Author: Luke Demaitre
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801886133
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 356
Book Description
While premodern poets and preachers viewed leprosy as a “disease of the soul,” physicians in the period understood it to be a “cancer of the whole body.” In this innovative study, medical historian Luke Demaitre explores medical and social perspectives on leprosy at a time when judicious diagnosis could spare healthy people from social ostracization and help the afflicted get a license to beg. Extending his inquiry from the first century to late in the eighteenth century, Demaitre draws on translations of academic treatises and archival records to illuminate the professional standing, knowledge, and conduct of the practitioners who struggled to move popular perceptions of leprosy beyond loathing and pity. He finds that, while not immune to social and cultural perceptions of the leprous as degenerate, and while influenced by their own fears of contagion, premodern physicians moderated society's reactions to leprosy and were dedicated to the well-being of their patients.
Leprosy in Premodern Medicine
Author: Luke Demaitre
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801886133
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 356
Book Description
While premodern poets and preachers viewed leprosy as a “disease of the soul,” physicians in the period understood it to be a “cancer of the whole body.” In this innovative study, medical historian Luke Demaitre explores medical and social perspectives on leprosy at a time when judicious diagnosis could spare healthy people from social ostracization and help the afflicted get a license to beg. Extending his inquiry from the first century to late in the eighteenth century, Demaitre draws on translations of academic treatises and archival records to illuminate the professional standing, knowledge, and conduct of the practitioners who struggled to move popular perceptions of leprosy beyond loathing and pity. He finds that, while not immune to social and cultural perceptions of the leprous as degenerate, and while influenced by their own fears of contagion, premodern physicians moderated society's reactions to leprosy and were dedicated to the well-being of their patients.
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801886133
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 356
Book Description
While premodern poets and preachers viewed leprosy as a “disease of the soul,” physicians in the period understood it to be a “cancer of the whole body.” In this innovative study, medical historian Luke Demaitre explores medical and social perspectives on leprosy at a time when judicious diagnosis could spare healthy people from social ostracization and help the afflicted get a license to beg. Extending his inquiry from the first century to late in the eighteenth century, Demaitre draws on translations of academic treatises and archival records to illuminate the professional standing, knowledge, and conduct of the practitioners who struggled to move popular perceptions of leprosy beyond loathing and pity. He finds that, while not immune to social and cultural perceptions of the leprous as degenerate, and while influenced by their own fears of contagion, premodern physicians moderated society's reactions to leprosy and were dedicated to the well-being of their patients.
Leprosy in Premodern Medicine
Author: Luke Demaitre
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 0801891973
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 356
Book Description
While premodern poets and preachers viewed leprosy as a “disease of the soul,” physicians in the period understood it to be a “cancer of the whole body.” In this innovative study, medical historian Luke Demaitre explores medical and social perspectives on leprosy at a time when judicious diagnosis could spare healthy people from social ostracization and help the afflicted get a license to beg. Extending his inquiry from the first century to late in the eighteenth century, Demaitre draws on translations of academic treatises and archival records to illuminate the professional standing, knowledge, and conduct of the practitioners who struggled to move popular perceptions of leprosy beyond loathing and pity. He finds that, while not immune to social and cultural perceptions of the leprous as degenerate, and while influenced by their own fears of contagion, premodern physicians moderated society's reactions to leprosy and were dedicated to the well-being of their patients.
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 0801891973
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 356
Book Description
While premodern poets and preachers viewed leprosy as a “disease of the soul,” physicians in the period understood it to be a “cancer of the whole body.” In this innovative study, medical historian Luke Demaitre explores medical and social perspectives on leprosy at a time when judicious diagnosis could spare healthy people from social ostracization and help the afflicted get a license to beg. Extending his inquiry from the first century to late in the eighteenth century, Demaitre draws on translations of academic treatises and archival records to illuminate the professional standing, knowledge, and conduct of the practitioners who struggled to move popular perceptions of leprosy beyond loathing and pity. He finds that, while not immune to social and cultural perceptions of the leprous as degenerate, and while influenced by their own fears of contagion, premodern physicians moderated society's reactions to leprosy and were dedicated to the well-being of their patients.
