Knowledge about the existence of hormones was relatively new in the early 1900’s, but scientists were extremely interested in these self-manufactured chemicals that arouse or depress us, that make us grow or sleep or have sex, etc etc etc . . . This early stage of endrocronology was a sort of Wild West, and earnest […]
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Ada Lovelace (d. 1852) lived a supremely Victorian aristocratic life: multiple estates, famous friends, and noble title? :check. Tragic illnesses that caused her to be bedridden and/or die young? : check. Relatives concerned with her propriety despite having an adventurous and spirited personality? : also, check. Called “The Enchantress of Number” by her friend and
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Here is Nero, being a jerk watching his mom Agrippina get dissected. He killed her as well, making him a double-jerk. But what might be surprising about this Medieval scene is that the actual dissection of cadavers was an okay and not-considered-jerk behavior – in the right circumstances, of course. For a long period, historians
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Here is an illustration of a human’s digestive system, as imagined by one Guido de Vigevano in 1345 CE. There’s a lot he got right here — esophagus, diaphragm, stomach, intestines, and sphincter. But there’s obviously also a lot of missing details, and so it’s not surprising that 14th-century ideas about digestion were similarly faulty.
Guido de Vigevano’s Illustrated Human Digestive System Read More »
In the Central Middle Ages (c.1050-1350), the big-boss philosophers were the scholastics, and this guy here was one of the biggest. May I introduce to you the Franciscan friar and famed developer of epistemology (the philosophy of how we know things), William of Ockham. He lived from 1285 to 1347 and settled in many different
William of Ockham and “Ockham’s Razor” Read More »
Ossuaries, or containers where the bones of the dead are placed, are not unusual for many places in Europe, where burial ground space can be at a premium. But the archaeology site recently excavated at the Cathedral of Saint Bavo, in the Belgian city of Ghent, is one-of-a-kind. Nine walls have been uncovered that are
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When the Bubonic Plague hit Western Europe in 1347, it began a pandemic that killed between a third and a half of the population in only three years. The fear and horror of the sickness was exacerbated because no one knew why it was happening. Without the scientific method, germ theory, or knowledge of the
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When the Bubonic Plague tore through Europe after 1347, the irrational panic of many elites consumed them. Their social rank was no protection from infection and probably they felt more helpless than their less wealthy compatriots because of this. At any rate, the first wave of the plague witnessed horrific violence as many patricians and
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Sometimes in history, behaviors seem to repeat, but closer study shows they can be driven by wildly different impulses. Self-harming in our society today arises from a variety of causes, such as feeling unheard or feeling a sense of self-hatred. But in the Middle Ages, deliberately causing oneself physical pain had a very different origin.
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This is an image of a lesser-known hero of the Early Modern period, the Dutch physician Johann Weyer (1515-1588). In an age of witch-hunts, when many women accused of consorting with the devil were tortured into confessing imaginary crimes, tried in law courts, and executed by burning, Weyer outspokenly wrote that such practices were inhumane,
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In 1353, the Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio completed one of the most important works of fiction in history, _The Decameron_. The book tells the story of ten young aristocrats – seven women and three men – who spend ten days together, passing the time by taking turns telling different stories. The occasion for their gathering
“The Decameron” and Escaping the Bubonic Plague Read More »
The social distancing requirements of today are stressful, but are much less deadly than measures of combating disease in the Middle Ages. Our word “quarantine” comes from the Italian words “quaranta giorni” for forty days, which was a standard length of time that sick and infected people would be shut off from the healthy population.The
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The Ancient Egyptian Goddess Sekhmet has a fascinating double role as both a vengegeful deity of destruction — especially bringing plague — but also a force that was thought to ward off disease. Her name can mean “The Mighty One” but she was also called the “Mistress of Dread.”. A particularly entertaining myth associated with
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What better way to divert our attention from present maladies than an article about Medieval farts? Passing gas had medical and social components, but the documentation on this subject turns out to be ripe in all directions.Holding farts in was considered unhealthy. For instance, the _Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum_ is a 12th-century Latin poem that warns
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This plague doctor mask from the Deutsches Historisches Museum was developed in the 17th century, and the prototype is usually attributed to the French physician Charles de Lorne. It was not worn during the infamous Black Death pandemic of the 14th century, but rather a couple centuries afterward: for instance, during an outbreak in 1656
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This might be a photo that repells at first glance — the hospital ward has long rows of undifferentiated beds, and they are surrounded by brick dehumanizing walls. In the final years of the Second World War, this ward in the hospital of Fatebenefratelli contained men, women, and children who were diagnosed with a disease
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Focus here, if you will, on the weird corn-on-the-cob part of this image. It features something most of us are unlikely to see, but which we all use every day: the pancreas. And it, like everything we encounter, has a history.The pancreas is hidden deep in the cavity of our guts, behind the stomach. It
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You are not looking at a LGBTQ pride rainbow after a drinking binge. Nope, instead this image is an artistic representation of a type of nucleic acid arrangement called a RIBOZYME, and it perhaps is key to understanding some of the earliest history of all: the history of the origins of life.We learned in Middle
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Wait: this looks like a science post, but it is really history! Very long-time ago history, like 160 million years ago. But, due to the science of evolutionary genetics, we know this very old story is of immediate relevance to every human, as well as to a very special virus that made our lives possible.Our
Genomes of Our DNA Read More »
This sculpture by Paul Lancz from 2014 is one of the many public works of art always on display in the city of Montreal. Entitled “La Tendresse/ Tenderness,” it captures a ubiquitous display of affection between mother and child. This physical gesture of a mother kissing her baby has been a hallmark of affection uniting
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