Author: Staff

I Love the Flu

Staff From our researchers, Out of the stacks, Voices from our collection , , , ,

– by Emily T.H. Redman*

 

I love the flu.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t love the fever and chills, the runny nose, the sore throat, or the all-encompassing ache that seems to span from deep in the bones all the way to one’s hair follicles. I don’t love the complications—the respiratory infections, the myocarditis. In particular, I really don’t love the potential for death. What I love the flu for is divorced from these horrors, and lies in the pedagogical value afforded by teaching students about the history of influenza epidemics. Influenza epidemics are fascinating on a micro level, an evolving and mutating virus hitting the body with a slightly different impact every year. But flu season hits us on another level; as we collectively respond to epidemics it shapes our cultures, ideas, and traditions.

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“Praise be to Christ [that] this is the end of the work!”

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Laus Christos, f. 105r, Constantinus Africanus, Viaticum, ca. 1220-1244, Z10 76

 

Medieval scribes were likely just as glad as we are when a large piece of work is completed.  These four lines celebrate the scribe’s completion of a volume containing Constantinus Africanus’ Viaticum and Nicolaus Salernitanus’ Antidotarium, followed by two short texts regarding doses and synonyms for antidotes, which is comprised of 105 folia (pages).  Even today, writing out 105 pages (front and back) in legible, uniform script seems a daunting task.

The Antidotarium Nicolai was written in the 12th century by Nicolaus Salernitanus.  It is a collection of pharmacopoeial remedies in alphabetical order, the first pharmacopoeia written.  It is likely that Nicolaus, a medical school teacher, derived his material from a collective oral tradition which had been put together in Salerno between 1160 and 1200.  The medical school at Salerno was founded in the 9th century and was one of the earliest of its kind in Western Europe.

To learn more about Constantinus and his Viaticum, check out our first #MedievalMonday post here.

“One should know how the zodiac signs correspond to the body”

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Diagram showing the zodiac signs, humors, and elements, f. 81v, Constantinus Africanus, Viaticum, ca. 1220-1244, Z10 76

 

The first ring of the diagram identifies the zodiac signs with the related humors and elements.  The four humors played a large part in medieval lives.  A person whose humors were in balance was healthy; unbalanced humors caused illnesses.  Basically, the human body was believed to be made of four substances: blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm.  Each substance was linked to a season, an element, an organ, a temperament, and other qualities.  For example, black bile was related to autumn, earth, the gallbladder, melancholy, and was considered to have cold and dry properties.

People also believed the zodiac signs presided over parts of the body and were associated with an element.  The bull, Taurus, ruled over the throat, neck, thyroid gland, vocal tract; and was affiliated with black bile (melancholy).

These complex astrological charts were used to determine diagnoses and treatments, which were based not only on the actual physical symptoms, but also temperaments and birth signs.  This diagram illustrates the medieval worldview in which everything was connected in a tenuous balance, including mankind and his health (microcosm), and the Earth and the universe (macrocosm).

Imperfecta: Fear, wonder, and science

Staff Happenings, In the museum , , , , ,

On March 9, 2017, Imperfecta opens in the Mütter Museum, an exhibit curated by the staff of the Historical Medical Library, which will examine in text, image, and specimen how fear, wonder, and science shaped the understanding of abnormal human development.

One facet of this story is how people, laymen and scientists, reacted to new information in a time of discovery and upheaval.  Steve Desch, an astrophysicist from the University of Arizona, said, “Humans have a strong instinct to ignore scientific findings, until those discoveries challenge the stories we tell each other about ourselves.”  This tendency to ignore earth-shattering discoveries that fundamentally change how humans see themselves is a behavior that is as old as human existence itself.  Read more

They don’t make pen-work like this anymore!

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Puzzle letter, f. 1r, Constantinus Africanus, Viaticum, ca. 1220-1244, Z10 76

 

Pen-flourished initials (Latin littera florissae) like this one marked the beginning of a work, chapter, or other section.  The most common colors used for these initials were red and blue.  While this particular initial is not as elaborate as some, the red line-drawings inside almost resemble a seashell or something similar to my eyes.

“This WILL be on the test!”

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Manicule, f. 68r, Constantinus Africanus, Viaticum, ca. 1220-1244, Z10 76

 

Welcome to #MedievalMonday!  Every Monday, Chrissie Perella, Archivist, will be showing off one of the Library’s medieval manuscripts.

For the first installment of #MedievalMonday, meet Constantinus Africanus.  Dated somewhere between 1220 and 1244, Constantinus was the oldest manuscript in our collection until several weeks ago (more on that in upcoming posts).  The first text in this manuscript, Constantinus’ Viaticum, is one of the earliest examples of an Arabic medical text translated into Latin.

Constantinus Africanus was likely born in Carthage, and entered the monastery of Montecassino in southern Italy somewhere around 1060.  His Viaticum is an important work in the history of medicine.  He translated the Kitab Zad al-musafir wa-qut al-hadir (Provisions for the Traveler and the Nourishment of the Settled), written by the 10th-century Arabic physician known as Ibn al-Jazzar, sometime during the 11th century.  It represents one of the earliest Western translations of an Arabic medical work, and demonstrates the revistalization of the flow of knowledge from the East to the West.

This codex illustrates many interesting aspects of medieval manuscripts.  One of my personal favorite features is this manicule (f. 68r).  Manicules were used as markers to denote parts of the text readers found important.  This one is especially interesting as it has fingernails and a sleeve cuff.

Making the Medieval Digital

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“If [medieval] culture is regarded as a response to the environment then the elements in that environment to which it responded most vigorously were manuscripts.”

– C. S. Lewis, The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature

Composite Medical Miscellany I. England, 15th century. Call number 10a 215.

The Historical Medical Library, as part of the Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries (PACSCL), is participating in a CLIR grant to digitize Western medieval and early modern manuscripts held by libraries in the greater Philadelphia area.  The Library is lending thirteen medical manuscripts dating from c. 1220 to 1600 to this project, called Bibliotheca Philadelphiensis (BiblioPhilly).  Our manuscripts will be digitized at the University of Pennsylvania’s Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text and Images (SCETI) and the digital images hosted through the University of Pennyslvania’s OPenn manuscript portal and dark-archived at Lehigh University.

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