Conclusions, in Poison. Knowledge, Uses, Practices. Edited by Caterina Mordeglia and Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, Firenze, SISMEL Edizioni del Galluzzo (Micrologus Library 112). (original) (raw)
Related papers
https://www.sismel.it/pubblicazioni/1871-poison-knowledge-uses-practices
The history of poison in its cultural and social practices is woven of infinite courses and recurrences, of continuity and discontinuity, as well as of multiple moments of rupture and novelty. This is demonstrated by the essays collected here which, starting from historical, exegetical, literary, theatrical, folkloric and poetic texts, from Ancient Rome to the present day, show that in order to understand the infinite textual meanders that have accompanied the history of poison, it is necessary to include the various Mediterranean civilisations, from Greek and Arab sources to the scientific knowledge of the Latin Middle Ages and the Modern Age. ¨ Caterina Mordeglia, Introduction – Luciano Canfora, La strana morte dei consoli del ’43 – Francesco M. Galassi, Analisi paleopatologica della morte del console Pansa – Federica Boero, Il lessico dei veleni in Plauto – Sandro La Barbera, Who Poisoned Rome? Traces of Nicander’s Venoms in Latin Literature – Caterina Mordeglia, Veleni sulla scena (Note a Sen. Med. 670-849 e Herc. O. 256-582) – Sandra Isetta, Figure del veleno tra esegesi biblica e agiografia – Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, Paura del veleno e cerimonialità pontificia. Una storia (quasi) millenaria – Marina Montesano, La strega avvelenatrice – Michel Pastoureau, Le bestiaire médiéval des animaux venimeux – Francesco Santi, Il rumore del veleno – Gabriele Ferrario, Pauca numero et utilibus plurima: Maimonides’ Treatise on Poisons and Its Graeco-Arabic Sources – Franck Collard, Poisons de fiction et savoirs vénénologiques: quelles circulations entre la production savante et la production littéraire? (France, XII et XVe siècle) – Danielle Jacquart, Les multiples facettes des relations entre empoisonnement et peste dans les explications médicales de la fin du Moyen Âge – Bruno Laurioux, La cuisine et le poison à la fin du Moyen Âge – Walter Stephens, Veneficium/Maleficium/Sacramentum: Na tural and Occult Forces in Witches’ Poisons – Lawrence M. Principe, Poisons and Medicines, Ferments and Transmutations – Francesco Brenna, Honey Turning into Poison: Satanic Poetry in Early Modern Literary Theory from Italy to Milton – Nuno Castel-Branco, Friendship Fostered by Poison: The Collaboration of Nicolaus Steno and Francesco Redi – Guido Paduano, Pozioni wagneriane – Marco Ansaldo, Da Hitler a Erdogan, la grande paura dei leader di essere avvelenati – Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, Concluding Remarks
This paper offers an overview of recent historical studies on toxic products. First, we offer an introduction to the literature and the principal academic groups, de scribing the major trends in four different areas of scholarship: history of crime and forensic science, history of food quality and adulteration, history of occupational and public health, and environmental history. Second, we suggest avenues for future re search by highlighting three meeting points: protagonists, spaces and proof. We also discuss some challenges of the historical narratives: the agency of human and nonhuman actors; the integration of material, human and environmental effects; and the combination of the sociocultural analysis of historical cases with the current un derstanding of poisons. While avoiding the unforgivable sins of anachronism or, even worse, of technological determinism, we want to encourage historical narratives with a bearing on current affairs. This is the last point discussed in ...
Poisons in the Premodern World
Encyclopedia of the History of Science (Carnegie Mellon University), 2021
This article surveys the history of poisons in premodern China and Europe. It reviews the existing literature on the study of poisons and offers comparative insights into the foundational ideas of poisons in China and Europe as well as their connections to disease, alchemy, politics, and gender. The article is available here: https://lps.library.cmu.edu/ETHOS/article/id/468/
Alchemy, Potency, Imagination: Paracelsus's Theories of Poison
It All Depends on the Dose: Poisons and Medicines in European History, 2018
This is a preprint (non-typeset) version of a paper that has been published in It All Depends on the Dose: Poisons and Medicines in European History, ed. Ole Peter Grell, Andrew Cunningham and Jon Arrizabalaga (Routledge, 2018). ‘All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; the Dosis alone makes a thing not poison,’ declared the maverick Swiss physician Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, called Paracelsus (1493-1541) in a late defence of his works. Although these statements are famous, they can also be confusing to the modern reader. The first part, ‘all things are poison, and nothing is without poison’, seems harshly dualistic and, like much of Paracelsus’s rhetoric, is intended to shock its reader. The second part appears more familiar: indeed, this statement has been celebrated, rightly or wrongly, as the beginning of the modern science of toxicology. Yet, one may ask, what is the relationship, if any, between the first and the second sentence? What do these statements actually mean? Do they express a consistent and coherent theory of poisons? Answering these questions, and others, will make the object of this essay.
It All Depends on the Dose : Poisons and Medicines in European History
2018
This is the first volume to take a broad historical sweep of the close relation between medicines and poisons in the Western tradition, and their interconnectedness. They are like two ends of a spectrum, for the same natural material can be medicine or poison, depending on the dose, and poisons can be transformed into medicines, while medicines can turn out to be poisons. The book looks at important moments in the history of the relationship between poisons and medicines in European history, from Roman times, with the Greek physician Galen, through the Renaissance and the maverick physician Paracelsus, to the present, when poisons are actively being turned into beneficial medicines.
Poisons, Poisoning and the Drug Trade in Ancient Rome
Akroterion, 2014
The first recorded instance of poisoning in ancient Rome occurred in 331 BC when, during an epidemic, a large number of women were accused of concerted mass poisoning. Overreaction of the community in times of stress particularly, when scapegoats for unexplained phenomena are sought, might have played an important role in this and many subsequent incidents of suspected poisoning. Rome represented a culture steeped in superstition, fear and mythology with virtually no scientific means of retrospectively proving or disproving alleged poisoning. The drug trade in antiquity is briefly reviewed, from the Marsi and rootcutters who collected materials, and the intermediary herbalists and drug pedlars, to the physicians and other prescribers of drugs. There was a general lack of proper knowledge, which led to much abuse and death of patients. The distinction between these professional groups was often vague and physicians were generally not held in high regard. From authoritative writings of Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Pliny and others it is evident that the Romans were aware of a very large number of toxic (and assumed toxic) substances, of plant, animal and mineral origin, but it is evident that the poisoners of ancient Rome almost exclusively made use of plant (and to lesser extent animal) products, and not mineral poisons. A brief overview of the recorded crimes by poison, and known poison dispensers of the time is given. Poisoning probably reached a maximum during the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, when the Julio-Claudian emperors in particular achieved great notoriety, and a wide variety of specific and "universal" antidotes came into vogue.