Poison, Medicine, and Disease in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe

ISBN-13: 9780367588267 / Angielski / Miękka / 2020 / 332 str.

Frederick W. Gibbs

Opis

This book presents a uniquely broad and pioneering history of premodern toxicology by exploring how late medieval and early modern (c. 1200–1600) physicians discussed the relationship between poison, medicine, and disease. Drawing from a wide range of medical and natural philosophical texts—with an emphasis on treatises that focused on poison, p

Spis treści

Contents;

Acknowledgements;

Introduction;

1. Classical Authorities and Traditions

The ambiguity of pharmaka and venena.

Prevention, symptoms, and remedies.

Medical pharmacotherapy and theories of poison.

Compilation, synthesis, and specific form.

Conclusion

2. Poison and Venom in the Latin West before 1300

Poisons and venoms in translation.

Encyclopedic poisons.

Qualities, quantities, and forms.

Regulating poisonous drugs.

Conclusion.

3. Towards a New Toxicology

Food, medicine, and poison.

A new kind of poison text.

New "problems" of poison.

Patronage, poison, and medical learning.

Conclusion.

4. Plague, Poison, and Metaphor

Putrefied and poisoned air.

Plague as poison in the body.

Spreadable and contagious poison.

Conclusion.

5. Poisonous Properties, Bodies, and Forms

Occult definitions and forms. 

Poisonous properties.

Poisonous bodies.

Poisoning, sorcery, and the evil eye.

Sympathetic forms.

Conclusion.

6. Poison, Putrefaction, and Ontology of Disease

Poisons, contagions, and the French Disease. 

Poison as cause of disease. 

Separating poison and medicine with Paracelsus.

Ontologies of poisons, forms, seeds, and disease.

Conclusion.

7. Reframing Toxicology

Reconciling the language of medicine and poison.

New approaches to venenum.

Poisons, venoms, and corruptions in the body.

Conclusion

Epilogue

Bibliography

O autorze

Frederick W. Gibbs is Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of New Mexico, USA.