Margaret Trenchard-Smith - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Margaret Trenchard-Smith
Medicina nei secoli, Nov 15, 2020
Greek gynecological and pediatric standards created ideal types. One was the woman fit to breas... more Greek gynecological and pediatric standards created ideal types. One was
the woman fit to breastfeed, another the newborn fit to be breastfed. This
study examines the consequences of these standards on human lives. Mothers
and newborns who failed to measure up to the ideal were rejected, giving
added impetus to wet nursing, infant exposure and infanticide. These were
aspects of Mediterranean medicine, culture and religion long before Soranos
of Ephesos wrote his gynecological treatise. However, his instructions for
midwives made these ideals and standards explicit and authoritative.
Carried through by midwives, they altered the lives of women and sometimes
ended the lives of newborns. Together these standards contributed to a
recursive dynamic of the displacement of infants from birth mothers, infant
abandonment, and wet nursing that was favorable to class affirmation and to
the maintenance of the slave system of early imperial Rome.
The Concept of Madness from Homer to Byzantium: Manifestations and Aspects of Mental Illness and Disorder, ed Helene Perdicoyianni-Paleologou, 2015
Saint Basil of Caesarea understood heresy to be a type of madness, an understanding consistent wi... more Saint Basil of Caesarea understood heresy to be a type of madness, an understanding consistent with his doctrines on the Holy Spirit. His intellectual training having familiarized him with philosophical and medical traditions on the passions, Basil considered heresy to be a peculiar 'illness of the soul' caused by its indulgence in images that aroused heterodox passions, which drove out from the soul the salutary influence of the Holy Spirit. Reluctant to 'fix' theology in rigid formulae, yet resolute in his opposition to heresy, Basil constantly weighed the relative merits of bold speech and circumspection. Preferring on the whole to censure by indirection, he often resorted to storm and maritime imagery to depict the madness of heresy and heretics. The prevalence of these images in his letters and other writings makes it possible to use them to illustrate a narrative of the Bishop of Caesarea's career in the defense of orthodoxy.
The Treatment of Disabled Persons in Medieval Europe: Examining Disability in the Historical, Legal, Literary, Medical and Religious Discourses of the Middle Ages, 2010
How were persons deemed epileptic treated in the Early Byzantine Period?
Madness in Medieval Law and Custom, 2010
Perception is an overwhelming force. Collective perceptions can be contra-factual. The memories o... more Perception is an overwhelming force. Collective perceptions can be contra-factual. The memories of individuals, of institutions, often magnify the inconsequential, distort or omit. A failure of memory can be total, through accident or deliberate oblivion. Shared recollections and the narratives they form shape perceptions. Yet even when these things are faulty, they can have as much force as if they were sound-just as the effects of a rumor can be as damaging when false as when founded in fact. 1
Drafts by Margaret Trenchard-Smith
Medicina nei secoli, Nov 15, 2020
Greek gynecological and pediatric standards created ideal types. One was the woman fit to breas... more Greek gynecological and pediatric standards created ideal types. One was
the woman fit to breastfeed, another the newborn fit to be breastfed. This
study examines the consequences of these standards on human lives. Mothers
and newborns who failed to measure up to the ideal were rejected, giving
added impetus to wet nursing, infant exposure and infanticide. These were
aspects of Mediterranean medicine, culture and religion long before Soranos
of Ephesos wrote his gynecological treatise. However, his instructions for
midwives made these ideals and standards explicit and authoritative.
Carried through by midwives, they altered the lives of women and sometimes
ended the lives of newborns. Together these standards contributed to a
recursive dynamic of the displacement of infants from birth mothers, infant
abandonment, and wet nursing that was favorable to class affirmation and to
the maintenance of the slave system of early imperial Rome.
The Concept of Madness from Homer to Byzantium: Manifestations and Aspects of Mental Illness and Disorder, ed Helene Perdicoyianni-Paleologou, 2015
Saint Basil of Caesarea understood heresy to be a type of madness, an understanding consistent wi... more Saint Basil of Caesarea understood heresy to be a type of madness, an understanding consistent with his doctrines on the Holy Spirit. His intellectual training having familiarized him with philosophical and medical traditions on the passions, Basil considered heresy to be a peculiar 'illness of the soul' caused by its indulgence in images that aroused heterodox passions, which drove out from the soul the salutary influence of the Holy Spirit. Reluctant to 'fix' theology in rigid formulae, yet resolute in his opposition to heresy, Basil constantly weighed the relative merits of bold speech and circumspection. Preferring on the whole to censure by indirection, he often resorted to storm and maritime imagery to depict the madness of heresy and heretics. The prevalence of these images in his letters and other writings makes it possible to use them to illustrate a narrative of the Bishop of Caesarea's career in the defense of orthodoxy.
The Treatment of Disabled Persons in Medieval Europe: Examining Disability in the Historical, Legal, Literary, Medical and Religious Discourses of the Middle Ages, 2010
How were persons deemed epileptic treated in the Early Byzantine Period?
Madness in Medieval Law and Custom, 2010
Perception is an overwhelming force. Collective perceptions can be contra-factual. The memories o... more Perception is an overwhelming force. Collective perceptions can be contra-factual. The memories of individuals, of institutions, often magnify the inconsequential, distort or omit. A failure of memory can be total, through accident or deliberate oblivion. Shared recollections and the narratives they form shape perceptions. Yet even when these things are faulty, they can have as much force as if they were sound-just as the effects of a rumor can be as damaging when false as when founded in fact. 1