Category Archives: Uncategorized
Of Puppies and Toads: Marvelous Cures for the Plague
[Note: In my seminar on “The Scientific Revolution” this semester, I assigned graduate students to write a blog post that, once revised by the class during a workshop, I would publish on my “Labyrinth of Nature” blog. It was an exceptionally useful writing assignment because it helped the students identify an interesting problem or topic and […]
Thessalos and the Magic Bowl
How do charlatans operate? What is the source of their fascination—and their power? Charisma, of course. But what is the source of that charisma? I think that two things are important: First, the claim to possess “secret knowledge”; and second, the claim to have discovered the single cause (or causes) of all diseases. Two examples […]
The Legend of Ambroise Paré and the “Liberation” of Surgery
One of the most enduring myths in the history of medicine is the legend of the French surgeon Ambroise Paré as the “liberator” of surgery from the dangerous practice of cauterizing gunshot wounds with a red-hot iron. Paré himself was the originator of the legend, having published an account of it in his book, Method […]
The World’s First Mail Order Doctor
I have in my collection a book published in 1908 titled The People’s Common Sense Medical Adviser, by “Dr. R. V. Pierce.” It’s a modest little volume that I purchased in a used book store in Madison, Wisconsin some years ago. First published in 1875, the book was tremendously popular in its day, going through […]
The Mysterious Malady of Marulla Greco
Surgery is no art for the squeamish. A simple slice through the skin – the practiced surgeon’s daily experience – may be enough to give an ordinary person nausea. The history of surgery is replete with instances of daring surgical interventions, harrowing battles against blood-gushing wounds, amputations accomplished at lightning speed and without anesthesia, […]
The Renaissance Curioso
Continuing the theme of curiosity in the Renaissance that I began a couple of weeks ago with my post, “The Disease of Curiosity,” it makes sense to ask: What did it mean to be a curious person in the Renaissance? Which brings us to a quintessential but perhaps little known Renaissance figure: The Renaissance ‘curioso’.
The Renaissance Snake Handler
One of my previous posts, “The Disease of Curiosity,” generated a lot of comment in the blogosphere [Daily Dig; Morbid Anatomy]; so I’ve decided to follow that post with a piece about what was surely one of the strangest curiosities of the Renaissance: The appearance in the town square of the snake handler.
Book Signing at Barnes & Noble
I will be signing my new book, The Professor of Secrets: Mystery, Medicine, and Alchemy in Renaissance Italy on Tuesday September 7, 2010, from 12pm to 2pm at the Barnes & Noble University Bookstore in Corbett Center at New Mexico State University. Please stop by and say hello if you’re in town!
The University of War
In Physician, one of the writings collected under the name of Hippocrates in the fifth century B.C., the aspiring surgeon is instructed to follow the armies in order to learn the art of surgery. In times of peace, writes Hippocrates, rarely if ever, “even in a whole lifetime,” does one encounter the kinds of severe […]
The Disease Called Curiosity
Nowadays we think of curiosity as an emotion necessary for the advancement of knowledge, indeed as the well-spring of scientific discovery. It was not always so. Saint Augustine, in the fourth century, stated the traditional medieval view of curiosity, and it wasn’t favorable. In the Confessions, the Bishop of Hippo made inquisitiveness in general the […]
