The Medicine of the Friars in Medieval England

Download The Medicine of the Friars in Medieval England PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Boydell & Brewer
ISBN 13 : 1914049233
Total Pages : 327 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (14 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Medicine of the Friars in Medieval England by : Peter Murray Jones

Download or read book The Medicine of the Friars in Medieval England written by Peter Murray Jones and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2024-01-09 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing upon a surprising wealth of evidence found in surviving manuscripts, this book restores friars to their rightful place in the history of English health care.Friars are often overlooked in the picture of health care in late medieval England. Physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, barbers, midwives - these are the people we think of immediately as agents of healing; whilst we identify university teachers as authorities on medical writings. Yet from their first appearance in England in the 1220s to the dispersal of the friaries in the 1530s, four orders of friars were active as healers of every type. Their care extended beyond the circle of their own brethren: patients included royalty, nobles and bishops, and they also provided charitable aid and relief to the poor. They wrote about medicine too. Bartholomew the Englishman and Roger Bacon were arguably the most influential authors, alongside the Dominican Henry Daniel. Nor should we forget the anonymous Franciscan compilers of the Tabula medicine, a handbook of cures, which, amongst other items, contains case histories of friars practising medicine. Even after the Reformation, these texts continued to circulate and find new readers amongst practitioners and householders. This book restores friars to their rightful place in the history of English health care, exploring the complex, productive entanglement between care of the soul and healing of the body, in both theoretical and practical terms. Drawing upon the surprising wealth of evidence found in the surviving manuscripts, it brings to light individuals such as William Holme (c. 1400), and his patient the duke of York (d. 1402), who suffered from swollen legs. Holme also wrote about medicinal simples and gave instructions for dealing with eye and voice problems experienced by his brother Franciscans. Friars from the thirteenth century onwards wrote their medicine differently, reflecting their religious vocation as preachers and confessors.ok of cures, which, amongst other items, contains case histories of friars practising medicine. Even after the Reformation, these texts continued to circulate and find new readers amongst practitioners and householders. This book restores friars to their rightful place in the history of English health care, exploring the complex, productive entanglement between care of the soul and healing of the body, in both theoretical and practical terms. Drawing upon the surprising wealth of evidence found in the surviving manuscripts, it brings to light individuals such as William Holme (c. 1400), and his patient the duke of York (d. 1402), who suffered from swollen legs. Holme also wrote about medicinal simples and gave instructions for dealing with eye and voice problems experienced by his brother Franciscans. Friars from the thirteenth century onwards wrote their medicine differently, reflecting their religious vocation as preachers and confessors.ok of cures, which, amongst other items, contains case histories of friars practising medicine. Even after the Reformation, these texts continued to circulate and find new readers amongst practitioners and householders. This book restores friars to their rightful place in the history of English health care, exploring the complex, productive entanglement between care of the soul and healing of the body, in both theoretical and practical terms. Drawing upon the surprising wealth of evidence found in the surviving manuscripts, it brings to light individuals such as William Holme (c. 1400), and his patient the duke of York (d. 1402), who suffered from swollen legs. Holme also wrote about medicinal simples and gave instructions for dealing with eye and voice problems experienced by his brother Franciscans. Friars from the thirteenth century onwards wrote their medicine differently, reflecting their religious vocation as preachers and confessors.ok of cures, which, amongst other items, contains case histories of friars practising medicine. Even after the Reformation, these texts continued to circulate and find new readers amongst practitioners and householders. This book restores friars to their rightful place in the history of English health care, exploring the complex, productive entanglement between care of the soul and healing of the body, in both theoretical and practical terms. Drawing upon the surprising wealth of evidence found in the surviving manuscripts, it brings to light individuals such as William Holme (c. 1400), and his patient the duke of York (d. 1402), who suffered from swollen legs. Holme also wrote about medicinal simples and gave instructions for dealing with eye and voice problems experienced by his brother Franciscans. Friars from the thirteenth century onwards wrote their medicine differently, reflecting their religious vocation as preachers and confessors.riars practising medicine. Even after the Reformation, these texts continued to circulate and find new readers amongst practitioners and householders. This book restores friars to their rightful place in the history of English health care, exploring the complex, productive entanglement between care of the soul and healing of the body, in both theoretical and practical terms. Drawing upon the surprising wealth of evidence found in the surviving manuscripts, it brings to light individuals such as William Holme (c. 1400), and his patient the duke of York (d. 1402), who suffered from swollen legs. Holme also wrote about medicinal simples and gave instructions for dealing with eye and voice problems experienced by his brother Franciscans. Friars from the thirteenth century onwards wrote their medicine differently, reflecting their religious vocation as preachers and confessors.

