CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2014
| Author | Soficaru, Iuliana |
|---|---|
| Title | The Medical Work of Paul of Aegina: The Case of Treating Rabies |
| Summary | This aim of this thesis is to analyze the fragment describing rabies in a medical encyclopaedia, Pragmateia, written in the seventh century Alexandria by Paul of Aegina. The importance of this author lies in the fact that he used early medical sources, many of which are extant, and that he was the last influential Greek physician practicing in the Alexandrian milieu. First, the thesis focuses on the different levels of understanding rabies, as reflected indifferent medical sources, from biological entity to communal experience. Following a series of basic key-concepts connected with diseases (symptom, cause, prognosis, and treatment) and using a comparative method with other earlier medical sources some patterns of compiling medical sources in Late Antiquity were highlighted. Second, the character of the disease offered the possibility to consider the broader topic of urban health, were dogs played a major role in the contagion. The topic of health in an urban environment leaded to an expansion of the evidentiary basis, to the veterinary medical sources, normative, and literary. This offered the possibility to emphasize the Late Antique means of controlling the urban environment as to avoid the contact with rabies. The result suggest that addressing rabies in Late Antiquity as a socio-cultural experience rather than a curiosity of the medical field is a method of articulating the links between disease, cultural transmission, authority, and social practice. |
| Supervisor | Csepregi, Ildiko |
| Department | Medieval Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2014/soficaru_iuliana.pdf |
Visit the CEU Library.
© 2007-2021, Central European University