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Byzantine medicine is the biggest unknown quantity in both the study of medieval medicine and science and in Byzantine studies. This volume aims to redress this gap by presenting the first comprehensive examination of the medical corpus of John Zacharias Aktouarios, arguably the most important Late Byzantine physician.
List of contents
- Frontmatter
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Note to the Reader
- 1: Introduction
- 2: On Urines: Byzantine Uroscopy between Tradition and Innovation
- 3: On Urines: The Physician and his Patients
- 4: Medical Epitome: A Handbook for Philiatroi ('Amateur Physicians')
- 5: Medical Epitome: Assembling Pharmacological Knowledge in Late Byzantium
- 6: On Psychic Pneuma: John's Advice on How to Lead a Healthy Life
- 7: Conclusion
- Appendices
- 1. Glossary of Medical Terms
- 2. Accounts of Urine Colour in Theophilos' On Urines and John's On Urines
- 3. John's Diagram of the Urine Vial in his On Urines
- 4. Treatment of Eye Affections and Scirrhus in John's Medical Epitome, Book Four
- 5. The Manuscripts of the Medical Epitome
- 6. Chapter Titles of Johns Medical Epitome, Books Three and Four, and List of Recipes of Books Five and Six
- Endmatter
- Bibliography
- Index Rerum et Nominum
- Index Locorum
- Index Codicum Manu Scriptorum
About the author
Petros Bouras-Vallianatos studied both pharmacy and ancient and Byzantine history before obtaining his PhD in the history of medicine in 2015 from King's College London. After holding a Wellcome Research Fellowship at the University of London, he was appointed to a permanent post in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh in 2019. He has published widely on Byzantine medicine and pharmacology, cross-cultural medical exchanges in the Eastern Mediterranean, the reception of the classical medical tradition in the Middle Ages, and Greek palaeography, including the first descriptive catalogue of the Greek manuscripts at the Wellcome Library in London. He has recently co-edited Greek Medical Literature and its Readers: From Hippocrates to Islam and Byzantium (with Sophia Xenophontos; Routledge, 2018) and Brill's Companion to the Reception of Galen (with Barbara Zipser; Brill, 2019).
Summary
Byzantine medicine is the biggest unknown quantity in both the study of medieval medicine and science and in Byzantine studies. This volume aims to redress this gap by presenting the first comprehensive examination of the medical corpus of John Zacharias Aktouarios, arguably the most important Late Byzantine physician.
Additional text
Innovation in Byzantine Medicine combines good history with good philology.
