In Medicine, Society, and Faith in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds Darrel Amundsen explores the disputed boundaries of medicine and Christianity by focusing on the principle of the sanctity of human life, including the duty to treat or attempt to sustain the life of the ill. As he examines his themes and moves from text to context, Amundsen clarifies a number of Christian principles in relation to bioethical issues that are hotly debated today. In his examination of the moral stance of the earliest syphilographers, for example, he finds insights into the ethical issues surrounding the treatment of AIDS, which he believes has its closest historical antecedent not in plague but in syphilis. He also shows that the belief that all healing comes from God, whether directly, through prayer, or through the use of medicine -- a sentiment commonly held by contemporary Christians -- cannot be accurately attributed to any extant source from the patristic period. Indeed, all the Church Fathers were convinced that healing sometimes came from evil sources: Satan and his demons were able to heal, for example, and Asclepius was a demon "to be taken very seriously indeed."

This book takes a fresh look at the cultural role of medicine among learned people around 1300. It was at this time that learned medicine came to be fully incorporated into the academic system and began to win greater social acceptance. Joseph Ziegler argues that physicians and clerics did not confine the role of medicine to its physical therapeutic function, and that fusion rather than disjunction characterized the relationship between medicine and religion at that time. Much of this argument relies on language analysis and on a close study of unedited manuscript sources. By juxtaposing the spiritual writings and the medical output of two learned physicians — Arnau de Vilanova (c. 1238-1311) and Galvano da Levanto (fl. 1300) — Dr Ziegler shows that they saw a medical purpose, namely to ensure the spiritual health of their audience and to reveal the mysteries of God and creation. When entering the spiritual realm, both brought to it a medical framework and extended their medical knowledge and curative activities from body to soul. By examining preachers' manuals and sermons, the author suggests that a growing tendency emerged among clerics in general and preachers in particular to appropriate current medical knowledge for spiritual purposes and to substantiate their extensive use of medical metaphors, analogies and exempla by citing specific medical authorities.

Medical knowledge and practice changed profoundly during the medieval period. In this collection of over 100 primary sources, many translated for the first time, Faith Wallis reveals the dynamic world of medicine in the Middle Ages that has been largely unavailable to students and scholars. The reader includes 21 illustrations and a glossary of medical terms.

Explores the interplay of medicine and religion in Western societies. Medicine and Religion is the first book to comprehensively examine the relationship between medicine and religion in the Western tradition from ancient times to the modern era. Beginning with the earliest attempts to heal the body and account for the meaning of illness in the ancient Near East, historian Gary B. Ferngren describes how the polytheistic religions of ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome and the monotheistic faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have complemented medicine in the ancient, medieval, and modern periods. Ferngren paints a broad and detailed portrait of how humans throughout the ages have drawn on specific values of diverse religious traditions in caring for the body. Religious perspectives have informed both the treatment of disease and the provision of health care. And, while tensions have sometimes existed, relations between medicine and religion have often been cooperative and mutually beneficial. Religious beliefs provided a framework for explaining disease and suffering that was larger than medicine alone could offer. These beliefs furnished a theological basis for a compassionate care of the sick that led to the creation of the hospital and a long tradition of charitable medicine. Praise for Medicine and Health Care in Early Christianity, by Gary B. Ferngren "This fine work looks forward as well as backward; it invites fuller reflection of the many senses in which medicine and religion intersect and merits wide readership."—JAMA "An important book, for students of Christian theology who understand health and healing to be topics of theological interest, and for health care practitioners who seek a historical perspective on the development of the ethos of their vocation."—Journal of Religion and Health

Offering expert, comprehensive guidance on the basic science, diagnosis, and treatment of acute musculoskeletal injuries and post-traumatic reconstructive problems, Skeletal Trauma, 6th Edition, brings you fully up to date with current approaches in this challenging specialty. This revised edition is designed to meet the needs of orthopaedic surgeons, residents, fellows, and traumatologists, as well as emergency physicians who treat patients with musculoskeletal trauma. International thought leaders incorporate the latest peer-reviewed literature, technological advances, and practical advice with the goal of optimizing patient outcomes for the full range of traumatic musculoskeletal injuries. - Offers complete coverage of relevant anatomy and biomechanics, mechanisms of injury, diagnostic approaches, treatment options, and associated complications. - Includes eight new chapters dedicated to advances in technology and addressing key problems and procedures, such as Initial Evaluation of the Spine in Trauma Patients, Management of Perioperative Pain Associated with Trauma and Surgery, Chronic Pain Management (fully addressing the opioid epidemic), Understanding and Treating Chronic Osteomyelitis, and more. - Features a complimentary one-year subscription to OrthoEvidence, a global online platform that provides high-quality, peer-reviewed and timely orthopaedic evidence-based summaries of the latest and most relevant literature. Contains unique, critical information on mass casualty incidents and war injuries, with contributions from active duty military surgeons and physicians in collaboration with civilian authors to address injuries caused by road traffic, armed conflict, civil wars, and insurgencies throughout the world. - Features important call out boxes summarizing key points, pearls and pitfalls, and outcomes. - Provides access to nearly 130 instructional videos that demonstrate principles of care and outline detailed surgical procedures. - Contains a wealth of high-quality illustrations, full-color photographs, and diagnostic images. - Enhanced eBook version included with purchase. Your enhanced eBook allows you to access all of the text, figures, and references from the book on a variety of devices.

This book offers an introduction to the history of university-trained physicians from the middle ages to the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. These were the elite, in reputation and rewards, and they were successful. Yet we can form little idea of their clinical effectiveness, and to modern eyes their theory and practice often seems bizarre. But the historical evidence is that they were judged on other criteria, and the argument of this book is that these physicians helped to construct the expectations of society--and met them accordingly.

In this book Paul Carrick charts the ancient Greek and Roman foundations of Western medical ethics. Surveying 1500 years of pre-Christian medical moral history, Carrick applies insights from ancient medical ethics to developments in contemporary medicine such as advance directives, gene therapy, physician-assisted suicide, abortion, and surrogate motherhood. He discusses such timeless issues as the social status of the physician; attitudes toward dying and death; and the relationship of medicine to philosophy, religion, and popular morality. Opinions of a wide range of ancient thinkers are consulted, including physicians, poets, philosophers, and patients. He also explores the puzzling question of Hippocrates' identity, analyzing not only the Hippocratic Oath but also the Father of Medicine's lesser-known works. Complete with chapter discussion questions, illustrations, a map, and appendices of ethical codes, Medical Ethics in the Ancient World will be useful in courses on the medical humanities, ancient philosophy, bioethics, comparative cultures, and the history of medicine. Accessible to both professionals and to those with little background in medical philosophy or ancient science, Carrick's book demonstrates that in the ancient world, as in our own postmodern age, physicians, philosophers, and patients embraced a diverse array of perspectives on the most fundamental questions of life and death.