Medicine and Healing in the Premodern West: A History in Documents – Edited by Winston Black

Preface and Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chronology
Questions to Consider
PART 1: THE EARLIEST MEDICAL WRITINGS OF THE NEAR EAST AND MEDITERRANEAN (CA. 2000–700 BCE)
- 1. The Kahun Gynaecological Papyrus
- 2. Diagnosis in Ancient Egypt: The Ebers Papyrus
- 3. A Babylonian Spell against Fever
- 4. Plague as Divine Punishment in Homer’s Iliad
- 5. Gods as the Source of Disease: Hesiod, Works and Days
- 6. Violence and Healing in Homeric Greece
PART 2: MEDICINE AND HEALING AMONG THE ANCIENT GREEKS (CA. 500 BCE–200 CE)
- Rational Medicine in the Age of Hippocrates
- 7. Hippocratic Corpus, Nature of Man
- 8. Plato on the Nature of Disease: Timaeus
- 9. Thucydides and the Plague of Athens, 430 BCE
- 10. Hippocratic Corpus, Aphorisms
- 11. Hippocratic Corpus, Airs, Waters, Places
- 12. Case Histories from the Hippocratic Epidemics
- Asclepius, the God of Physicians
- 13. The Hippocratic Oath
- 14. Pindar: Apollo Leaves Asclepius with Chiron the Centaur
- 15. Celsus Celebrates Asclepius as a Man
- 16. Greek Anatomical Votive Plaque of a Leg
- 17. Aelius Aristides Dreams of Asclepius
- 18. An Egyptian God in Greco-Roman Dress: Imouthes as Asclepius
PART 3: PROFESSIONAL MEDICINE IN THE ROMAN MEDITERRANEAN (CA. 1–300 CE)
- 19. Galen, On the Medical Sects
- 20. Aretaeus the Cappadocian on the Difficult Case of Tetanus
- 21. Rufus of Ephesus, Medical Questions: Interrogation of the Patient
- 22. Celsus: A Healthy Regimen without Doctors
- 23. Dioscorides and the Science of Pharmacology
- 24. Galen, the Boastful Practitioner: On the Affected Places
- 25. Galen, On Black Bile: Praising and Rewriting Hippocrates
- 26. Herodian on a Plague in the Roman Empire
PART 4: PRACTICAL MEDICINE FOR THE ROMAN FAMILY AND HOME (CA. 1–500 CE)
- 27. Varro, De re rustica: An Early Germ Theory?
- 28. Vegetius, De re militari: Preserving the Health of Imperial Troops
- 29. The Legend of Agnodike, a Greek Midwife and Physician
- 30. Soranus of Ephesus: Instructions for Midwives
- 31. Cato the Elder’s Roman Remedies: Cabbage, Wine, and Magic
- 32. Pliny the Elder’s Homespun Medicine: Remedies Derived from Wool
- 33. Popular Medicine in Verse: The Liber medicinalis
PART 5: DISTILLING CLASSICAL MEDICINE IN LATE ANTIQUITY (CA. 300–700 CE)
- 34. Oribasius: A Galenic Diet in the Later Roman Empire
- 35. Anthimus to King Theodoric, On the Observance of Diet
- 36. An Early Medieval Primer in Ancient Medicine by St. Isidore of Seville
- 37. Medicine of Pliny for the Informed Traveler
- 38. The Herbarius of Apuleius Platonicus
- 39. Marcellus and His Empirical Handbook of Medicines
- 40. The Drug Theory of Paul of Aegina
PART 6: MEDICAL DIVERSITY IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES (CA. 600–1000 CE)
- Monotheism and Medicine 121
- 41. The Oath of Asaph, a Jewish Physician’s Oath
- 42. A Christianized Hippocratic Oath
- 43. Medicine and Diet in the Rule of St. Benedict
- 44. Roman Doctors as Christian Saints: Cosmas and Damian
- 45. Islamic Medicine of the Prophet: Sunan Abu Dawud
- Early Medieval Responses to Plague and Pestilence
- 46. Evagrius Scholasticus on the Plague of Justinian
- 47. Gregory of Tours on Epidemic Disease and the Sickness of Kings
- 48. A Votive Mass against Pestilence
- Old English Medicine: Superstition or Empiricism?