Kingdom of the Sick
Author: Susan L. Burns
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824879481
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 345
Book Description
In this groundbreaking work, Susan L. Burns examines the history of leprosy in Japan from medieval times until the present. At the center of Kingdom of the Sick is the rise of Japan’s system of national leprosy sanitaria, which today continue to house more than 1,500 former patients, many of whom have spent five or more decades within them. Burns argues that long before the modern Japanese government began to define a policy toward leprosy, the disease was already profoundly marked by ethical and political concerns and associated with sin, pollution, heredity, and outcast status. Beginning in the 1870s, new anxieties about race and civilization that emanated from a variety of civic actors, including journalists, doctors, patent medicine producers, and Christian missionaries transformed leprosy into a national issue. After 1900, a clamor of voices called for the quarantine of all sufferers of the disease, and in the decades that followed bureaucrats, politicians, physicians, journalists, local communities, and leprosy sufferers themselves grappled with the place of the biologically vulnerable within the body politic. At stake in this “citizenship project” were still evolving conceptions of individual rights, government responsibility for social welfare, and the delicate balance between care and control. Refusing to treat leprosy patients as simply victims of state power, Burns recovers their voices in the debates that surrounded the most controversial aspects of sanitarium policy, including the use of sterilization, segregation, and the continuation of confinement long after leprosy had become a curable disease. Richly documented with both visual and textual sources and interweaving medical, political, social, and cultural history, Kingdom of the Sick tells an important story for readers interested in Japan, the history of medicine and public health, social welfare, gender and sexuality, and human rights.
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824879481
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 345
Book Description
In this groundbreaking work, Susan L. Burns examines the history of leprosy in Japan from medieval times until the present. At the center of Kingdom of the Sick is the rise of Japan’s system of national leprosy sanitaria, which today continue to house more than 1,500 former patients, many of whom have spent five or more decades within them. Burns argues that long before the modern Japanese government began to define a policy toward leprosy, the disease was already profoundly marked by ethical and political concerns and associated with sin, pollution, heredity, and outcast status. Beginning in the 1870s, new anxieties about race and civilization that emanated from a variety of civic actors, including journalists, doctors, patent medicine producers, and Christian missionaries transformed leprosy into a national issue. After 1900, a clamor of voices called for the quarantine of all sufferers of the disease, and in the decades that followed bureaucrats, politicians, physicians, journalists, local communities, and leprosy sufferers themselves grappled with the place of the biologically vulnerable within the body politic. At stake in this “citizenship project” were still evolving conceptions of individual rights, government responsibility for social welfare, and the delicate balance between care and control. Refusing to treat leprosy patients as simply victims of state power, Burns recovers their voices in the debates that surrounded the most controversial aspects of sanitarium policy, including the use of sterilization, segregation, and the continuation of confinement long after leprosy had become a curable disease. Richly documented with both visual and textual sources and interweaving medical, political, social, and cultural history, Kingdom of the Sick tells an important story for readers interested in Japan, the history of medicine and public health, social welfare, gender and sexuality, and human rights.
Leprosy in Medieval England
Author: Carole Rawcliffe
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781843834540
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
A major reassessment, based on hitherto unpublished manuscript material, of a disease whose history has attracted more myths and misunderstandings than any other.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781843834540
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
A major reassessment, based on hitherto unpublished manuscript material, of a disease whose history has attracted more myths and misunderstandings than any other.
Medieval Medicine
Author: Luke DeMaitre
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313038422
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 367
Book Description
This unique examination of medieval medicine as detailed in physician's manuals of the period reveals a more sophisticated approach to the medical arts than expected for the time. Far from the primitive and barbaric practices the Middle Ages may conjure up in our minds, doctors during that time combined knowledge, tradition, innovation, and intuition to create a humane, holistic approach to understanding and treating every known disease. In fact, a singularly authoritative medical source of the period, Lily of Medicine, continued to provide crucial study for students and practitioners of medicine almost four centuries after its completion in 1305. This unprecedented book investigates the extensive capabilities of physicians who relied on practice, observation, and imagination before the supremacy of mechanistic views and technological aids. Medieval Medicine: The Art of Healing, from Head to Toe is a comprehensive look at diseases as they were described, classified, explained, assessed, and treated by doctors of the age. The author methodically compares a dozen encyclopedic manuals in which both the fundamental understanding of healthy functions and the specific response to diseases were summarized, viewing the information through a medieval perspective rather than based upon modern criteria.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313038422
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 367
Book Description
This unique examination of medieval medicine as detailed in physician's manuals of the period reveals a more sophisticated approach to the medical arts than expected for the time. Far from the primitive and barbaric practices the Middle Ages may conjure up in our minds, doctors during that time combined knowledge, tradition, innovation, and intuition to create a humane, holistic approach to understanding and treating every known disease. In fact, a singularly authoritative medical source of the period, Lily of Medicine, continued to provide crucial study for students and practitioners of medicine almost four centuries after its completion in 1305. This unprecedented book investigates the extensive capabilities of physicians who relied on practice, observation, and imagination before the supremacy of mechanistic views and technological aids. Medieval Medicine: The Art of Healing, from Head to Toe is a comprehensive look at diseases as they were described, classified, explained, assessed, and treated by doctors of the age. The author methodically compares a dozen encyclopedic manuals in which both the fundamental understanding of healthy functions and the specific response to diseases were summarized, viewing the information through a medieval perspective rather than based upon modern criteria.
