[HN Gopher] Medieval medicine under the spotlight in major new p...
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Medieval medicine under the spotlight in major new project
Author : benbreen
Score : 39 points
Date : 2022-08-21 17:48 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cam.ac.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cam.ac.uk)
| oldgradstudent wrote:
| How representative are these treatments of mainstream medieval
| medicine?
|
| I can find any number of modern texts that suggest even more
| ridiculous treatments for the same problems.
| lofatdairy wrote:
| A well known problem in historiography is how representative
| your sources are. This is not just a case with medieval
| studies, but classical antiquity, early modern history, etc.
| Especially with medieval studies, what written records survive
| still represents the smaller subset of information that was
| considered worth documenting[^1].
|
| However, while attention usually centers on the absurd and
| curious, we can often use comparative methods and references to
| other sources to build better accounts. Vesalius would be
| towards the later end of the sources in the article (I also
| assume that the texts would be more Norman/early British rather
| than continental), but might be a good example. We know that
| while Vesalius's accomplishments and findings resulted in
| recognition and renown, we also know that he faced significant
| resistance. I imagine a lot of his opponents would have
| survived, but in a sense they might not have needed to, as he
| was railing against neo-Galenists so often and so vehemently in
| much of his work that we can get a picture of where his
| findings clashed with mainstream thinking or powerful
| opponents.
|
| On another note, because the texts likely have similarities
| with speculum literature and various early encyclopedias that
| have survived, as well as grimoires and other texts, we can get
| a sense of in what spaces this knowledge was being circulated
| and how orthodox they were.
|
| [^1]: A brief tangent but a fantastic book, Montaillou, gives a
| really detailed account on French peasant life in the early
| 14th century. It's only made possible because of inquisitorial
| records made, not because the peasants themselves recorded
| anything.
| lofatdairy wrote:
| What an exciting project! I'm going to mark my calendar for 2
| years from this date to check back in on the published results.
|
| >One treatment for gout involves stuffing a puppy with snails and
| sage and roasting him over a fire: the rendered fat was then used
| to make a salve
|
| While extremely horrific to read, it reminds me of a similar
| belief relying on animal abuse in the 18th century regarding the
| latitude problem. People back at shore would dip the bandages
| from a wound inflicted on a dog, which would supposedly cause the
| dog on board to yelp. Dip the bandage precisely at the hour, and
| you'd supposedly have a means of telling time on board[^1].
| Admittedly, this might have been satire, but I found it an
| interesting anecdote.
|
| It also reminds me of early books of knowledge and the speculum
| literature that developed and grew during the period mentioned in
| the article. The plants section of those texts, to my knowledge,
| generally focused on their medical applications. There's a sense
| that magic was seen as not only present, but also commonplace,
| and honestly there's a thrilling sort of mystery in reading those
| sorts of texts.
|
| I'm excited to compare these to some of the writings of Al Rhazes
| and others, in that also give medicinal and medical advice.
|
| [^1]: https://erenow.net/common/longitudethetruestory/5.php
| VerDeTerre wrote:
| > People back at shore would dip the bandages from a wound
| inflicted on a dog, which would supposedly cause the dog on
| board to yelp.
|
| That kind of morbid experimentation was apparently still in
| fashion during the Cold War:
|
| > Dr. Pavel Naumov ... conducted animal biocommunication
| studies between a submerged Soviet Navy submarine and a shore
| research station; these tests involved a mother rabbit and her
| newborn litter and occurred around 1956 ... . When the
| submarine was submerged, assistants killed the rabbits one by
| one. At each precise moment of death, the mother rabbit's brain
| produced detectable and recordable reactions.
|
| https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00792R0006003...
| (page 12)
| sec400 wrote:
| Has ... this been reproduced?
| VerDeTerre wrote:
| This was an example of the dubious kind of parapsychology
| experiment conducted during the period. I'm sure there were
| true believers, but I think healthy skepticism probably
| prevented people from pursuing it too seriously, even when
| positive results were reported.
| Bancakes wrote:
| If you said that website is just a showcase of HTML features, I'd
| believe you.
| barrysteve wrote:
| Remember when popup blockers were functional and desirable and
| clicking on links took you to the content promised? It's
| unpleasant to live in a world with government mandated cookie
| tracking disclaimers as pop ups. This one is particularly
| obstructive, blocking the whole page.
| pessimizer wrote:
| I have a suspicion that this particular banner and many others
| could be fixed by not setting a tracking cookie in order to
| read an article.
| dspillett wrote:
| _> government mandated cookie tracking disclaimers as pop ups_
|
| It is not government mandated at all.
|
| Sites could do away with all the banners if tracking was opt-
| in.
|
| Sites could do away with complex pop-overs if opting out was
| easy, but they want to make opting out as difficult as possible
| and accidentally opting in as easy as possible.
|
| Heck, even if you do consider it government mandated: most
| sites are not compliant with the mandates as it should be as
| easy or easier to opt-out as it is to opt-in.
|
| Governments can make life a pain in many ways, but don't blame
| them for what _corporations_ and individuals very deliberately
| do to you in order to get around the letter of the law (or to
| break it in a way they hope to, and so far often do, get away
| with).
|
| _> This one is particularly obstructive, blocking the whole
| page._
|
| This particular site seems to do things right IMO though (or as
| close to right as makes no odds, compared to most). Yes there
| is a pop-over, but the options default to opt-out, the whole
| thing can be dismissed in a single click without opting in, and
| you can't easily accidentally opt-in.
|
| ----
|
| EDIT: checked on mobile, and it does indeed take up practically
| the whole screen - but given it plays nice in practically every
| other way I can deal with that.
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