Monastic and Religious Orders in Britain, 1000-1300

Download Monastic and Religious Orders in Britain, 1000-1300 PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521377973
Total Pages : 372 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (779 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Monastic and Religious Orders in Britain, 1000-1300 by : Janet Burton

Download or read book Monastic and Religious Orders in Britain, 1000-1300 written by Janet Burton and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1994-01-28 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book traces the development of monasticism in England, Scotland and Wales from the last half century of Anglo-Saxon England to 1300. It explores the nature of the impact of the Norman settlement on monastic life, and how Britain responded to new, European ideas on monastic life. In particular, it examines Britain's response to the needs of religious women. It covers every aspect of the life and work of the religious orders: their daily life, the buildings in which they lived, their contribution to intellectual developments and to the economy. Particular attention is paid to the relationship between religious houses and their founders and patrons. This shows the degree of dependence of religious houses on local patrons. Indeed, one major theme which emerges from the book is the constant tension between the ideals of monastic communities and the demands of the world.

Health, Sickness, Medicine and the Friars in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries

Download Health, Sickness, Medicine and the Friars in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351931210
Total Pages : 296 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (519 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Health, Sickness, Medicine and the Friars in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries by : Angela Montford

Download or read book Health, Sickness, Medicine and the Friars in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries written by Angela Montford and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-28 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Health, Sickness, Medicine and the Friars in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries explores the attitudes and responses of the mendicant orders to illness, their contribution to medical history, the influence of health and sickness as a factor in the orders' decision making, the extent of their participation in treatments, their relationship with physicians or their own involvement in medical practice, and the problems which occurred as a result of these matters. Apart from brief details of the last illness noted in some convent obituaries, the sick friar is usually conspicuous by his absence from the records. This book addresses this absence. By focusing on these neglected aspects of the mendicant orders it is possible to begin to reconstruct their attitudes and practices towards sickness, health and medical treatment. In so doing, a picture begins to emerge which provides a much fuller understanding of both mendicant and wider medical history. Through such an approach, the book demonstrates how preserving health as well as treating illness were matters of interrelated and vital concern to the friars, a concern that coincided with a rising interest in health matters in wider society during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Elf Queens and Holy Friars

Download Elf Queens and Holy Friars PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN 13 : 0812248430
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (122 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Elf Queens and Holy Friars by : Richard Firth Green

Download or read book Elf Queens and Holy Friars written by Richard Firth Green and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2016-09-28 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Starting from the assumption of a far greater cultural gulf between the learned and the lay in the medieval world than between rich and poor, Elf Queens explores the church's systematic campaign to demonize fairies and infernalize fairyland and the responses this provoked in vernacular romance.

Ethnicity in Medieval Europe, 950-1250

Download Ethnicity in Medieval Europe, 950-1250 PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Boydell & Brewer
ISBN 13 : 1914049012
Total Pages : 357 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (14 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Ethnicity in Medieval Europe, 950-1250 by : Claire Weeda

