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In Transylvania in the 16th-18th centuries, as everywhere in Europe, there was a witch hunt that had many victims. The witchcraft trials in Transylvania differed radically from those in Western Europe, as they were led by civil authorities of cities, fortresses and counties. The victims of the witch hunt in Transylvania were mostly healers of all ethnicities, including many Romanians. The research follows the image and fate of Romanians involved in witchcraft processes. Among them were defendants, accusers and witnesses, each with their own history. Documents of witchcraft trials are a particularly rich source of information about the lives, sufferings and turmoil of people in the Late Middle Ages. As documents of that time show, the magical practices of the Romanians in Transylvania corresponded to the mentality of the population of this region and are similar to those in Wallachia and Moldova.

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The article examines rural pediatric care in the late 19th century, using the general practice of Austrian physician Franz von Ottenthal in the Taufers district of South Tyrol, Italy, as an example. The author provides brief biographical details about von Ottenthal as well as a statistical analysis of his child patients, as documented in his medical records. He describes the health care services available to the population of the area. He then discusses parent attitudes to medical care for their children, considering their use of home remedies and reliance on traditional medicinal knowledge. He also addresses the services offered by traditional healers and other unlicensed medical amateurs in an effort to outline the underlying medical economics of the region.

The article examines the history of the practice of Swiss lay healer Gottfried Wachter, who practiced in the village of Hugelshofen in the Swiss canton of Thurgau in the early 19th century, in order to outline the development of competition between amateur and professional physicians and the professionalization of medicine. The authors outline the political and legal context of medical care providers in Switzerland at the time, particularly government efforts to strengthen oversight of medical providers and rural health services, as well as legal challenges to Wachter's practice by academically trained physicians and state authorities. They then detail the economic and financial situation of Wachter's practice over time.

This article reflects upon the way in which the interplay between reason and emotion influences pastors' lives and ministry. It studies the process of inner transformation as a meaningful way for pastors to become 'healed healers'. Inner transformation is described in terms of Aristotle's phronesis and Paul Ricoeur's movement from mimēsis1 to mimēsis3. The article agrues that 'healing' in no way purports that pastors are able to heal others in a literal sense, but merely that by being conscious of their own wounds, pastors can experience the paradox that their own wounds could become a source of healing. This approach to woundedness is interpreted from two distinct perspectives. Firstly, it is seen from the perspective of Jesus as the human face of God. Jesus' emotional disposition towards the nobodies of his time is seen as paradigmatic for pastors' relationships with others. Secondly, woundedness is seen within the context of the metaphor of the wounded healer as narrated in ancient Greek mythology, and used by Carl Jung in a psychiatric setting. It is not only pastors' knowledge of the Bible, theological tradition and different pastoral and other therapeutic theories, models and methods that facilitates meaningful interaction between themselves and others. Central to pastors' role as wounded healers is their conscious acknowledgement of their own humanity and therefore their own woundedness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the cultural syndrome of "air" and "bad wind." A group of ceramic figurines made by an elderly lady from the village of Tlayacapan in the central Mexican state of Morelos, forms part of the data for this study. The successful treatment of this syndrome is also investigated. This illness is caused by the shock which is provoked by an evil air from outside the village and is compared with susto/espanto, which is also widespread in Latin America. Susto, which means "being frightened," causes the temporary loss of one of the souls, brought about, for example, by some accident. While the methods and drugs of modem medicine usually cannot help, the treatment by traditional healing methods is often successful, because they aim to cure the whole person and, at the same time, reassure the patient's relatives and neighbors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A report is offered from an October 3-5, 2011 conference in Gießen, Germany on the history of polemics. Topics of presentations given included competition between mathematicians in the early modern period, conflicts between healers and their patients in the 18th century, and the development of the pamphlet in England in the 18th century.