Medicina nei Secoli: Journal of History of Medicine and Medical Humanities

Medieval Medicine in Medieval Society

Tommaso Duranti — 2024-05-16

This issue focuses on the history of medieval medicine in Western and Latin Europe, but the ensemble may appear lacking on several topics. In fact, none of the authors directly addresses diseases and therapies, nor do they, in some way, center their studies on the medical thinking produced by the great authorities of the past.

Medicine and Religiosity: Exchanges and Interactions

Chiara Crisciani — 2024-05-16

Il rapporto medicina/religione nel Medioevo si fonda sulla polarità degradazione/redenzione e sul legame tra anima e corpo: ciò offre l'occasione di stabilire un rapporto di analogia e correlazione tra salute (del corpo) e salvezza ( dell'anima) e di diverse forme di 'medicina spirituale', scandite anche cronologicamente nel lungo periodo del Medioevo latino. Questa “medicina spirituale”, che accompagna passo dopo passo lo sviluppo della medicina secolare, è quindi essenziale per comprendere il rapporto tra salute, malattia e medicina nel Medioevo cristiano.

Public Health in Preindustrial Europe: Urban and Rural Practices

Guy Geltner — 2024-05-16

Recent revisions to the medical history of western Europe between the twelfth and sixteenth century established that public health far predates Euro-American modernity and straddles the urban/rural divide and diverse occupational groups. Like numerous past societies, this civilization too monitored behaviors and manipulated environments in order to improve health outcomes by combining a culturally specific common sense with a prevalent natural-philosophical paradigm, in this case Galenism. The present review explains some of the preventative programs that urban and rural communities in Europe devised at the time, and their scientific and spiritual underpinnings. Beyond disputing these groups’ longstanding reputation for hygienic apathy and ignorance, the broadened historical perspective shows that practicing public health can mean different things in different contexts.

Healers: Lexicon, Functions and Roles of Medieval Medici

Tommaso Duranti — 2024-05-16

The article presents the latest historiographical guidelines, aimed at providing a comprehensive understanding of individuals involved in healthcare activities during the Middle Ages. If one approaches medieval care without adopting a modern professional standpoint, the picture is much broader, more complicated, and less rigid than commonly portrayed. The use of this non-teleological approach also allows overcoming some traditional divisions, such as those between sacred and profane, between the high and late Middle Ages, and between learned and empirical physicians. The therapeutic journey that a patient can undertake becomes enriched.

Healthcare and Medicine in Medieval Western Hospitals

Francesco Bianchi — 2024-05-16

Gli ospedali rappresentano un'innovazione risalente alla Tarda Antichità e la loro proliferazione nel mondo occidentale è strettamente legata ai progressi del cristianesimo e delle istituzioni ecclesiastiche. Fin dalla loro nascita, gli ospedali hanno fornito a diverse categorie di indigenti diverse forme di aiuto, che potevano includere cure mediche in linea con i precetti evangelici. Tuttavia, per gran parte del Medioevo, la maggior parte degli ospedali ha lottato per garantire i servizi dei medici su base permanente, anche se con alcune eccezioni. Verso la fine del Medioevo, però, i processi di medicalizzazione nell’ambito delle cure ospedaliere acquistarono maggiore intensità e prevalenza. Questa trasformazione è stata facilitata dalla maggiore disponibilità sia di risorse finanziarie che di personale medico competente, in particolare medici e chirurghi formati in contesti accademici.

The Western Medieval Medical Literature, its Books and Readership: a Complex Reality

Marilyn Nicoud — 2024-05-16

The aim of this article is to present the main characteristics of the development of medical literature in the Western world from the 12th century onwards, in relation to the intellectual context of its production and the social conditions of its reception and reading. By connecting the theoretical and practical dimensions of the discipline with the materiality of manuscript books, and the cultural context of the writings to the expectations of the medical readership, this article aims to highlight the great diversity of this literature. Written in universities, but increasingly in the court milieux and the urban world, these texts primarily aimed at students and colleagues to help them in learning and practice, but also at a wider public concerned about its health.

Vernacular Surgery in the Medieval and Early Modern Latin West: Works, Individuals, and Research Methodologies

Lluís Cifuentes i Comamala — 2024-05-16

One of the most surprising aspects of the history of surgery in the medieval and early modern periods is the intense use of vernacular languages in the dissemination of treatises on the subject, via translations, and even in the writing of originals. This vernacularization of surgery began in the thirteenth century and is closely associated with the creation of a new medical system in the Latin West and with the birth of a rational “new surgery”, linked to Galenism, to school education, and to the transmission of knowledge in books. This article presents a summary of this interrelationship and the role played by the vernacularization of surgery in the success of these processes, and it upholds the need for an interdisciplinary research methodology in order to gain an overall understanding of it.

Miracle Tales as Privileged Sources for a Historical Investigation of the Diseases in the Middle Age: Canonization Processes and Libri miraculorum

Alessandra Foscati — 2024-05-16

In the varied spectrum of healers to whom the sick people could turn to in Middle Ages, including physicians, surgeons and different kind of empirical practitioners, the saint was often the first to whom they would refer. Miracle tales, therefore, represent an essential source for a historical investigation into diseases and sick people. Without claiming to be exhaustive, this article aims to briefly outline this topic through several examples taken from miracles accounts in some canonization processes and Libri miraculorum, compiled between the thirteenth and the fifteenth centuries. It will be highlighted how these sources, when properly interpretated, are of fundamental importance for understanding the relationship between the sick and his/her community of reference, as well as the work of some empirical healers who approached the sick person’s bedside. Furthermore, these sources are unique lexicographical treasures related to the vocabulary of disease – an aspect still largely overlooked.

"A Closeness to God, to Nature, and to Community” : Medical Medievalism in Contemporary Society

Francesca Roversi Monaco — 2024-05-16

Ormai da diversi decenni, le pratiche mediche definite tradizionali o naturali sono sempre più diffuse nella società occidentale. Queste pratiche sono spesso percepite, definite e connotate come medievali, indipendentemente dalle loro caratteristiche e storicità. L'attribuzione della medicina tradizionale a un generico periodo medievale riflette uno dei fenomeni culturali contemporanei più rilevanti: la pervasività di immagini, narrazioni e riferimenti al Medioevo nella cultura popolare. Questo Medioevo non è però il periodo storico interpretato attraverso le fonti; è un tempo sognato, immaginato, metastorico, rappresentato secondo il duplice modello del Medioevo e del Medioevo “buono” della fantasia, della fiaba, della natura non ancora soggetta alla modernità e alla tecnoscienza. Il Medioevo immaginato è il campo di studio di un'area disciplinare specifica, il medievalismo. Il presente contributo si propone di individuare le rappresentazioni della medicina medievale che questo mondo medievale rimodellato e immaginato produce e diffonde nella società.