Download or read book Ethnicity in Medieval Europe, 950-1250 written by Claire Weeda and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2021 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An investigation into how racial stereotypes were created and used in the European Middle Ages. Students in twelfth-century Paris held slanging matches, branding the English drunkards, the Germans madmen and the French as arrogant. On crusade, army recruits from different ethnic backgrounds taunted each other's military skills. Men producing ethnography in monasteries and at court drafted derogatory descriptions of peoples dwelling in territories under colonisation, questioning their work ethic, social organisation, religious devotion and humanness. Monks listed and ruminated on the alleged traits of Jews, Saracens, Greeks, Saxons and Britons and their acceptance or rejection of Christianity. In this radical new approach to representations of nationhood in medieval western Europe, the author argues that ethnic stereotypes were constructed and wielded rhetorically to justify property claims, flaunt military strength and assert moral and cultural ascendance over others. The gendered images of ethnicity in circulation reflect a negotiation over self-representations of discipline, rationality and strength, juxtaposed with the alleged chaos and weakness of racialised others. Interpreting nationhood through a religious lens, monks and schoolmen explained it as scientifically informed by environmental medicine, an ancient theory that held that location and climate influenced the physical and mental traits of peoples. Drawing on lists of ethnic character traits, school textbooks, medical treatises, proverbs, poetry and chronicles, this book shows that ethnic stereotypes served as rhetorical tools of power, crafting relationships within communities and towards others.

Henry Daniel and the Rise of Middle English Medical Writing

Download Henry Daniel and the Rise of Middle English Medical Writing PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Toronto Press
ISBN 13 : 1487529554
Total Pages : 261 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (875 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Henry Daniel and the Rise of Middle English Medical Writing by : Sarah Star

Download or read book Henry Daniel and the Rise of Middle English Medical Writing written by Sarah Star and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2022-01-27 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Henry Daniel, fourteenth-century medical writer, Dominican friar, and contemporary of Chaucer, is one of the most neglected figures to whom we can attribute a substantial body of extant works in Middle English. His Liber Uricrisiarum, the earliest known medical text in Middle English, synthesizes authoritative traditions into a new diagnostic encyclopedia characterized by its stylistic verve and intellectual scope. Drawing on expertise from a range of scholars, this volume examines Daniel’s capacious works and demonstrates their significance to many scholarly conversations, including the history of late medieval medicine. It explains the background for Daniel’s uroscopic and herbal work, describes all known versions of the Liber Uricrisiarum and traces revisions over time, analyses Daniel’s representations of his own medical practice, and demonstrates his influence on later medical and literary writers. Both a companion to the recently published reading edition of the Liber Uricrisiarum and a work of original scholarship in its own right, this collection promotes a wider understanding of Daniel’s texts and prompts new discoveries about their importance.

The Church of England: The medieval church

Download The Church of England: The medieval church PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 506 pages
Book Rating : 4.A/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Church of England: The medieval church by : Henry Donald Maurice Spence-Jones

Download or read book The Church of England: The medieval church written by Henry Donald Maurice Spence-Jones and published by . This book was released on 1897 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Urban Bodies

Download Urban Bodies PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Boydell & Brewer Ltd
ISBN 13 : 1843838362
Total Pages : 450 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (438 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Urban Bodies by : Carole Rawcliffe

Download or read book Urban Bodies written by Carole Rawcliffe and published by Boydell & Brewer Ltd. This book was released on 2013 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This first full-length study of public health in pre-Reformation England challenges a number of entrenched assumptions about the insanitary nature of urban life during "the golden age of bacteria". Adopting an interdisciplinary approach that draws on material remains as well as archives, it examines the medical, cultural and religious contexts in which ideas about the welfare of the communal body developed. Far from demonstrating indifference, ignorance or mute acceptance in the face of repeated onslaughts of epidemic disease, the rulers and residents of English towns devised sophisticated and coherent strategies for the creation of a more salubrious environment; among the plethora of initiatives whose origins often predated the Black Death can also be found measures for the improvement of the water supply, for better food standards and for the care of the sick, both rich and poor."--Provided by publisher.

Medicine and the Seven Deadly Sins in Late Medieval Literature and Culture

Download Medicine and the Seven Deadly Sins in Late Medieval Literature and Culture PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 113744990X
Total Pages : 237 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (374 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Medicine and the Seven Deadly Sins in Late Medieval Literature and Culture by : Virginia Langum

Download or read book Medicine and the Seven Deadly Sins in Late Medieval Literature and Culture written by Virginia Langum and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-09-15 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book considers how scientists, theologians, priests, and poets approached the relationship of the human body and ethics in the later Middle Ages. Is medicine merely a metaphor for sin? Or can certain kinds of bodies physiologically dispose people to be angry, sad, or greedy? If so, then is it their fault? Virginia Langum offers an account of the medical imagery used to describe feelings and actions in religious and literary contexts, referencing a variety of behavioral discussions within medical contexts. The study draws upon medical and theological writing for its philosophical basis, and upon more popular works of religion, as well as poetry, to show how these themes were articulated, explored, and questioned more widely in medieval culture.

