Search

The article is dedicated to recovery and holy therapy in Medieval society. In the XIII century Roman Church define the religious observations of physical and spiritual healing: the intervention of Saints and their holy miracles is very important for a perfect recovery. The article analyse the holy therapy through the study of the Cronica Civitatis Ianuensis read by the Dominican friar Iacopo da Varagine, at the end of the XIII century. This work represents one of the most important literary and hagiographic instrument to comprehend medical medieval imaginary.

Mummies have always exerted a strong suggestion on mentality through centuries. They have been considered magical objects, possessing mysterious powers and able to protect from dangers. Pieces or mummy were employed as amulets to preserve life. In the modern age physicians and apothecaries began to use it for therapeutical treatments. This article concerns the therapeutic employ and the different compositions and uses of mummial remedies from early modern age to XVIII century.

This article offers a "flash" of images concerning the diffusion and advertising of specific anti-luetic therapeutic systems and drugs, since the beginning of XVI century to the discovery and the therapeutical use of penicillin. Advertisements in medical and scientific magazines and pictures of texts and articles of the Library of the History of Medicine (Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza") have been used.

The article is a survey of plants foods and drugs that Greeks and Romans thought to be aphrodisiac and to have a specific effect on the male libido. The article is a useful support to study the sexual therapy in ancient world.

Giorgio Baglivi's name is usually connected to the Iatromechanic approach but the medical theory outlined in his major work, De Praxi Medica, denounces how deeply he was influenced by hippocratic tradition and mainly by the holistic approach to therapeutics centered on the idea of an inborn healing power of the body. It is proposed that the contradiction was avoided by Baglivi simply assuming the preminence and autonomy of the clinical point of view in front of the biological reseach to which he attached great theoretical interest but little therapeutical relevance.

The medical literature of the greek speaking ottoman world was deeply influenced by its byzantine heritage: the major authors were copied and commented, while practical manuals containing recipes and therapies - the iatrosophia- kept being enlarged with useful information. Furthermore, during the first centuries hospitals closely followed the models of their glorious past in what concerns architecture, scientific level, means and targets. In fact, only the years after 1770 rely on occidental academic knowledge and adopt modern conceptions.

The article presents the results of a critical evaluation of the clinical histories of 1240 cases of progressive paresis recorded in the S. Maria della Pieta (1911-1950) and reconstructs the scientific discussion about the results of malariatherapy and its action mechanism. The bibliographical study led to a regional characterization of the therapy in the scientific orientation and techniques. The authors are now working out the data, hoping for a future debate on the topic.

The nineteenth century was important for medicine in Britain because the foundations of a united medical profession were laid by the Medical Act of 1858. This established the General Medical Council which had the responsibility of maintaining a list of qualified medical practitioners. This not only protected the public from unknowingly using unqualified medical practitioners, but also created a monopoly of medical practice which was protected by law. In the second half of the century, women started to qualify and be registered. The century also saw the development of effective anaesthetics and the idea that the health of the public could be preserved by legislation. The notion of prevention was born, even though after a further one hundred years, the profession is still dominated by the idea that its responsibility is to cure.

There weren't specialist physicians for mental diseases in Antiquity, but mad men were usually attended to by doctors from the time of Hippocrates to Late Antiquity. The therapies were generally physical (pharmaceutical and dietetic), but some schools of medicine (Asclepiades, Celsus, Caelius Aurelianus) took into consideration the psychological behaviour and experimented with a sort of relational therapy of madness.

Kamlanie is a particular spell used by the Siberian medicine-man to heal a patient, by invoking animal and human spirits. This article proposes to explain the healing capability of the medicine-man not only through the hypnotic suggestion: the healing messages, in the same moment when they arrive to the patient, would become special sound signals, directly reaching the immune system.

The scientific features of our better medical Termalism from the first Convention of Italian Medical Association of Hydroclimatology, Bologna 1888 are here briefly illustrated. In the thirthies of this century, the Hydrological doctrine and studies about it are subjected to sistematically rigorous researches performed by Mariano Messini, his medical school and others. The matter is seen as Therapeutics branch. The Italian Medical Hydrology is well known in the world for his studies about physiopathology and therapeutic usefulness in some gastroenterological, rheumatological and respiratory diseases.

The discovery of America still goes on through the analysis of its medical matter. From the exploitation of the resources made by Columbus, to the comprehension of local civilizations and to the reception of their therapeutic means, is a path that winds, supported by different reasons: the economic return, the therapeutic efficacy, the cultural exchanges between peoples. Unfortunately, with the passing of time, many traditions, fruit of the experience of mysterious centuries, are lost. It is through the examination of American medical matter that we try - with the advantage of acquiring new curative means - to find a new key for the comprehension of its peoples.