Barbara Zipser – A Medical Handbook in Vernacular Greek

Автор: Barbara Zipser
Название книги: A Medical Handbook in Vernacular Greek (2009)
Формат: PDF
Жанр: История медицины
Страницы: 389
Качество: Изначально компьютерное, E-book

This monograph contains the rst edition of a Greek medical text
from the High Middle Ages. The text is a rare witness from
a world we still have little knowledge of, the world of ordinary
medical practice | this book is telling us about medicine as a
craft, not as a scholarly concept. The text often seems crude and
goes into more detail than one would expect in a more learned
specimen. It is also partially composed in dialect.
As with most Byzantine medical writings, its theoretical framework
is indebted to Galen and other authorities from antiquity. It
does not question established medical knowledge, just as modern
clinical handbooks would not re
ect upon the historical background
of physiological concepts such as the vascular system or
the discovery of antibiotics, but brie
y oer the information one
might require in a hospital emergency or when confronted with
an unfamiliar case in everyday practice. Thus, the approach is
pragmatic and down to earth, the author aims to answer questions
such as `how do I treat a chronic cough' or `how can I induce
labour if the child dies inside the womb'.
It is a very long text, and the work involved in compiling and
revising the material involved time-consuming work and philological
skill together with rst hand medical experience. One might
ask who initiated such a project. Was the book commissioned
by an authority who also provided the necessary infrastructure
for production and made sure the book was passed on to others?
Or did a single person prepare it for his own use initially,
for instance a practitioner with higher education, who brought
one copy on the market which then became a huge success? Was
there money to be made, or were philanthropic motives behind
what could be seen as an attempt to bring state-of-the-art medical
care to ordinary general practice?