Tag Archives: medieval
The Monk Who Loved to Eat Toads
Alternative medicine is in. Each year, millions of Americans—38% of U.S. adults according to a 2007 National Institutes of Health survey—use some form of alternative medicine. Even the medical establishment has embraced alternative medicine, albeit somewhat begrudgingly, allowing that unconventional therapies may be used when conventional options fail. A 2008 survey of U.S. hospitals found […]
Water for Renaissance Madrid: Rediscovering the Iberian Qanāts
[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. This is the second piece from that seminar, by Master’s anthropology student Enrique Reyes.] When King Philip II of Spain […]