NEH Summer Seminar 2012 - "Health and Disease in the Middle Ages," London, UK (original) (raw)
Related papers
Medieval Medicine: Health and Disease in the Middle Ages
Despite our popular understanding of the European middle ages as a dirty, disease-ridden, hopelessly backward period, the sources show us quite a different picture. Although a lack of understanding of the means of genetic change and the cause of viral and bacterial disease caused medieval people to understand the human body very differently than we do, their medical systems were not without logic and efficacy. This course explores the human body and its diseases in the middle ages through a series of connected readings that introduce the body as a conceptual system and medieval science's attempts to understand it. We use the growing field of genomic research as a way of understanding and comparing our modern systems of understanding the body to those in the past. By exploring the field of pathogenomics, we also explore how newer scientific technologies are helping historians learn about the past in new ways.
NEH Syllabus - Health and Disease in the Middle Ages (Summer 2012)
2012
This is the syllabus for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Seminar that was run in London in 2012. Designed and taught by Monica H. Green and Rachel E. Scott, the Seminar was designed as an introduction to medieval history of medicine for scholars who hadn't received advanced training in the field, but wanted to incorporate its insights into their work. Participants included not only historians, but a physical anthropologist, literature scholars, and other humanists. It was a life-changing experience for us all!
The Medieval Globe, 2014
In the past decade and a half, the findings of molecular microbiology have effected a transformation in our understanding the Black Death and its history. The question 'What was it?' has been decisively resolved in favor of the pathogen Yersinia pestis. Microbiological research has also been decisive in pointing toward the Tibetan-Qinghai Plateau as the probable site of the organism's geographic origin and, more tentatively, in suggesting some chronological parameters in which key phases of that evolution occurred. These developments have laid out a challenge for medievalists, who now need to test whether these new biological narratives can better inform our understandings of the Black Death (1346-1353) and the Second Plague Pandemic more broadly defined. It also lays out a challenge for anyone who wants to apply knowledge of the Black Death to the understanding of contemporary epidemics and (re)emerging diseases. This inaugural issue of The Medieval Globe brings together scholars from many disciplines, to begin to assess how new work in the genetics, entomology, and epidemiology of Yersinia pestis, as well as new insights from archeological research, can combine with humanistic methods to allow a rethinking of the Second Plague Pandemic and its historical significance. The contributors collectively demonstrate that this phenomenon was geographically broad, chronologically deep, and ecologically complex: that it likely involved most of Eurasia and North Africa (and possibly parts beyond); that it likely extended from the 13th to the 19th centuries; and that it almost certainly involved many more intermediate hosts than the rats normally considered in plague histories. They also demonstrate that humanistic analysis has never been more crucial to reconstructing the history of the impact of this disease: genetics may be uniquely qualified to trace the history of the pathogen, but the insights of history—both traditional modes (political, religious, cultural) and newer ones (environmental, climatic, post-colonial)— allow us to see how a single-celled organism became a force shaping nearly half the globe. This issue serves as a state-of-the-field summation for medievalists and for researchers studying the world’s most lethal diseases and their modern implications. It will also provide a methodological model for global historians of any period. It is available open-access at the following link: http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/medieval\_globe/1/. The following link leads to the video of a symposium that was held at the University of Illinois in January 2015 to discuss the implications of the volume: https://mediaspace.illinois.edu/media/The+Black+Death+and+BeyondA+New+Research+at+the+Intersection+of+Science+and+the+Humanities/1\_g1tg61l5.
The greatest health problem of the Middle Ages? Estimating the burden of disease in medieval England
International Journal of Paleopathology, 2021
To identify the major health problems of the Middle Ages. Bubonic plague is often considered the greatest health disaster in medieval history, but this has never been systematically investigated. Materials: We triangulate upon the problem using (i) modern WHO data on disease in the modern developing world, (ii) historical evidence for England such as post-medieval Bills of Mortality, and (iii) prevalences derived from original and published palaeopathological studies. Methods: Systematic analysis of the consequences of these health conditions using Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) according to the Global Burden of Disease methodology. Results: Infant and child death due to varied causes had the greatest impact upon population and health, followed by a range of chronic/infectious diseases, with tuberculosis probably being the next most significant one. Conclusions: Among medieval health problems, we estimate that plague was probably 7th-10th in overall importance. Although lethal and disruptive, it struck only periodically and had less cumulative long-term human consequences than chronically endemic conditions (e.g. bacterial and viral infections causing infant and child death, tuberculosis, and other pathogens). Significance: In contrast to modern health regimes, medieval health was above all an ecological struggle against a diverse host of infectious pathogens; social inequality was probably also an important contributing factor. Limitations: Methodological assumptions and use of proxy data mean that only approximate modelling of prevalences is possible. Suggestions for further research: Progress in understanding medieval health really depends upon understanding ancient infectious disease through further development of biomolecular methods.
Green and Muehlberger Twitter Q-and-A on the State of Medieval Medicine
Twitter, 2020
On 10 February 2020, Ellen Muehlberger and I engaged in a question-and-answer session on Twitter, revisiting a 2009 essay of mine that had appeared in the journal *History Compass*. The essay had offered a survey of the state of the field of medieval medical history. It was pitched specifically at "general" medieval historians: those who did not identify as doing medical history, but may have had some cause to engage with medical historical questions in the course of their research. In this Q-and-A, Muehlberger asks me to reflect on my particular motivations in writing the essay; why the topics of health and disease are particularly challenging to research since there are no special archives for such materials; and what points I'd want to stress if I were to attempt a new overview of the field a decade later. Since long Twitter threads can sometimes be a challenge to read, I have reformatted our exchange here, correcting typos and providing some links. I'd be happy to respond to further queries, either on Twitter (@monicaMedHist) or via e-mail (monica.h.green@gmail.com).