the godly were sins deemed most threatening to the social order: lasciviousness, ungodliness, and unruliness, all of which were most clearly and threateningly manifested in the urban poor. Physicians’ medical theories and suggestions for curbing some of the most feared and destructive diseases in the seventeenth century, most notably plague and syphilis, focused on reforming or incarcerating the sick and sinful poor. Doing so helped propel physicians to an elevated position in the hierarchy of healers competing for patients in seventeenth-century England.
Author: Darrel W. Amundsen
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Medical ethics
Languages : en
Pages : 416
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Book Description
In Medicine, Society, and Faith in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds Darrel Amundsen explores the disputed boundaries of medicine and Christianity by focusing on the principle of the sanctity of human life, including the duty to treat or attempt to sustain the life of the ill. As he examines his themes and moves from text to context, Amundsen clarifies a number of Christian principles in relation to bioethical issues that are hotly debated today. In his examination of the moral stance of the earliest syphilographers, for example, he finds insights into the ethical issues surrounding the treatment of AIDS, which he believes has its closest historical antecedent not in plague but in syphilis. He also shows that the belief that all healing comes from God, whether directly, through prayer, or through the use of medicine -- a sentiment commonly held by contemporary Christians -- cannot be accurately attributed to any extant source from the patristic period. Indeed, all the Church Fathers were convinced that healing sometimes came from evil sources: Satan and his demons were able to heal, for example, and Asclepius was a demon "to be taken very seriously indeed."
Author: Barbara A. Kaminska
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004472428
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 284
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Book Description
Barbara Kaminska argues that visual imagery was central to premodern disability discourses and shows how interpretations of miracle stories served to justify expectations toward the impaired and the poor.
Author: James Joseph Walsh
Publisher: Books Explorer
ISBN:
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 502
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Book Description
The book "Old-Time Maker, Medicine" is a tremendous contribution to the history of pioneers, practice, and medical thought. James J. Walsh offers a comprehensive evaluation of exactly how medicine has evolved due to personal genius and the wider cultural, political, and intellectual current of the period. A more complete historical context specific to this work: Historical Context for "Old-Time Makers of Medicine" Ancient Foundations: Spiritual and religious views were strongly associated in ancient civilizations through medicine. Egyptians, Greeks, and the Mesopotamians combined divinity and health, assuming that diseases had been both natural functions in addition to divine punishments. The Greeks especially started emphasizing the significance of natural reasons for diseases. This marked a major advancement from blaming illnesses exclusively on the whims of god. Interplay of Civilizations: The Roman Empire had a huge expanse and absorbed and gathered medical knowledge from each one of the territories it conquered, including Greece. The outcome was a rich tapestry of practical yet profoundly Greek - rational medical thought. As Europe entered the Dark Ages post the fall of the Roman Empire, the torchbearers of medical and scientific knowledge had been the Islamic civilizations. They not only preserved Greek and Roman sources but also expanded on them, creating complete medical works. The Church and medieval Europe: Europe experienced upheavals and invasion throughout the early medieval period. The Church was a significant preserver of knowledge throughout turbulent times. The monasteries served as sites of repose and study for old texts. Universities appeared in Europe as stability resurfaced with time. The foundations for formal medical education were laid by these institutions while they routinely studied medicine. Renaissance - A Rebirth: Art, science, and thought experienced a rebirth throughout the Renaissance. A return to classical sources entails re - reading ancient Greek and Roman texts. This period also saw challenges to traditional thoughts. The universal acceptance of Galenic medicine was disputed and oftentimes denied, particularly with the growth of exact anatomical studies. Cultural and Intellectual Currents: Medicine wasn't restricted to managing ailments during these times. The society's wider intellectual currents were reflected in it. Each period had a taste which shaped medical thought, whether it had been the philosophical view of the Greeks, the pragmatic stance of the Romans, the scientific pursuits of the Islamic Golden Age or the humanistic tendencies of Renaissance.