- 49. The Nine Herbs Charm, from the Old English Lacnunga
- 50. Bald’s Leechbook: Herbal Remedies for Eye Problems
- 51. Medical Prognostics in Anglo-Saxon England
PART 7: THE ARABIC TRADITION OF LEARNED MEDICINE (CA. 900–1400 CE)
- 52. Hunayn ibn Ishaq’s Introduction to Rational Medicine
- 53. Avicenna, The Canon of Medicine
- 54. Avicenna on Prognosis through Urine
- 55. Maimonides and Galen on the Meaning of the Pulse
- 56. Al-Rāzī, Case Studies in the Spirit of Hippocrates
- 57. Usamah ibn Munqidh: A Muslim View of Frankish Medicine
- 58. Al-Rāzī on Diagnosis and Treatment for Smallpox and Measles
- 59. Pilgrim Medicine: Qustā ibn Lūqā on “The Little Dragon of Medina”
- 60. Ancient Greeks in Later Medieval Prophetic Medicine: ‘Al-Tibb al-Nabawī
PART 8: LEARNED MEDICINE IN HIGH MEDIEVAL EUROPE (CA. 1000–1400 CE)
- Humors, Complexion, and Uroscopy
- 61. A Clever Duke and a Cleverer Physician in Tenth-Century Europe
- 62. Constantine the African, Pantegni: Understanding Complexion
- 63. Simplified Humoral Medicine in Verse: The Salernitan Regimen of Health
- 64. A Medieval Urine Wheel
- 65. Constantine the African with a Urine Glass
- Explaining Diseases
- 66. Diagnosing Lovesickness: Constantine the African’s Medicalized Emotions
- 67. Platearius on Leprosy in Theory and Practice
- 68. Guy de Chauliac’s Personal Experience with the Black Death
- Observation and Authority
- 69. Trota of Salerno as a Medical Master
- 70. Medical Education in High Medieval Europe (Three Accounts)
- 71. Licenses for Male and Female Surgeons in Medieval Naples
- 72. A Woman Physician on Trial in Medieval Paris, 1322
PART 9: MEDICAL PRACTICE IN THE HIGH MIDDLE AGES (CA. 1000–1400 CE)
- Herbalism and Pharmacology
- 73. Macer Floridus, On the Virtues of Herbs
- 74. Henry of Huntingdon, Herbalism in The English Garden
- 75. Matthaeus Platearius: Rationalizing Simple and Compound Medicines
- Arabic and Latin Surgery
- 76. Learned Surgery: Albucasis on the Treatment of Cataracts
- 77. Applying Medical Theory to Wound Treatment: Guy de Chauliac
- 78. Training and Decorum for the Learned Surgeon
- Medieval Obstetrics and Gynecology
- 79. Anatomy of the Uterus, Learned from a Pig
- 80. A Brief Medieval Guide to Uroscopy of Women
- 81. Contraceptives in the Canon of Avicenna
- 82. St. Hildegard of Bingen: A Moralized Explanation of Menstruation
- 83. Trotula: Treating Retention of the Period in Medieval Italy
- 84. A Medieval Hebrew Treatise on Difficult Births
PART 10: MEDICINE AND THE SUPERNATURAL: COMPETITORS OR PARTNERS? (CA. 1000–1400 CE)
- 85. A Doctor and a Saint in Early Salerno
- 86. The Life of St. Milburga: Physicians and Saints, Healing Together?
- 87. Doctors and Miracles in the Canonization of Lady Delphine
- 88. Medieval Jewish Magical Medicine
- 89. Medieval Christian Healing Charms
- 90. John Arderne, Astrological Instructions for the Surgeon
- 91. Astrological Bloodletting Man
Glossary and Index of Key Terms
Further Reading
Permissions Acknowledgements