Full Description
Herbs and Healers from the Ancient Mediterranean through the Medieval West brings together eleven papers by leading scholars in ancient and medieval medicine and pharmacy. Fittingly, the volume honors Professor John M. Riddle, one of today's most respected medieval historians, whose career has been devoted to decoding the complexities of early medicine and pharmacy. "Herbs" in the title generally connotes drugs in ancient and medieval times; the essays here discuss interesting aspects of the challenges scholars face as they translate and interpret texts in several older languages. Some of the healers in the volume are named, such as Philotas of Amphissa, Gariopontus, and Constantine the African; many are anonymous and known only from their treatises on drugs and/or medicine. The volume's scope demonstrates the breadth of current research being undertaken in the field, examining both practical medical arts and medical theory from the ancient world into early modern times. It also includes a paper about a cutting-edge Internet-based system for ongoing academic collaboration. The essays in this volume reveal insightful research approaches and highlight new discoveries that will be of interest to the international academic community of classicists, medievalists, and early-modernists because of the scarcity of publications objectively evaluating long-lived traditions that have their origin in the world of the ancient Mediterranean.
Contents
List of Figures, List of Tables and Boxes, List of Contributors, Introduction, 1. Pharmacology and Toxicology at the Court of Cleopatra VII: Traces of Three Physicians, 2. Quid pro Quo: Revisiting the Practice of Substitution in Ancient Pharmacy, 3. Speaking in Tongues: Medical Wisdom and Glossing Practices in and around Salerno, c. 1040-1200, 4. The Ghost in the Articella: A Twelfth-century Commentary on the Constantinian Liber Graduum, 5. "I will add what the Arab once taught": Constantine the African in Northern European Medical Verse, 6. A Problematic Plant Name: elehtre. A Reconsideration, 7. Herbs and Herbal Healing Satirized in Middle English Texts, 8. "Kurze versuochte dinge." Ein mährisch-schlesisches wundärztliches Rezeptar des 15. Jahrhunderts, 9. Saint John's Wort (Hypericum perforatum L.) in the Age of Paracelsus and the Great Herbals: Assessing the Historical Claims for a Traditional Remedy, 10. Revisiting Eve's Herbs: Reflections on Therapeutic Uncertainties, 11. Modding Medievalists: Designing a Web-based Portal for the Medieval Plant Survey/Portal der Pflanzen des Mittelalters (MPS/PPM), The Publications of John M. Riddle, 1964-2010, Index of Manuscripts, General Index
