Tea at Trianon: Medieval Medicine

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Medieval Medicine

From Medievalists.net:

Few existing manuscripts are completely devoted to the antidotaries and receptaries, words used to describe the Latin recipe literature, although numerous medical and non-medical manuscripts contain folios of prescriptions for all sorts of afflictions. The authorship is always anonymous. Sigerist and Jorimann agreed that the antidotaries were compiled by monks having some medical knowledge. Most recipes are derived directly out of the works ancient authors, especially Alexander of Tralles, Aetius or Amida, and Paul of Aegina, but not two antidotary or receptary are alike. Individuality and originality are present in so far as the compiler had to make the selection himself from the plentiful supply of prescriptions in ancient texts and, therewith, came person al judgment. Galen was the most named author, Hippocrates being in the background, but many classical names were attached to the prescriptions. Some have emperors’ names, e. g., Vespasian and Alexander of Macedonia, and other writers of the early middle ages, e. g., Afrodisius, Thomas, Gentilis, Neuclerius, and Eugenius. There is evidence that new material was translated from the Greek. Still some recipes cannot be attributed to extant classical works, and it is certain there were new additions. What we have in most cases are original compilations, Sigerist said, which the writer has gathered for the necessity of his monastic needs.(Read more.)