Medieval Death Trip

A Podcast Exploring the Wit and Weirdness of Medieval Texts

Tag: Anglo-Saxon Leech Book

Concerning Seizure and Possession (Part 2): Medieval Methods

Cover image featuring Chaucer's Doctour of Phisik from the the Ellesmere manuscript of the Canterbury Tales.

We complete our look at epilepsy in the Middle Ages by considering how religion and medicine intersect in surviving medical texts and how classical learning was reintroduced by looking at the example of John of Gaddesden, possibly the model for Chaucer’s Doctour of Phisik.

Today’s Texts:

  • John of Gaddesden. “John of Gaddesden on Epilepsy.” Edited by William G. Lennox, translated by Adrian P. English, Annals of Medical History, vol. 1, no. 3, May 1939, pp. 283-307. Semantic Scholar.
  • Origen. Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, translated by John Patrick, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 9, edited by Allan Menzies, Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1896. New Advent, revised and edited by Kevin Knight, www.newadvent.org/fathers/1016.htm
  • Herbarium. In Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England, translated by Thomas Cockayne, vol. 1, Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green, 1864, pp. 1-325. Archive.org.
  • Leech Book. Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England, translated by Thomas Cockayne, vol. 2, Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green, 1864. Archive.org.
  • “Life of St. Winefred.” Lives of the Cambro British Saints, of the Fifth and Immediate Succeeding Centuries, from Ancient Welsh & Latin MSS. in the British Museum and Elsewhere, with English Translations, an Explanatory Notes, edited and translated by W. J. Rees, Welsh MSS. Society, 1853, pp. 515-529. Google Books.

References:

  • Capener, Norman. “John of Gaddesden: and the Crest of the Frederick Coller Surgical Society.” Annals of Surgery, vol. 154, suppl. 6, Dec. 1961, pp. 13-17. DOI: 10.1097/00000658-196112000-00003. PubMed Central.
  • Dendle, Peter. “Lupines, Manganese, and Devil-Sickness: An Anglo-Saxon Medical Response to Epilepsy.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, vol. 75, no. 1, Spring 2001, pp. 91-101. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/44445557
  • Temkin, Owsei. The Falling Sickness: A History of Epilepsy from the Greeks to the Beginnings of Modern Neurology. 2nd ed., revised, Johns Hopkins Press, 1971. Archive.org.

Image Credit: The Doctor of Physick, from the Ellesmere manuscript of the Canterbury Tales (Huntington Library EL 26 C 9, via Wikimedia Commons).

MDT Episode 07: Concerning Some Divine Dentistry

BL MS Royal 6 E.vi f.509vThis episode we return to the The Life and Miracles of St. William of Norwich to look at three cases of cures for toothache, followed by a glance at some actual medieval dental treatments. Get those worms out of your teeth!

This episode’s texts:

  • The Life and Miracles of St. William of Norwich, written by Thomas of Monmouth and translated by Augustus Jessopp and M.R. James. London: Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1896. [Available on Google Books.]
  • “Dental Treatment in Medieval England,” by T. Anderson (2004). Online at the British Dental Journal.
  • The Anglo-Saxon Leech Book, as presented in a facing-page translation in Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England, Vol. II. Edited by Oswald Cockayne. London: Longman, Green, Roberts, Longman, and Green, 1865. [Available on Google Books.]

Image: British Library MS Royal 6 E.VI, f. 503v.

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