A Comparative Framework for Studying the Histories of the Humanities and Science.

While the humanities and the sciences have a closely connected history, there are no general histories that bring the two fields together on an equal footing. This paper argues that there is a level at which some humanistic and scientific disciplines can be brought under a common denominator and compared. This is at the level of underlying methods, especially at the level of formalisms and rule systems used by different disciplines. The essay formally compares linguistics and computer science by noting that the same grammar formalism was used in the 1950s for describing both human and. programming languages. Additionally, it examines the influence of philology on molecular biology, and vice versa, by recognizing that the tree-formalism and rule system used for text reconstruction was also employed in DNA genetics. It also shows that rule systems for source criticism in history are used in forensic science, evidence-based medicine, and jurisprudence. This paper thus opens up a new comparative approach within which the histories of the humanities and the sciences can be examined on a common level.

[The Problemata by Cassius Iatrosophist: problems of dating and new discoveries]. / I Problemi di Cassio Iatrosofista: difficoltà di datazione e scoperte preziose.

Nothing is known about Cassius Iatrophist, author of a collection of Problemata, which is medical oriented but has often affinities with the analogous texts of Pseudo-Aristoteles and Pseudo-Alexander of Aphrodisia. This is a provisory survey of the elements for a possible datation: as the surname of the author suggests a late compilation, the content of some problems has very high value and reveals surprisingly a close connection between ancient medicine and philology.

"Must not their languages be savage and barbarous like them?" Philology, Indian removal, and race science.

This article highlights the federal government's role as a collector and arbiter of scientific knowledge of "the Indian," in projects directed by Lewis Cass, Albert Gallatin, and Henry R. Schoolcraft; examines the linguistic precursor to biological essentialism; demonstrates white philologists' reliance on Native tutors, some of whom also entered scientific and policy debates; and suggests why the federal government began moving toward English-only instruction even as biological notions of race gained ascendance. During the removal debates, Indian languages focused the attention of men of letters, statesmen, and the broader public. Peter S. Du Ponceau and Cass argued over the grammatical character of the "American languages," with the former praising them and the latter attacking those tongues and the "philanthropic" philology. At stake was the future of Indian affairs and inquirers explored Native languages for evidence of Indians' intellectual and moral capacity to be assimilated into U.S. society. In denying that language corresponded to social condition, Du Ponceau suggested that all Indians spoke according to a uniform, unchanging, and unique "plan of ideas." He and other participants in the debate, such as Wilhelm von Humboldt and Schoolcraft, began to define, linguistically, a distinct and fixed "Indian mind." Scholars of the early republic and antebellum era who wish to study scientific definitions of race must come to terms with linguistic ideas, which requires confronting the intercultural encounters, intellectual exchanges, and institutions through which they emerged.

Protomedicato y farmacia en Castilla a finales del siglo XVI: Edición crítica del catálogo de las cosas de los boticarios han de tener en sus boticas, de Andrés Zamudio de Alfaro, Protomédico General (1592-1599) / Protomedicato and pharmacy in Castile at the end of the sixteenth century: catálogo de las cosas de los boticarios han de tener en sus boticas (Catalogue of the things that apothecaries must have in their shops), by Andrés Zamudio de Alfaro, Protomédico General (1592-1599)

En este trabajo presentamos un catálogo de productos medicinales conservado en copia manuscritaentre los papeles de un droguero, que falleció en Madrid en 1599. Este catálogo, cuyo títuloexpresa su carácter normativo, contiene 423 entradas y está suscrito por Andrés Zamudio de Alfaro,Protomédico general de Castilla desde 1592 hasta su muerte en 1599. Cabe suponer que fue emitidopor el Real Tribunal del Protomedicato durante la última década del siglo XVI para el uso de losprotomédicos y examinadores que llevasen a cabo las visitas oficiales de boticas realizadas bajo losauspicios del Tribunal, de acuerdo con las pragmáticas de 1588 y 1593, distribuyéndose igualmenteentre los propios boticarios y sus proveedores, como el droguero que poseía la copia aquí editada.El documento nos ofrece un valioso testimonio de la política de normalización de las prácticasmédicas, y concretamente farmacéuticas, impuesta durante este período por el Estado a través delProtomedicato(AU)

In this article we present a catalogue of medicinal products preserved in a manuscript copyamong the papers of a druggist who died in Madrid in 1599. This catalogue, whose title expressesits normative character, contains 423 entries and is signed by Andrés Zamudio de Alfaro, ProtomédicoGeneral of Castile from 1592 until his death in 1599. It was presumably issued by theReal Tribunal del Protomedicato during the last decade of the sixteenth century for the use of theprotomédicos and examiners who carried out official visits to apothecaries under the aegis of theTribunal, in accordance with the royal decrees of 1588 and 1593, and was also distributed amongthe apothecaries themselves and their suppliers, such as the druggist who possessed the copy editedhere. The document offers valuable evidence of the policy of normalization of medical, and specificallypharmaceutical, practice imposed during this period by the State through the Protomedicato(AU)

Textual therapy on the relationship between medicine and grammar in Galen.

