This workshop will pay particular attention to plague and epidemic disease.
The corpus of texts from Antiquity known as the Galenic tradition has a long reception history. Whether in Greek, Latin and Arabic, the works of Hippocrates, Galen and others formed the nucleus for a medical tradition later added to by commentators such as Abu Bakr al-Razi (Rhazes) and Ibn Sina (Avicenna). Drawing on the same source texts, practices and theoretical frameworks were developed, written down not only in the languages of classical learning but in a wealth of vernaculars as well.
Seeing as it is all but impossible for a single scholar to master these many languages, we propose a primary source workshop where the participants will present, comment on and (partially or fully) translate a source text. Different, yet connected at the root, the various medical traditions will thus be brought into conversation with each other. Thus, we can see how the Galenic tradition was received and adapted in different context and societies, as well as offer a rare bird's eye perspective on a tradition that is usually studied piecemeal. To what extent can we speak of a Galenic medicine as such? What similarities and differences emerge?
The workshop will pay particular attention to plague and epidemic disease. The term 'plague' itself is ripe for the sort of multilingual analysis we propose; rooted in the Galenic concept of epidemia, its many meanings, differing from language to language, represent a moving target for historians. Related and overlapping topics include infectious disease in general, legitimacy and authority in medicine, state response to disease, the concept of public health, questions of 'cleanliness', questions of place and geography in medicine, the relationship between health, death and religion, the role of different medical practitioners and institutions in different societies, and the relation of medical theory to practice.
The event will also be live-streamed on zoom. If you wish to participate via zoom, register to this event via this web page and send an email to alba.parrini@eui.eu to receive the zoom link.
Programme:
11:00– 11:15 Welcome and coffee
11:15– 13.30 Session 1. Chair: Nahyan Fancy
Tunahan Durmaz: When Galen meets Daniel Sennert in Ottoman medical texts: Eclectic explanations from Hayâtîzâde Mustafa Feyzî Efendi’s Resâilü’l-müsfiyye li’l-emrâzi’l-müskile (Healing Treatises for Formidable Diseases)
Serra Agirman Yilmaz: A 15th Century Hippocrates in Ottoman attire
12:30 – 14:00 Lunch
14:00 - 14:15 Tara Alberts on Osiris (vol. 37) Translating Medicine across Premodern Worlds
14:15 –15:30 Session 2. Chair: Lauren Kassell
Olin Moctezuma-Burns: El Libro del Judio (1834) or Maya recipes in the time of cholera
Vigdis Andrea Evang: Triage and Treatment in De curatione pestiferorum apostematum (1476)
15:30 – 15:45 Break
15:45 –17:00 Session 3. Chair: Nükhet Varlik
Valentina Pugliano: 'Translating' Venetian public health to Damascus: lessons from the 1543 diary of a diplomatic doctor'
Jin-Woo Choi: Ramazzini’s Oration on the Winter of 1709