Skip Navigation

Social History of Medicine 2000 13(2):279-291; doi:10.1093/shm/13.2.279
© 2000 by Society for the Social History of Medicine
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by BENNETT, D.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

Medical Practice and Manuscripts in Byzantium

DAVID BENNETT*

* 5 Sion Walk, Tunbridge Wells, TN1 1UG

Scholars, past and present, have belittled Byzantine medicine for its perceived static and derivative nature. Applied to the medicine of the centuries immediately before and after the year 1000, these criticisms, though apparently sustainable, fail to recognize its underlying vigour. It was a practical craft medicine, and one which used elements of magic and religion to compensate for the intractability of the many diseases that were not amenable to medicine. These centuries were a time when hospitals flourished in Byzantium, and this paper assembles and describes some of the manuscripts that can be associated with them. The influence of Islamic medicine, which had hitherto borrowed from Byzantium, is also examined. If the Byzantine medicine of this period could not claim great originality or innovation, it had none the less distilled what was best and most useful from the long and often complex medical writings of antiquity, ensured its transmission, and preserved much from earlier times that would otherwise now be lost.

Keywords: Byzantine medicine; medical manuscripts; hospitals; hospitals texts; the classical inheritance; preservation and transmission of texts


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer:
Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.