This book presents the first ever English translation of the Medicina Plinii, one of the most influential books of applied medicine and self-medication in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The work, which predates AD 400, was created as a quick reference work for travellers, and became and remained highly influential, as witnessed by frequent references to it and by various later adaptations. Only the rise of scientific medicine and pharmacology led to its demise and confinement in a small corner of specialist studies. It presents more than 1,150 healing methods and recipes mainly adapted from the encyclopedic Natural History of Pliny the Elder, arranged from the patient’s head to foot in order that readers could quickly find treatments for their diseases. The Medicina Plinii is of dual interest to present-day scholarship: The book is a monument for the practical application of classical knowledge which has recently found lively interest in the history of science and medicine. At the same time the Medicina Plinii provides a fascinating insight into the realities of the world of Late Antiquity, and into the anxieties of the people living in the vast Roman empire. This book will be of particular interest to scholars and advanced students in the History of Science and Medicine, along with a wider audience interested in medicine, and in life in the Roman world.

Presented with facing Latin text, this is the first English translation and an up-to-date commentary of the Medicina Plinii, a late antique book on self-medication for travellers, adapted from Pliny's Natural History,which became one of the most influential books of applied medicine and self-medication in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. It is of dual interest to present-day scholarship: it is a monument for the practical application of classical knowledge which has recently found lively interest in the history of science and medicine. It also provides a fascinating insight into the realities of the world of late antiquity, and into the anxieties of the people living in the vast Roman empire.

The first book to study Old English medical texts.

Adopts a pan-Mediterranean approach to the study of medieval medicine and pharmacology, which permits a deeper understanding of broader phenomena such as the transfer of scientific knowledge and cultural exchange. Of great importance to medical historians, medieval historians and scholars of Byzantine, Islamicate, Jewish, and Latin traditions.

This history of Latin literature offers a comprehensive survey of the 1000 year period from the origins of Latin as a written language to the early Middle Ages. It offers a wide-ranging panorama of all major Latin authors.

Carolingian Medical Knowledge and Practice explores the practicality and applicability of the medical recipes recorded in early medieval manuscripts. It takes an original, dual approach to these overlooked and understudied texts by not only analysing their practical usability, but by also re-evaluating these writings in the light of osteological evidence. Could those individuals with access to the manuscripts have used them in the context of therapy? And would they have wanted to do so? In asking these questions, this book unpacks longstanding assumptions about the intended purposes of medical texts, offering a new perspective on the relationship between medical knowledge and practice.

Winner of the Best First Monograph from the International Society for the Study of Early Medieval England (ISSEME) 2021. An examination of the Old English medical collections, arguing that these texts are products of a learned intellectual culture.