Within late medieval learned medicine, natural death functioned both as a theoretical concept and as a goal for practice. Late medieval commentaries on Avicenna’s Canon are used as source material in this study, in order to investigate the ways in which these learned medical authors envisaged natural death. The findings are compared to descriptions of natural death by natural philosophers, and to ideals of dying in broader medieval culture. According to the physicians, natural death was caused by the extinction of innate heat, due to a lack of innate moisture. They discussed natural death in relation to regimen, as the right regimen protected the body’s heat and moisture, and thus helped a patient to keep natural death aloof. So, in order to think about natural death, the physicians turned to the whole of life, during which heat dried out moisture and regimens ought to be followed. By contrast, natural philosophers tended to focus on the moment of death itself. The comparison of natural death with the Good Death in broad medieval culture highlights the amoral nature of the natural death.
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Danielle Jacquart, “Le Regard d’un médecin sur son temps: Jacques Despars (1380?–1458),” in Bibliothèque de l’École des chartes, 138 (1980), 35–86; Danielle Jacquart, La Médecine médiévale dans le cadre Parisien (Paris, 1998); Ernest Wickersheimer, Dictionnaire biographique des médecins en France au Moyen Âge. Nouvelle édition sous la direction de Guy Beaujouan. Supplément par Danielle Jacquart (Genève, 1979), 326–327; Supplément, 134–135.
L. Minio-Paluello, “Iacobus Veneticus Grecus: Canonist and Translator of Aristotle,” Traditio, 8 (1952), 265–304.
Kouri and Lehtinen, “Disputed Questions,” 365; Dunne, “Thirteenth and Fourteenth-Century Commentaries,” 323.
Dunne, “Thirteenth and Fourteenth-Century Commentaries,” 325. Cf. Lewry, “Study of Aging,” 31. On Albert the Great, see Irven M. Resnick, ed., A Companion to Albert the Great: Theology, Philosophy, and the Sciences (Leiden, 2013).
Dunne, ‘“The Causes of the Length and Brevity of Life,”’ 142; cf. Lewry, “Study of Aging,” 37, note 77.
Dunne, “Thirteenth and Fourteenth-Century Commentaries,” 330. On Peter of Auvergne, see G. Galle, “A Comprehensive Bibliography on Peter of Auvergne,” in Bulletin de philosophie médiévale, 42 (2000), 53–79, with “Supplement” in 47 (2005), 87–96.
Luke E. Demaitre, “The Medical Notion of ‘Withering’ from Galen to the Fourteenth Century: The Treatise on Marasmus by Bernard of Gordon,” Traditio, 34 (1992), 259–307, 275–276; cf. Joutsivuo, Scholastic Tradition and Humanist Innovation, 176. On Bernard of Gordon, see Luke E. Demaitre, Doctor Bernard de Gordon: Professor and Practitioner (Toronto, 1980).
Guy of Amiens, Carmen de Hastingae proelio, 545–550; trans. Frank Barlow (Oxford, 1999).
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Within late medieval learned medicine, natural death functioned both as a theoretical concept and as a goal for practice. Late medieval commentaries on Avicenna’s Canon are used as source material in this study, in order to investigate the ways in which these learned medical authors envisaged natural death. The findings are compared to descriptions of natural death by natural philosophers, and to ideals of dying in broader medieval culture. According to the physicians, natural death was caused by the extinction of innate heat, due to a lack of innate moisture. They discussed natural death in relation to regimen, as the right regimen protected the body’s heat and moisture, and thus helped a patient to keep natural death aloof. So, in order to think about natural death, the physicians turned to the whole of life, during which heat dried out moisture and regimens ought to be followed. By contrast, natural philosophers tended to focus on the moment of death itself. The comparison of natural death with the Good Death in broad medieval culture highlights the amoral nature of the natural death.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 422 | 54 | 10 |
Full Text Views | 211 | 2 | 0 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 54 | 6 | 0 |