Middle English Medical Recipes and Literary Play, 1375-1500

Download Middle English Medical Recipes and Literary Play, 1375-1500 PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192666126
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (926 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Middle English Medical Recipes and Literary Play, 1375-1500 by : Hannah Bower

Download or read book Middle English Medical Recipes and Literary Play, 1375-1500 written by Hannah Bower and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022-03-21 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Middle English Medical Recipes and Literary Play, 1375-1500 is the first detailed, book-length study of Middle English medical recipes in their literary, imaginative, social, and codicological contexts. Analysing recipe collections in over seventy late medieval manuscripts, this book explores how the words and structures of recipes could contribute to those texts' healing purpose, but could also confuse, impede, exceed, and redefine that purpose. The study therefore presents a challenge to recipes' traditional reputation as mundane, unartful texts written and read solely for the sake of directing practical action. Crucially, it also relocates these neglected texts and overlooked manuscripts within the complex networks forming medieval textual culture, demonstrating that—though marginalized in modern scholarship—medical recipes were actually linguistically, formally, materially, and imaginatively interconnected with many other late medieval discourses, including devotional writings, romances, fabliaux, and Chaucerian poetry. The monograph thus models for readers modes of analysis and close reading that might be deployed in relation to recipes in order to understand better their allusive, fragmentary, and playful qualities as well as their wide-ranging influence on medieval imaginations.

Medieval Medicine

Download Medieval Medicine PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 362 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (161 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Medieval Medicine by : Luke DeMaitre

Download or read book Medieval Medicine written by Luke DeMaitre and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2013-04-09 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This unique examination of medieval medicine as detailed in physician's manuals of the period reveals a more sophisticated approach to the medical arts than expected for the time. Far from the primitive and barbaric practices the Middle Ages may conjure up in our minds, doctors during that time combined knowledge, tradition, innovation, and intuition to create a humane, holistic approach to understanding and treating every known disease. In fact, a singularly authoritative medical source of the period, Lily of Medicine, continued to provide crucial study for students and practitioners of medicine almost four centuries after its completion in 1305. This unprecedented book investigates the extensive capabilities of physicians who relied on practice, observation, and imagination before the supremacy of mechanistic views and technological aids. Medieval Medicine: The Art of Healing, from Head to Toe is a comprehensive look at diseases as they were described, classified, explained, assessed, and treated by doctors of the age. The author methodically compares a dozen encyclopedic manuals in which both the fundamental understanding of healthy functions and the specific response to diseases were summarized, viewing the information through a medieval perspective rather than based upon modern criteria.

A Short History of Medieval England

Download A Short History of Medieval England PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 476 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (9 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis A Short History of Medieval England by : Alan Gordon Smith

Download or read book A Short History of Medieval England written by Alan Gordon Smith and published by . This book was released on 1925 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Medieval Iconography

Download Medieval Iconography PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000525104
Total Pages : 464 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (5 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Medieval Iconography by : John B. Friedman

Download or read book Medieval Iconography written by John B. Friedman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-11-18 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1998, the present volume aims to help the researcher locate visual motifs, whether in medieval art or in literature, and to understand how they function in yet other medieval literary or artistic works.

Making Women's Medicine Masculine

Download Making Women's Medicine Masculine PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 0191607355
Total Pages : 432 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (916 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Making Women's Medicine Masculine by : Monica H. Green

