Unit:
Department of History and ArchaeologyLibrary of the School of Philosophy
Author:
Penelope Seriatou
Dissertation committee:
Βασιλική Σειρηνίδου, Επίκουρη καθηγήτρια, Τμήμα Ιστορίας και Αρχαιολογίας, Φιλοσοφική Σχολή, ΕΚΠΑ
Κατερίνα Γαρδίκα,τ. Αναπληρώτρια καθηγήτρια, Τμήμα Ιστορίας και Αρχαιολογίας, Φιλοσοφική Σχολή, ΕΚΠΑ.
Ευθύμιος Νικολαΐδης, Διευθυντής Ερευνών, Ινστιτούτο Ιστορικών Ερευνών, Εθνικό Ίδρυμα Ερευνών.
Μαρία Ευθυμίου, Καθηγήτρια, Τμήμα Ιστορίας και Αρχαιολογίας, Φιλοσοφική Σχολή, ΕΚΠΑ.
Ευάγγελος Καραμανωλάκης, Αναπληρωτής Καθηγητής, Τμήμα Ιστορίας και Αρχαιολογίας, Φιλοσοφική Σχολή, ΕΚΠΑ.
Κατερίνα Κωνσταντινίδου, Αναπληρώτρια Καθηγήτρια, Τμήμα Ιστορίας και Αρχαιολογίας, Φιλοσοφική Σχολή, ΕΚΠΑ.
Ευγενία Μπουρνόβα, Καθηγήτρια, Τμήμα Οικονομικών Επιστημών, Σχολή Οικονομικών και Πολιτικών Επιστημών, ΕΚΠΑ.
Original Title:
Από τα γιατροσόφια στα ιατρικά εγχειρίδια. Η διαδρομή προς την επιστημονική ιατρική γνώση και περίθαλψη στον ελληνικό χώρο κατά τον 18ο και 19ο αιώνα.
Translated title:
From iatrosophia to medical books. The route towards scientific medical knowledge and health care in Greek regions in 18th and 19th centuries.
Summary:
The research is focused on the transition towards modern scientific medicine in Greek regions of the 18th and 19th centuries. With two distinct types of medical texts as main sources, the dissertation follows a century of medicine and healing history. Using data from medical manuscripts (iatrosophia) and medical books, the research presents topics such as scientific and empirical medicine, nosology, therapeutic approaches for every health problem, and the relation between doctors and patients. Moreover, the texts provide data for parts of everyday life history which are closely related to medicine. Finally, research has shown the important role that medical books played in the process of constructing a new frame of collective health, and in guiding society in the choice of modern scientific medicine.
The thesis has three parts besides the introduction, but the results are shown mainly in the first two. The first part gives data from iatrosophia manuscripts regarding illnesses and specific subjects such as sexually transmitted diseases, or mental illnesses, and the connection of therapeutics with religion and faith. Also, the manuscripts besides medical and pharmaceutical data, supply information for the history of everyday life for various subjects such as cleaning and beauty instructions and recipes, nutrition and dietary systems and medical diet facts, all included in medical instructions. At the end of the first part, the essay analytically records the case of traditional empirical medical system as it functioned until 19th century, a subject that has not been studied in the frame of the Greek history of medicine. In the second part of the dissertation the writer introduces analytically the two categories of the sources that have been studied exhaustively. The comments are based on the specific material that was studied in the dissertation, 10 manuscripts with medical content (Tables of their contents are included in the appendix) and 10 medical books. One important novelty of the dissertation is the study of the manuscripts in parallel with the books. One form of recording medical knowledge is a continuity of the other, although people continued keeping medical and healing information in manuscripts long after the first medical editions. Iatrosophia manuscripts became gradually part of a folk tradition and were connected with religion. On the other hand, books are associated with science and authority and indicate the establishment of the doctors’ profession in the end of 18th and the beginning of the 19th century. Moreover, medical books propagate the need for collective health as a path towards the achievement of a socioeconomic development-, and emphasize the encouragement for the prevalence of the scientific medicine and the abandonment of empirical medicine. According to the research, after the first half of 19th century doctors with degrees were separated from empirics, but in the Greek regions people continued to use empirical treatments until the second half of the 20th century, and although doctors were opposed to their use, empirics compiled iatrosophia until the first decades of the same century.
Main subject category:
History
Keywords:
iatrosophia, history of health, medical books, empirical medicine, history of medicine, history of everyday life, medical manuscripts
Number of references:
414
