| Paper 632-a | St Blasius from Sebaste between Christianity and Medicine
(Language: English)
Irene Calà, 'Laboratoire Médecine Grecque', UMR 8167 'Orient et Méditerranée', Université Paris IV - Sorbonne
Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Hagiography, Language and Literature - Greek, Medicine |
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| Abstract | Paper -a:
St Blasius from Sebaste is the patron of the throat in the Western and Eastern tradition: this Saint, an Armenian physician, was martyred in 4th century; his Bios was written in the 10th century, but the first witness of this Saint is a medical work written in the 6th century by Aetius Amidenus titled Libri medicinales. The focus of my paper is the famous miracle of healing children with a fishbone stuck in the throat: I will examine and I compare two texts to prove that the Aetius's text follows a different tradition, probably oral.
Paper -b:
During the medieval period, matters related to sexuality were inserted in an ambiguous context, especially those regarding human pleasure. Christianity sought to control and repress various forms of sexual pleasure; nevertheless, it was considered important to conception and to the maintenance of health. In this context, the discussion concerning pleasure was not restricted to religious writings, but also appeared in medical treatises. The present work aim to analyze the importance of sexual pleasure on human health and its insertion in the medieval society through the medical writings assigned to the Portuguese physician Peter of Spain (?1205-1277), the work Thesaurus pauperum and the scholastic commentary on the Viaticum written by Ibn al Jazzār and translated by Constantine, the African, in the 11th century.
Paper -c:
The St Nicholas Hospital at the monastery of Santa Cruz of Coimbra, in Portugal, was founded by the first prior, St Theotonium in the middle of the 12th century for the care of sick monks and poors. They were canonical rule because they followed the Rule of St Augustine; the domus infirmorum connected medical care with charity practices. Such practices were part of a religious concept of health/illness which failed to distinguish body from soul. Consequently, it did not make a division between a superior cure of the soul from an inferior cure of the body, because all that was sought was a single, global cure. However, the monks' knowledge and experience led them to be summoned to heal secular patients too. Some of them performed medicine outside monastery walls or achieved success abroad, as was the case of friar Gil de Santarém and the secular Pedro Hispano, who became Pope John XX (13th century).
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