Medicine Before The Plague: Practitioners And Their Patients In The Crown Of Aragon, 1285-1345 (cambridge Studies In The History Of Medicine)

This book describes the medical world of the early fourteenth century through a study of the extensive archival material and contemporary writings which exist for eastern Spain in the decades before the Black Death. It describes the range of medical practice which then existed - a continuum ranging from scattered academic physicians to barbers and empirics - and gives evidence for the levels and numerical growth of these various occupations in early fourteenth-century communities (although it also emphasizes that occupational distinctions were not yet sharply drawn). The newly translated Greco-Arabic medical learning was beginning to spread through this continuum of practice, and the book argues that public enthusiasm for the new learned medicine led to the 'medicalization' of certain social and legal institutions, thus preparing a role for a medical profession in this society before its physicians had shown any consciousness of collective self-interest and identity. Frontmatter (page N/A) Tables (page viii) Preface (page ix) Abbreviations (page xiv) Introduction (page 1) 1 The medical history of a royal family (page 4) 2 Medieval health manpower (page 35) 3 The success of medical learning (page 68) 4 A spectrum of practice (page 108) 5 The response to illness and the maintenance of health (page 136) 6 Patient-practitioner relationships (page 166) 7 Medicine's social role (page 190) Conclusion (page 241) Appendix (page 246) Bibliography (page 248) Index (page 266) 1. The Medical History Of A Royal Family -- 2. Medieval Health Manpower -- 3. The Success Of Medical Learning -- 4. A Spectrum Of Practice -- 5. The Response To Illness And The Maintenance Of Health -- 6. Patient-practitioner Relationships -- 7. Medicine's Social Role. Michael R. Mcvaugh. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 248-265) And Index. In April 1293 the thirty-two-year-old ruler of the Crown of Aragon, Jaume II, wrote insistently from Barcelona to his "faithful fisicus" Giovanni Rayner in Messina, urging him to move from Sicily to Spain.