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Spotlight: a medieval tree of knowledge
Like modern-day students, medieval people used diagrams and images to reinforce learning and memorisation. In long and complex philosophical manuscripts, occasionally an image was used to break the monotony of reading. The tree diagram considered here was part of a… Continue reading
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The origins of the English almanac
Almanacs have a long association with medicine. Potted health advice lent itself to inclusion in the sort of cheap booklets for a mass market that proliferated under the name ‘Almanack’ from the 16th century onwards. But what exactly is an… Continue reading
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Hands, holes and hashtags: Wellcome MS. 550
The first manuscript that I ever encountered face-to-face was Wellcome MS. 550. This volume, mainly in medieval Latin, dates from the early 15th century, and is a compendium of different medical and surgical writings. As my research involves the plague,… Continue reading
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The ‘disease woman’ of the Wellcome Apocalypse
By the middle of the 15th century, women’s healthcare had begun to shift from a field dominated by women to one monitored and controlled by men. Following the classical Aristotelian schema, the female body was perceived as biologically inferior, intrinsically… Continue reading
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Another enigma: reading the embroidered binding of MS. 8932
As noted by Elma Brenner in her post ‘The enigma of the medieval almanac’, Wellcome MS. 8932, a folding almanac produced in England in the first part of the 15th century, is a remarkable object. The almanac is of great… Continue reading
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Before Agincourt: a contemporary voice on war in a medieval medical manuscript
‘What have you got on the Black Death?’, students occasionally ask in relation to the Wellcome Library’s medieval manuscripts. Surprising as it sounds, the answer is ‘nothing’. How can it be that some 300 mainly medical books, many of which… Continue reading
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Wellcome MS. 632: heavenly protection during childbirth in late medieval England
Wellcome MS. 632 may be the only surviving ‘birth girdle’ in England that was actually used during childbirth. This parchment roll survives as a rare artefact from a time when women, who could afford it, gave birth in well-furnished darkened… Continue reading
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History of Pre-Modern Medicine seminar series, 2015–16
The History of Pre-Modern Medicine seminar series returns this autumn. The 2015–16 series – organised by a group of historians of medicine based at London universities and hosted by the Wellcome Library – will commence with four seminars in the… Continue reading
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Greek manuscripts at the Wellcome Library: a new catalogue
I have recently completed a new descriptive catalogue of the 16 Greek manuscripts held by the Wellcome Library. The catalogue was published in the journal Medical History with contributions from Dr Georgi R. Parpulov. Some of these manuscripts contain previously… Continue reading
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Speaking of Trotula
In her inaugural post on the Early Medicine blog, Elma Brenner used an iconic image of the female practitioner ‘Trotula’ to introduce the new digitisation of Wellcome MS. 544, a 14th-century collection of Latin medical texts. Many students of the… Continue reading