Ole Peter Grell

Andrew Cunningham

Jon Arrizabalaga

This is the first volume to take a broad historical sweep of the close relation between medicines and poisons in the Western tradition, and their interconnectedness. They are like two ends of a spectrum, for the same natural material can be medicine or poison, depending on the dose, and poisons can be transformed into medicines, while medicines can turn out to be poisons. The book looks at important moments in the history of the relationship between poisons and medicines in European history, from Roman times, with the Greek physician Galen, through the Renaissance and the maverick physician Paracelsus, to the present, when poisons are actively being turned into beneficial medicines.

Poisons and Medicines in European History

It All Depends on the Dose

Luis García Ballester

Montserrat Cabré

Lluís Cifuentes

A study of Galenism, a rational medical system embracing all health- and disease-related matters, and the dominant medical doctrine in the Latin West during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. It deals with a range of issues regarding the historical Galen and late-mediaeval and Renaissance Galenism

Theory and Medical Practice from Antiquity to the European Renaissance

Galen and Galenism

The role of religion was of paramount importance in the change of attitudes and approaches to health care and charity which took place in the centuries following the Council of Trent. Health Care and Poor Relief in Counter-Reformation Europe, examines the effects of the Counter-Reformation on health care and poor relief in Southern Catholic Europe in the period between 1540 and 1700. As well as a comprehensive introduction discussing issues of the nature of the Catholic or Counter-Reformation and the welfare provisions of the period, Health Care and Poor Relief sets the period in its social, economic, religious and ideological context. The book draws on the practices in different localities in Southern Europe, ranging from the Republic of Venice and the Kingdom of Naples to Germany and Austria. These examples establish how and why a revitalised and strenghtened post-Tridentine Catholic church managed to reshape and reinvigorate welfare provisions in Southern Europe.

Health Care and Poor Relief in Counter-Reformation Europe

Dr. Andrew Cunningham

Students notoriously vote with their feet, seeking out the best and most innovative teachers of their subject. The most ambitious students have been travelling long distances for their education since universities were first founded in the thirteenth century, making their own educational pilgrimage or peregrinatio. This volume deals with the peregrinatio medica from the viewpoint of the travelling students: who went where; how did they travel; what did they find when they arrived; what did they take back with them from their studies. Even a single individual could transform medical studies or practice back home on the periphery by trying to reform teaching and practice the way they had seen it at the best universities. Other contributions look at the universities themselves and how they were actively developed to attract students, and at some of the most successful teachers, such as Boerhaave at Leiden or the Monros at Edinburgh. The essays show how increasing levels of wealth allowed more and more students to make their pilgrimages, travelling for weeks at a time to sit at the feet of a particular master. In medicine this meant that, over the period c.1500 to 1789, a succession of universities became the medical school of choice for ambitious students: Padua and Bologna in the 1500s, Paris, Leiden and Montpellier in the 1600s, and Leiden, Gottingen and Edinburgh in the 1700s. The arrival of foreign students brought wealth to the university towns and this significant economic benefit meant that the governors of these universities tried to ensure the defence of freedom of religion and freedom of speech, thus providing the best conditions for the promotion of new views and innovation in medicine. The collection presents a new take on the history of medical education, as well as universities, travel and education more widely in ancien regime Europe.

Medical Travel and Education in Europe, 1500-1789

Centres of Medical Excellence?

Roger French

Luis Garcia-Ballester

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 new 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, and among other issues they explore how far this new learned medicine percolated through to to the popular level; 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 practioners one to another. 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. This collection forms a companion volume to The Medical Renaissance of the Sixteenth Century (1985, edited by Andrew Wear, Roger French and I. M. Lonie), The Medical Revolution of the Seventeenth Century (1989, edited by Roger French and Andrew Wear), The Medical Enlightenment of the Eighteenth Century (1990, edited by Andrew cunningham and Roger French), and The Laboratory Revolution in Medicine (1992, edited by Andrew Cunningham and Perry Williams).

Practical Medicine from Salerno to the Black Death

Published in 1998, covering the period from the triumphant economic revival of Europe after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, this book offers an examination of the state of contemporary medicine and the subsequent transplantation of European medicine worldwide.

Jon Arrizabalaga

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