An Odyssey of Knowledge: A New Online Exhibition from the National Library of Medicine

"An Odyssey of Knowledge: Medieval Manuscripts and Early Printed Books from the National Library of Medicine," is a new online exhibition at the National Library of Medicine by visiting curator Dr. Alain Touwaide of the Smithsonian Institution. As described on the exhibition web site:

Medicine in the Old World arose from many components: the classical Greek tradition, its Christian re-elaboration, the contributions of the Arabic World, and the unique medieval synthesis of them all. By examining significant pages and illuminations from manuscripts and early printed books of the National Library of Medicine, one can see how these cultures contributed to the creation of medical knowledge in Europe.

The exhibition is organized by the following sections: Greek Medicine and Science in the Early Middle Ages; The Arabic Contribution; A Crossroad of Knowledge: Southern Italy; The Spread of Translation; From Translation To Teaching; Diffusion; The Return of Greek; and The Many Uses of Books and Texts.

The collections of the National Library of Medicine include 90 Western manuscripts written before 1601. Many of the Library's manuscripts are recorded in Dorothy M. Schullian and Francis E. Sommer, A Catalogue of Incunabula and Manuscripts in the Army Medical Library (1950), and Seymour De Ricci and W.J. Wilson, Census of Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts in the United States and Canada (1935–1940), with a supplement by C.U. Faye and W.H. Bond in 1962.

Note: The image above depicts an illuminated manuscript initial with two physicians in conversation (Paris, 13th century); it is from the National Library of Medicine's Manuscript E 78, folio 35 recto.

Festschrift for Professor Michael McVaugh

Between Text and Patient: The Medical Enterprise in Medieval & Early Modern Europe brings together essays by an eminent group of scholars who traveled to Chapel Hill, North Carolina in 2007 to honor the work of UNC Professor Michael R.McVaugh. Like McVaugh’s own publications, the essays vary greatly in their approaches to the healing arts in the medieval and early modern periods, ranging from philological studies of individual texts to paleo-pathological examinations of the spread of disease; from considerations of physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, patients, and unlearned healers, to the contexts in which they functioned: the town, the university, the monastery, the court, and the printing house; and from poly-lingual studies of Latin, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, and Middle English texts to descriptions of the unstudied riches to be found in modern manuscript collections. As such, Between Text and Patient provides excellent examples of some of the best current research in the field. In addition to the many excellent essays, the volume is valuable for more than a dozen photos of never-before reproduced manuscripts, as well as brief editions and translations of original texts hitherto unavailable to English readers.

Edited by Florence Eliza Glaze and Brian Nance, Between Text and Patient (ISBN 978-88-8450-361-9) will be published this summer as part of Sismel's Micrologus' Library. Through June 30, 2010, the press is offering a reduced Tabula Gratulatoria price of 48 euro (72 euro after June 30). A table of contents and a Tabula Gratulatoria discount order form is available online.

Of related interest, see The MacKinney Collection of Medieval Medical Illustrations, a UNC digital collection.

Medieval Help Desk, or The More Things Change . . .

Originally broadcast in 2001 on Norwegian television, "Medieval Help Desk" was a skit from the show "Øystein og jeg" that has subsequently been viewed several million times on YouTube. The piece is credited to Knut Nærum, and features Øystein Backe as the assistant and Rune Gokstad as the monk. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose!

The MacKinney Collection of Medieval Medical Illustrations

Dr. Loren C. MacKinney [1891-1963] was a professor of medieval history who specialized in medieval medical history. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 1925, and joined the UNC-Chapel Hill faculty in 1930. "Recognized internationally as an outstanding authority in the history of medicine, particularly for his studies of pre-Renaissance illuminated medical manuscripts, it has been said Dr. MacKinney has set medical history forward at least 150 years," observed The Bulletin of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in 1957.

MacKinney authored several books, including Early Medieval Medicine (1937), The Medieval World (1938), Bishop Fulbert and Education at the School of Chartres (1957), Medical Illustrations in Medieval Manuscripts (1965), and numerous articles on medical themes. A key part of his research was the photographic documentation of medieval medical illustrations that he studied during research trips to libraries and archives around the world. MacKinney predominantly used Ektachrome slide film, which is significantly more prone to deterioration than Kodachrome, and during his life MacKinney expressed concerns about the preservation of his unique collection.

Professor Michael McVaugh, a medievalist who joined the UNC History Department in 1964, was instrumental in the safekeeping and eventual digitization of MacKinney's collection. A master set of slides was transferred to the National Library of Medicine, and a duplicate set was maintained at UNC. In 2007, the slides at UNC--which number over 1000--were digitized and now form the MacKinney Collection of Medieval Medical Illustrations.

Further information about MacKinney himself and the processing of the collection is also available online. The collection is keyword searchable and can be browsed in its entirety. A finding aid for the collection is also available online, which describes MacKinney's archives of microfilm and photostats; subject files and research notes; and glass negatives.

Note: The image above is from the MacKinney Collection; it depicts a cesarian delivery and dates from the 14th century, with text in Arabic.

Bullitt Club Lecture on Medieval Medical Education

The next meeting of the Bullitt History of Medicine Club will be Tuesday, November 10, 2009 at the UNC Health Sciences Library in the 5th Floor Conference Room (527). Please join us at 5:30pm for light refreshments followed by the lecture at 6pm. Meetings are free and open to the public.

Dr. Michael McVaugh, Professor Emeritus of History at UNC, will be presenting a lecture entitled, "Arabic into Latin (Or, Why Medical Schools Got Started)."

In medieval Europe medicine was a craft, not a subject that could be studied from books, until the twelfth century, when Latins discovered in Arabic manuscripts this new source for medicine knowledge, translated them into their own language, and made them the basis for a new invention, the medical school, with a set curriculum, examinations, and degrees.

Dr. McVaugh received his education at Harvard (AB, 1960) and Princeton (PhD, 1965). He has been on the UNC-Chapel Hill faculty since 1964 and is presently William Smith Wells Professor of History (Emeritus). His books include Medicine before the Plague: Practitioners and Their Patients in the Crown of Aragon, 1285-1345 (Cambridge, 1993), The Rational Surgery of the Middle Ages (Florence, 2006), and he is a member of the editorial commission for the Arnaldi de Villanova Opera Medica Omnia (12 vols. published since 1975).

For further information about the Bullitt Club, including the schedule for 2009-10 and mp3 recordings of past lectures, please visit the organization's web site.