Poison, Medicine, and Disease in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe

Name: Poison, Medicine, and Disease in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe
Brand: Taylor & Francis

Taylor & Francis

This book presents a uniquely broad and pioneering history of premodern toxicology by exploring how late medieval and early modern (c. 1200\u20131600) physicians discussed the relationship between poison, medicine, and disease. Drawing from a wide range of medical and natural philosophical texts\u2014with an emphasis on treatises that focused on poison, pharmacotherapeutics, plague, and the nature of disease\u2014this study brings to light premodern physicians' debates about the potential existence, nature, and properties of a category of substance theoretically harmful to the human body in even the smallest amount. Focusing on the category of poison (venenum) rather than on specific drugs reframes and remixes the standard histories of toxicology, pharmacology, and etiology, as well as shows how these aspects of medicine (although not yet formalized as independent disciplines) interacted with and shaped one another. Physicians argued, for instance, about what properties might disting.