Materia Medica: Plants, Animals, and Minerals in Healing

Sponsoring Organization(s)

Medica: The Society for the Study of Healing in the Middle Ages

Organizer Name

William H. York

Organizer Affiliation

Portland State Univ.

Presider Name

Linda Ehrsam Voigts

Presider Affiliation

Univ. of Missouri-Kansas City

Paper Title 1

Origins and Ingredients: A Comparison of Early Medieval Remedies

Presenter 1 Name

Claire Burridge

Presenter 1 Affiliation

Univ. of Cambridge

Paper Title 2

The Use of the Mandrake in the Early Middle Ages for the Gout, for the Conception, and as an Anesthetic

Presenter 2 Name

Arsenio Ferraces-Rodríguez

Presenter 2 Affiliation

Univ. da Coruña

Start Date

14-5-2017 10:30 AM

Session Location

Fetzer 1010

Description

This session offers papers that investigate how medieval healers employed a wide range of materials drawn from plants, animals, and minerals to treat their patients. Papers can examine medieval manuals of herbal medicine to learn about herbal cures and dietary prescriptions in practice and theory. In addition to examining the specific materials used in cures, papers might consider the production and sale of medicinal remedies. The aim of the session is to bring together scholars considering the theory behind developing medicinal cures as well as the material culture that shapes those cures.

William H. York