Heart’s Ease

Staff Digital humanities, Education and outreach, Out of the stacks , , ,

What is a recipe?  Is it instructions from which one can prepare a meal, a snack, a dessert?  Or is it how to mix the best cocktail?  Or how to cure acne?  Or how to care for a bee sting?  What other knowledge does one need to properly take advantage of the advice in a recipe?  Recipes found in medical books are no different than ones found in food cookbooks; it’s just that the desired outcome is different than a crowd-pleasing cake.

The Historical Medical Library holds over 20 manuscript recipe (or “receipt”) books, dating from the 17th century up through the early 20th century.  The majority of our recipe books are medical in nature, but many include food, drink, and household cleaning recipes as well.  I’ve even seen recipes for ink in a couple of our 19th century books.

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“A terrible pestilence”

Staff #MedievalMonday , ,

Unfortunately for us, medieval manuscripts are not usually dated.  The Library is lucky to have one, Macer Floridus’ De virtutibus herbarum (1493, call no. 10a 159) in which the scribe has not only written the date it was completed, but also his name (check out this earlier blog post here).  The Library’s copy of Lilium medicinae is also dated: 20 June 1348, the day after the feast of Corpus Christi.  That’s 669 years ago, tomorrow.

 

Colophon, f. 256v. Bernard de Gordon’s Lilium medicinae, 1348 (Oxford?). Call no. 10a 249.

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Ghoulies and ghosties and medieval beasties

Staff #MedievalMonday , , ,

10a 249 is nearly the only illuminated manuscript we have in the Library.  As I mentioned last week, 6 out of the 7 original illuminations are still extant.  All 6 are initials, and the one pictured below signifies the beginning of Book IV and features 3 human heads.

 

Close-up of illuminated initial, f. 132r. Bernard de Gordon’s Lilium medicinae, 1348 (Oxford?). Call no. 10a 249.

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The Lily of Medicine

Staff #MedievalMonday , , ,

Bernard de Gordon finished his Lilium medicinae in 1305 at the University of Montpellier.  Lilium medicinae (literally, the lily of medicine) is his most well-known work.  It is an encyclopedia of diseases with their symptoms, causes, effects, and treatments; and includes plague, tuberculosis, scabies, epilepsy, anthrax, and leprosy.  Lilium survives in approximately 50 manuscripts (and numerous later, printed volumes) and was translated into French, German, and Hebrew in the 14th century, and Spanish and Irish in the 15th century.  It was considered required reading at Montpellier beginning in the early 1400s.

 

Front cover, Bernard de Gordon’s Lilium medicinae, 1348 (Oxford?). Call no. 10a 249.

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[Al]chemical symbols, anyone?

Staff #MedievalMonday , , ,

This is the second blog post about this manuscript asking for help from the medieval and/or history of medicine and/or history of science communities.  The table below is found on f. 12r of the second volume of 10a 131.  I don’t believe they are alchemical symbols, but perhaps abbreviations for chemicals.

Table of chemical [?] symbols, vol. 2, folio 12r. Composite volume of medical texts, Italy, 14th & 15th c. Call number 10a 131.

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Wistar’s Models: Knowledge and Skill in Anatomical Modelling in Philadelphia Around 1800

Staff From our researchers , , ,

– by Wood Institute travel grantee Marieke Hendriksen*

 

As a historian of art and science, I am particularly interested in the exchange of knowledge and skills between visual artists and medical men in writing and practice in the 18th century. Last year, the  F.C. Wood Institute at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia awarded me a travel grant to study the collaboration between artists and anatomists in Philadelphia in the first decades of the College (est. 1787). It has long been known that anatomists and visual artists worked closely together in the production of anatomical atlases and models in early modern Europe, and sometimes were even united in the same person. An extensive corpus of literature about anatomical preparations and illustrations exists, yet little attention has been paid thus far to the development, understanding and transmission of various other techniques for depicting the body among artists and anatomists. My research fills that gap by focusing on the development and exchange of techniques like plaster casting, wax, wood, and papier-mâché modelling among artists and anatomists. The practices and resources in the early decades of the College of Physicians in Philadelphia form a fascinating case for this research project as they developed in conjunction with similar practices in Europe, yet were in a sense also geographically isolated.

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