Practical Medicine from Salerno to the Black Death

by Edited by Luis Garcia-Ballester , Roger French , Jon Arrizabalaga , Andrew Cunningham

• ISBN13: 9780521158671
• ISBN10: 0521158672
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-11-25
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

From the eleventh century to the Black Death in 1348 Europe was economically vigorous and expanding, especially in Mediterranean societies. In this world of growing wealth educational institutions were founded, the universities, and it was in these that a new form of medicine came to be taught and which widely influenced medical care throughout Europe. The essays in this collection focus on the practical aspects of medieval medicine. They explore how the learned medical men understood and coped with plague; the theory and practice of medical astrology, and of bleeding (phlebotomy) for the cure and prevention of illness. Several essays deal with the development and interrelations of the nascent medical profession and of Christian, Muslim and Jewish practitioners. Special emphasis is given to the practice of surgery, and the problems of recovering knowledge of a large proportion of medical care - that given by women - are also explored.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations and tables	p. ix
List of contributors and editors	p. xi
Acknowledgements	p. xii
Note on names	p. xiii
Introduction: Practical medicine from Salerno to the Black Death	p. 1
Astrology in medical practice	p. 30
The science and practice of medicine in the thirteenth century according to Guglielmo da Saliceto, Italian surgeon	p. 60
How to write a Latin book on surgery: organizing principles and authorial devices in Guglielmo da Saliceto and Dino del Garbo	p. 88
Derivation and revulsion: the theory and practice of medieval phlebotomy	p. 110
Surgical texts and social contexts: physicians and surgeons in Paris, c. 1270 to 1430	p. 156
Medical practice in Paris in the first half of the fourteenth century	p. 186
Royal surgeons and the value of medical learning: the Crown of Aragon, 1300-1350	p. 211
Facing the Black Death: perceptions and reactions of university medical practitioners	p. 237
John of Arderne and the Mediterranean tradition of scholastic surgery	p. 289
Documenting medieval women's medical practice	p. 322
A marginal learned medical world: Jewish, Muslim and Christian medical practitioners, and the use of Arabic medical sources in late medieval Spain	p. 353
Index	p. 395
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