The aim of this study is to present epilepsy according to the most famous and representative Byzantine physicians throughout the whole period of the Byzantine empire. Mainly Byzantine medical texts were used as sources. The Byzantine physicians considered epilepsy to be a serious medical problem and followed the Hippocratic tradition as far as the etiology of this disease is concerned. Their pathophysiological theories of epilepsy identified the brain as the site of the problem, but, based on the Hippocratic humoral theory, emphasized causes such as an excess of humors or insufficient circulation of phlegm in the brain. It is surprising to note the accuracy of the details they provide regarding the clinical description of the disease, especially the seizures; many of these are still accepted today. It is also surprising that there was a concurrent opinion during all this medieval period that epilepsy was strictly an organic disease of the brain and the demonic origin of it a prejudice of uneducated people.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/096470490889385 | DOI Listing |
Med Leg J
June 2024
Department of Public Health and Infectious Diseases, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy.
The authors examine the evolution of the role of resident doctors on cruise ships dating back to the Roman and Byzantine empires, then in the Middle ages. In the past surgery was rarely performed by doctors, but by barber-surgeons, who, with their razor skills, did everything from haircuts to amputations. More recently, as in the last century, the first royal decrees were issued, pillar by pillar, forming the regulatory basis governing health care on board Italian or foreign ships travelling to and from national ports.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Ethnopharmacol
March 2024
Royal Holloway, University of London, Department of History, Egham, Surrey, TW20 0EX, UK. Electronic address:
Ethnopharmacological Relevance: In recent decades, the study of historical texts has attracted research interest, particularly in ethnopharmacology. All studies of the materia medica cited in ancient and medieval texts share a concern, however, as to the reliability of modern identifications of these substances. Previous studies of European or Mediterranean texts relied mostly on authoritative dictionaries or glossaries providing botanical identities for the historical plant names in question.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Hist Med Allied Sci
April 2023
Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Italy.
During the sixteenth century, Italian scholars revised their conception of the field of history so that its purposes went beyond providing political and morally edifying narratives. These scholars contended that history must also account for culture and nature in an encyclopedic fashion. In the same years, numerous newly available texts from antiquity, the Byzantine empire, and the Middle Ages provided insight into the character of earlier outbreaks of plague.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAesthetic Plast Surg
February 2023
International Medical School Tor Vergata, University of Rome, Via Montpellier 1, 00133, Roma, Italy.
The manuscript aims to clarify the origins of Western rhinosurgery through the ancient texts of the greatest physicians of the past, up to the Byzantine Era, focusing on the "exchange of knowledge" between peoples. This excursus is carried out by quoting the texts of the greatest doctors of the past, such as Hippocrates, Galen and Celsus and by analysing the works of Byzantine authors such as Oribasius, Aetius, Antillus, which, more than others, represent the moment of fusion and interpenetration of Ancient Medical knowledge, paving the way for the Medieval Scholae Medicae in the West. The aim, therefore, is to fill that sort of "great gap" (from the foundation of Constantinople in the 4th century AD to the early Arab culture in the 11th century AD) due to the fact that figures such as Branca, Vianeo and, finally, Tagliacozzi, are considered direct actors of a recovery of the "ancient knowledge" of classic authors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSurg Innov
October 2022
Department of History of Medicine, 69156University of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece.
Headache is a prevalent clinical symptom and condition, whose management has been challenging from the antiquity to the 21st century. Physicians in the Greek, Roman and Byzantine antiquity employed surgical techniques to treat headache in patients presenting with persistent symptoms that were not alleviated with conservative means. A survey in the medical literature of the period reveals that two surgical procedures, periscyphismus and section of the temporal vessels, were developed for this purpose.
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