Download or read book Making Women's Medicine Masculine written by Monica H. Green and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2008-03-20 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Making Women's Medicine Masculine challenges the common belief that prior to the eighteenth century men were never involved in any aspect of women's healthcare in Europe. Using sources ranging from the writings of the famous twelfth-century female practitioner, Trota of Salerno, all the way to the great tomes of Renaissance male physicians, and covering both medicine and surgery, this study demonstrates that men slowly established more and more authority in diagnosing and prescribing treatments for women's gynaecological conditions (especially infertility) and even certain obstetrical conditions. Even if their 'hands-on' knowledge of women's bodies was limited by contemporary mores, men were able to establish their increasing authority in this and all branches of medicine due to their greater access to literacy and the knowledge contained in books, whether in Latin or the vernacular. As Monica Green shows, while works written in French, Dutch, English, and Italian were sometimes addressed to women, nevertheless even these were often re-appropriated by men, both by practitioners who treated women and by laymen interested to learn about the 'secrets' of generation. While early in the period women were considered to have authoritative knowledge on women's conditions (hence the widespread influence of the alleged authoress 'Trotula'), by the end of the period to be a woman was no longer an automatic qualification for either understanding or treating the conditions that most commonly afflicted the female sex - with implications of women's exclusion from production of knowledge on their own bodies extending to the present day.

The Routledge Companion to Medieval Iconography

Download The Routledge Companion to Medieval Iconography PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1315298368
Total Pages : 588 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (152 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Routledge Companion to Medieval Iconography by : Colum Hourihane

Download or read book The Routledge Companion to Medieval Iconography written by Colum Hourihane and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2016-12-19 with total page 588 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sometimes enjoying considerable favor, sometimes less, iconography has been an essential element in medieval art historical studies since the beginning of the discipline. Some of the greatest art historians – including Mâle, Warburg, Panofsky, Morey, and Schapiro – have devoted their lives to understanding and structuring what exactly the subject matter of a work of medieval art can tell. Over the last thirty or so years, scholarship has seen the meaning and methodologies of the term considerably broadened. This companion provides a state-of-the-art assessment of the influence of the foremost iconographers, as well as the methodologies employed and themes that underpin the discipline. The first section focuses on influential thinkers in the field, while the second covers some of the best-known methodologies; the third, and largest section, looks at some of the major themes in medieval art. Taken together, the three sections include thirty-eight chapters, each of which deals with an individual topic. An introduction, historiographical evaluation, and bibliography accompany the individual essays. The authors are recognized experts in the field, and each essay includes original analyses and/or case studies which will hopefully open the field for future research.

Disability in Antiquity

Download Disability in Antiquity PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317231538
Total Pages : 660 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (172 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Disability in Antiquity by : Christian Laes

Download or read book Disability in Antiquity written by Christian Laes and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-10-04 with total page 660 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is a major contribution to the field of disability history in the ancient world. Contributions from leading international scholars examine deformity and disability from a variety of historical, sociological and theoretical perspectives, as represented in various media. The volume is not confined to a narrow view of ‘antiquity’ but includes a large number of pieces on ancient western Asia that provide a broad and comparative view of the topic and enable scholars to see this important topic in the round. Disability in Antiquity is the first multidisciplinary volume to truly map out and explore the topic of disability in the ancient world and create new avenues of thought and research.

Medicine in the English Middle Ages

Download Medicine in the English Middle Ages PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 140082267X
Total Pages : 189 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (8 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Medicine in the English Middle Ages by : Faye Getz

Download or read book Medicine in the English Middle Ages written by Faye Getz and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 1998-11-02 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents an engaging, detailed portrait of the people, ideas, and beliefs that made up the world of English medieval medicine between 750 and 1450, a time when medical practice extended far beyond modern definitions. The institutions of court, church, university, and hospital--which would eventually work to separate medical practice from other duties--had barely begun to exert an influence in medieval England, writes Faye Getz. Sufferers could seek healing from men and women of all social ranks, and the healing could encompass spiritual, legal, and philosophical as well as bodily concerns. Here the author presents an account of practitioners (English Christians, Jews, and foreigners), of medical works written by the English, of the emerging legal and institutional world of medicine, and of the medical ideals present among the educated and social elite. How medical learning gained for itself an audience is the central argument of this book, but the journey, as Getz shows, was an intricate one. Along the way, the reader encounters the magistrates of London, who confiscate a bag said by its owner to contain a human head capable of learning to speak, and learned clerical practitioners who advise people on how best to remain healthy or die a good death. Islamic medical ideas as well as the poetry of Chaucer come under scrutiny. Among the remnants of this far distant medical past, anyone may find something to amuse and something to admire.