Medicine and Healing in the Premodern West: A History in Documents
Author: Winston Black
Publisher: Broadview Press
ISBN: 1460406753
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 290
Book Description
Medicine and Healing in the Premodern West traces the history of medicine and medical practice from Ancient Egypt through to the end of the Middle Ages. Featuring nearly one hundred primary documents and images, this book introduces readers to the words and ideas of men and women from across Europe and the Mediterranean Sea, from prominent physicians to humble healers. Each of the book’s ten chronological and thematic chapters is given a significant historical introduction, in which each primary source is described in its original context. Many of the included source texts are newly translated by the editor, some of them appearing in English for the first time.
Publisher: Broadview Press
ISBN: 1460406753
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 290
Book Description
Medicine and Healing in the Premodern West traces the history of medicine and medical practice from Ancient Egypt through to the end of the Middle Ages. Featuring nearly one hundred primary documents and images, this book introduces readers to the words and ideas of men and women from across Europe and the Mediterranean Sea, from prominent physicians to humble healers. Each of the book’s ten chronological and thematic chapters is given a significant historical introduction, in which each primary source is described in its original context. Many of the included source texts are newly translated by the editor, some of them appearing in English for the first time.
Buddhism and Medicine
Author: C. Pierce Salguero
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 023154426X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 541
Book Description
From its earliest days, Buddhism has been closely intertwined with medicine. Buddhism and Medicine is a singular collection showcasing the generative relationship and mutual influence between these fields across premodern Asia. The anthology combines dozens of English-language translations of premodern Buddhist texts with contextualizing introductions by leading international scholars in Buddhist studies, the history of medicine, and a range of other fields. These sources explore in detail medical topics ranging from the development of fetal anatomy in the womb to nursing, hospice, dietary regimen, magical powers, visualization, and other healing knowledge. Works translated here include meditation guides, popular narratives, ritual manuals, spells texts, monastic disciplinary codes, recipe inscriptions, philosophical treatises, poetry, works by physicians, and other genres. All together, these selections and their introductions provide a comprehensive overview of Buddhist healing throughout Asia. They also demonstrate the central place of healing in Buddhist practice and in the daily life of the premodern world. This anthology is a companion volume to Buddhism and Medicine: An Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Sources (Columbia, 2019).
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 023154426X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 541
Book Description
From its earliest days, Buddhism has been closely intertwined with medicine. Buddhism and Medicine is a singular collection showcasing the generative relationship and mutual influence between these fields across premodern Asia. The anthology combines dozens of English-language translations of premodern Buddhist texts with contextualizing introductions by leading international scholars in Buddhist studies, the history of medicine, and a range of other fields. These sources explore in detail medical topics ranging from the development of fetal anatomy in the womb to nursing, hospice, dietary regimen, magical powers, visualization, and other healing knowledge. Works translated here include meditation guides, popular narratives, ritual manuals, spells texts, monastic disciplinary codes, recipe inscriptions, philosophical treatises, poetry, works by physicians, and other genres. All together, these selections and their introductions provide a comprehensive overview of Buddhist healing throughout Asia. They also demonstrate the central place of healing in Buddhist practice and in the daily life of the premodern world. This anthology is a companion volume to Buddhism and Medicine: An Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Sources (Columbia, 2019).
Infectious Ideas
Author: Justin K. Stearns
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421401053
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 303
Book Description
Infectious Ideas is a comparative analysis of how Muslim and Christian scholars explained the transmission of disease in the premodern Mediterranean world. How did religious communities respond to and make sense of epidemic disease? To answer this, historian Justin K. Stearns looks at how Muslim and Christian communities conceived of contagion, focusing especially on the Iberian Peninsula in the aftermath of the Black Death. What Stearns discovers calls into question recent scholarship on Muslim and Christian reactions to the plague and leprosy. Stearns shows that rather than universally reject the concept of contagion, as most scholars have affirmed, Muslim scholars engaged in creative and rational attempts to understand it. He explores how Christian scholars used the metaphor of contagion to define proper and safe interactions with heretics, Jews, and Muslims, and how contagion itself denoted phenomena as distinct as the evil eye and the effects of corrupted air. Stearns argues that at the heart of the work of both Muslims and Christians, although their approaches differed, was a desire to protect the physical and spiritual health of their respective communities. Based on Stearns's analysis of Muslim and Christian legal, theological, historical, and medical texts in Arabic, Medieval Castilian, and Latin, Infectious Ideas is the first book to offer a comparative discussion of concepts of contagion in the premodern Mediterranean world.