In this paper we will explore some ancient ideas about the relationship of grammar and medicine. There are two grounds for expecting that the great doctor-philologist Galen would talk of (deficient) texts in terms of patients to be healed. One is the ancient grammatical tradition classifying medicine and grammar as sister disciplines. The other is the extensive tradition of using biological and medical metaphors for language and texts. However, it will turn out that medical overtones are significantly absent from Galen's rhetoric about philology and from his own linguistic metalanguage. Instead of comparing the remedying and corrective activities of the doctor and the textual critic, he connects medicine (and to some extent texts) with weaving and architecture. In fact, this corresponds to his own, alternative classification of the sciences. We seek an explanation for this state of affairs in Galen's general anxiety to be taken for a philologist or grammarian rather than a serious doctor. This may have led to a refusal to dignify grammar by applying medical terminology to it. However, the aversion he claims for the grammarian can be shown to be mostly a rhetorical posturing, since Galen does talk about medical and grammatical practice in similar and revealing terms: curing a patient and fixing a text require moral courage, and this sets these activities apart from morally irrelevant ones such as house-repair and clothes-mending.

Madness in the Old Norse society. Narratives and ideas.

The principal sources on illness in historic periods can be divided into "intrinsic" medical practice, further ideas and conceptions about disease. Legal texts, in the form of laws and verdicts, represent interesting cues. Popular and folklore traditions comprise important and challenging sources, and not least, fictional literature from Homer to the present day gives us important information about the practice, ideas and social implications of psychiatric disorders. In the Viking Age (800-1030 a.d.) and the Middle Ages (1030-1500 a.d.) in Northern Europe, the main available information stems from fictional literature - more precisely the sagas, written predominantly in Iceland during the 13th century: Above all, the Kings' sagas of Snorri Sturlusson and the Icelandic family sagas give short remarks and anecdotes as well as more extensive and perspicuous narratives. On the whole, these "reports" reveal an almost "clinical" descriptive and rationalistic ideal, giving insight into attitudes and reactions to psychiatric illness. Considered according to present day's categorization, the described psychopathological spectrum covers three main areas: 1) affective disorders caused by loss and mourning (sometimes with psychotic symptoms); 2) acute ("reactive") psychoses; 3) dissociative disorders (berserkr). Oligophrenia (or pervasive developmental disorders) as well as bipolar syndromes might be suspected from a few accounts. Some vague notions on aetiology of psychiatric ills are reflected in these texts, for example on the role of heredity. Some kind of basic understanding of the importance of psychological loss prevails in the frequent descriptions of depressive reactions. Overall, the accounts seem largely non-theoretical, uninfluenced by contemporary medical theories.

[German translation of the syphilis poem by Girolamo Fracastoro by the Essling wound physician Ernst Philipp Heinrich Späth (1809-1856). An unpublished hanwritten document of Dresden historical collection]. / Die deutsche Ubersetzung des Syphilisgedichtes von Girolamo Fracastoro durch den Esslinger Wundarzt Ernst Philipp Heinrich Späth (1809-1856). Ein unveröffentlichtes Dokument in einem Dresdener handschriftlichen Nachlass.

In 1840 the Dresden physician and professor at the Chirurgisch-medicinischen Akademie Johann Ludwig Choulant (1791-1861)--at that time one of the most well-known experts in history of medicine--received a German translation of the Fracastoro syphilis poem. This philological piece goes back to the physician and surgeon Ernst Philipp Heinrich Späth (1809-1856) who had already worked on the poem of Girolamo Fracastoro (1478-1553) and its translation in the 1830s. Späth referred to the 1830 Latin publication of Choulant's syphilis poem--which he later used as the literary basis for his adaptation. Späth had acquired his knowledge of philology at a theology seminar in Urach and during his theology studies inTübingen. However, he quit his theology studies to switch to medicine. In 1832 he took the state examination and received a doctorate of medicine and surgery. In the very same year he established a practice as general practitioner, surgeon and obstetrician in Esslingen to eventually be appointed chief surgeon at the Esslingen hospital. Besides his work as a physician Späth was also a publisher, e.g. he also became the editor of the first local Esslingen newspaper. Späth's translation, apparently finished almost completely already in 1837, was sent to Choulant to ask his opinion in 1840. This version seems to be not only one of the rarest but also earliest German adaptations. Although hardly any other medical poem was so often translated into modern languages as Fracastoro's "Syphilidis sive morbi gallici libri III", there are only three German publications mentioned in a 1935 bibliography with the first complete German translation being published in 1858. Späth's script, however, has never been published and has remained in the handwritten estate of Choulant in Dresden ever since.

Thomas Bowdler: censor, philanthropist, and doctor.

A recent biography of the physician William Osler credits him with having generated a verb, to "oslerize", as a synonym for euthanasia. Actually, Osler had been mocking his own impending senescent uselessness at the time of his move from Baltimore to Oxford. That neologism did not last. Two earlier doctors who did make it to the dictionaries in a verbally eponymous way were F A Mesmer and Thomas Bowdler, and Bowdler, at least, would not have liked the recognition. The first use of the verb to "bowdlerise" seems to have been in 1836, with a reference to "names in the writings of the apostles which modern ultrachristians would probably have Bowdlerized". However, Bowdler is better remembered for his cleaning up of the plays of Shakespeare.

Vernacularisation of medical writing in English: a corpus-based study of scholasticism.

This article proposes a model for linguistic analysis of scientific thought-styles, combining quantitative and qualitative analyses in the variationist frame and focusing on writings of the scholastic period. The first part of the article considers factors that led to the vernacularisation of scientific writings in fifteenth-century England and the sources, underlying traditions and audiences of these writings. The empirical part focuses on two features typical of scholasticism: references to authorities and the use of prescriptive phrases. The results show statistical differences between varieties of writing. A close semantic analysis reveals a pattern which is related to the underlying layers of tradition and to the sociohistorical background of the texts. The material comes from a computer-readable Corpus of Early English Medical Writing 1375-1750, which the authors are compiling at the University of Helsinki.