Old-time Makers of Medicine: The Story of the Students and Teachers of the Sciences Related to Medicine During the Middle Ages

Couverture
Fordham University Press, 1911 - 446 pages

The book "Old-Time Maker, Medicine" is a tremendous contribution to the history of pioneers, practice, and medical thought. James J. Walsh offers a comprehensive evaluation of exactly how medicine has evolved due to personal genius and the wider cultural, political, and intellectual current of the period. A more complete historical context specific to this work:


Historical Context for "Old-Time Makers of Medicine"


Ancient Foundations:


Spiritual and religious views were strongly associated in ancient civilizations through medicine. Egyptians, Greeks, and the Mesopotamians combined divinity and health, assuming that diseases had been both natural functions in addition to divine punishments.

The Greeks especially started emphasizing the significance of natural reasons for diseases. This marked a major advancement from blaming illnesses exclusively on the whims of god.

Interplay of Civilizations:


The Roman Empire had a huge expanse and absorbed and gathered medical knowledge from each one of the territories it conquered, including Greece. The outcome was a rich tapestry of practical yet profoundly Greek - rational medical thought.

As Europe entered the Dark Ages post the fall of the Roman Empire, the torchbearers of medical and scientific knowledge had been the Islamic civilizations. They not only preserved Greek and Roman sources but also expanded on them, creating complete medical works.

The Church and medieval Europe:


Europe experienced upheavals and invasion throughout the early medieval period. The Church was a significant preserver of knowledge throughout turbulent times. The monasteries served as sites of repose and study for old texts.

Universities appeared in Europe as stability resurfaced with time. The foundations for formal medical education were laid by these institutions while they routinely studied medicine.

Renaissance - A Rebirth:


Art, science, and thought experienced a rebirth throughout the Renaissance. A return to classical sources entails re - reading ancient Greek and Roman texts.

This period also saw challenges to traditional thoughts. The universal acceptance of Galenic medicine was disputed and oftentimes denied, particularly with the growth of exact anatomical studies.

Cultural and Intellectual Currents:


Medicine wasn't restricted to managing ailments during these times. The society's wider intellectual currents were reflected in it. Each period had a taste which shaped medical thought, whether it had been the philosophical view of the Greeks, the pragmatic stance of the Romans, the scientific pursuits of the Islamic Golden Age or the humanistic tendencies of Renaissance.


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Page 237 - For it * is not necessary, as Roger and Roland have written, as many of their disciples teach, and as all modern surgeons profess, that pus should be generated in wounds. No error can be greater than this. Such a practice is indeed to hinder nature, to prolong the disease, and to prevent the conglutination and consolidation of the wound
Page 417 - darken and hide themselves in privy and secret places. The medicine of them is, that they be bound, that they hurt not themselves and other men. And namely, such shall be refreshed, and comforted, and withdrawn from cause and matter of dread and busy thoughts. And they must be gladded with instruments of music, and some deal be occupied.
Page 397 - Art can construct instruments of navigation, such that the largest vessels governed by a single man will traverse rivers and seas more rapidly than if they were filled with oarsmen. One may also make carriages which without the aid of any animal will run with remarkable swiftness.
Page 385 - All that is here set down is the result of our own experience, or has been borrowed from authors whom we know to have written what their personal experience has confirmed; for in these matters experience alone can be of certainty." In his impressive Latin phrase
Page 132 - I doubt if the curriculum of any modern university shows so clear and generous a comprehension of what is meant by culture as this old trivium and quadrivium does.
Page 395 - is a species of physical geography. I have found in it considerations on the dependence of temperature concurrently on latitude and elevation and on the effect of different angles of the sun's rays in heating the ground which have excited my surprise.
Page 286 - Professor of Physic at the University of Cambridge, says of Chauliac's treatise: " This great work I have studied carefully and not without prejudice; yet I cannot wonder that Fallopius compared the author to Hippocrates or that John Freind calls him the Prince of Surgeons. It is rich, aphoristic, orderly, and precise.
Page 391 - Bacon starts out with the principle that there are four grounds of human ignorance. These are, " first, trust in inadequate authority; second, that force of custom which leads men to accept without properly questioning what has been accepted before their time; third, the placing of confidence in the assertions of the inexperienced ; and fourth, the hiding of
Page 386 - not care for the discourses of men and their wordy warfare, but quietly and diligently pursues the works of wisdom. Therefore what others grope after blindly, as bats in the evening twilight, this man contemplates in their brilliancy because he
Page 279 - It was, moreover, in great contrast to the cheerless white wards of to-day. The vaulted ceiling was very beautiful; the woodwork was richly carved, and the great windows over the altars were filled with colored glass. Altogether it was one of the best examples of the best period of Gothic Architecture.

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