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421401053
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 303
Book Description
Infectious Ideas is a comparative analysis of how Muslim and Christian scholars explained the transmission of disease in the premodern Mediterranean world. How did religious communities respond to and make sense of epidemic disease? To answer this, historian Justin K. Stearns looks at how Muslim and Christian communities conceived of contagion, focusing especially on the Iberian Peninsula in the aftermath of the Black Death. What Stearns discovers calls into question recent scholarship on Muslim and Christian reactions to the plague and leprosy. Stearns shows that rather than universally reject the concept of contagion, as most scholars have affirmed, Muslim scholars engaged in creative and rational attempts to understand it. He explores how Christian scholars used the metaphor of contagion to define proper and safe interactions with heretics, Jews, and Muslims, and how contagion itself denoted phenomena as distinct as the evil eye and the effects of corrupted air. Stearns argues that at the heart of the work of both Muslims and Christians, although their approaches differed, was a desire to protect the physical and spiritual health of their respective communities. Based on Stearns's analysis of Muslim and Christian legal, theological, historical, and medical texts in Arabic, Medieval Castilian, and Latin, Infectious Ideas is the first book to offer a comparative discussion of concepts of contagion in the premodern Mediterranean world.
Contagion
Author: Lawrence I. Conrad
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351949241
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 201
Book Description
Contagion - even today the word conjures up fear of disease and plague and has the power to terrify. The nine essays gathered here examine what pre-modern societies thought about the spread of disease and how it could be controlled: to what extent were concepts familiar to modern epidemiology present? What does the pre-modern terminology tell us about the conceptions of those times? How did medical thought relate to religious and social beliefs? The contributors reveal the complexity of ideas on these subjects, from antiquity through to the early modern world, from China to India, the Middle East, and Europe. Particular topics include attitudes to leprosy in the Old Testament and the medieval West, conceptions of smallpox etiology in China, witchcraft and sorcery as disease agents in ancient India, and the influence of classical Greek medical theory. An important conclusion is that non-medical perceptions are as crucial as medical ones in people’s beliefs about disease and the ways in which it can be combatted. Today we may not believe in the power of demons, but the idea that illness is retribution for sin retains great power, as was shown by the popular reaction to the spread of AIDS/HIV, and this is a lesson from the past that the medical profession would do well to heed.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351949241
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 201
Book Description
Contagion - even today the word conjures up fear of disease and plague and has the power to terrify. The nine essays gathered here examine what pre-modern societies thought about the spread of disease and how it could be controlled: to what extent were concepts familiar to modern epidemiology present? What does the pre-modern terminology tell us about the conceptions of those times? How did medical thought relate to religious and social beliefs? The contributors reveal the complexity of ideas on these subjects, from antiquity through to the early modern world, from China to India, the Middle East, and Europe. Particular topics include attitudes to leprosy in the Old Testament and the medieval West, conceptions of smallpox etiology in China, witchcraft and sorcery as disease agents in ancient India, and the influence of classical Greek medical theory. An important conclusion is that non-medical perceptions are as crucial as medical ones in people’s beliefs about disease and the ways in which it can be combatted. Today we may not believe in the power of demons, but the idea that illness is retribution for sin retains great power, as was shown by the popular reaction to the spread of AIDS/HIV, and this is a lesson from the past that the medical profession would do well to heed.
Leprosy and identity in the Middle Ages
Author: Elma Brenner
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 152612744X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 496
Book Description
For the first time, this volume explores the identities of leprosy sufferers and other people affected by the disease in medieval Europe. The chapters, including contributions by leading voices such as Luke Demaitre, Carole Rawcliffe and Charlotte Roberts, challenge the view that people with leprosy were uniformly excluded and stigmatised. Instead, they reveal the complexity of responses to this disease and the fine line between segregation and integration. Ranging across disciplines, from history to bioarchaeology, Leprosy and identity in the Middle Ages encompasses post-medieval perspectives as well as the attitudes and responses of contemporaries. Subjects include hospital care, diet, sanctity, miraculous healing, diagnosis, iconography and public health regulation. This richly illustrated collection presents previously unpublished archival and material sources from England to the Mediterranean.
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 152612744X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 496
Book Description
For the first time, this volume explores the identities of leprosy sufferers and other people affected by the disease in medieval Europe. The chapters, including contributions by leading voices such as Luke Demaitre, Carole Rawcliffe and Charlotte Roberts, challenge the view that people with leprosy were uniformly excluded and stigmatised. Instead, they reveal the complexity of responses to this disease and the fine line between segregation and integration. Ranging across disciplines, from history to bioarchaeology, Leprosy and identity in the Middle Ages encompasses post-medieval perspectives as well as the attitudes and responses of contemporaries. Subjects include hospital care, diet, sanctity, miraculous healing, diagnosis, iconography and public health regulation. This richly illustrated collection presents previously unpublished archival and material sources from England to the Mediterranean.