Yi-Li Wu It’s hard to set a compound fracture when the patient is in so much pain that he won’t let you touch him. For such situations, the Chinese doctor Wei Yilin (1277-1347) recommended giving the patient a dose of “numbing medicine” (ma yao). This would make him “fall into a stupor,” after which the … Continue reading Pain, poison, and surgery in fourteenth-century China→
By Isabella Bonati Amongst the many objects depicted in the “unswept floor” mosaic by Heraclitus (II cent. CE) there is a drug container (unguentarium) with a narrow, probably folded, papyrus tag suspended from its neck. This tag likely offered the identification of the content, possibly an ointment or some aromata, stored into the unguentarium. This … Continue reading From the dry sands of Egypt… Greek medicine labels on papyrus→
By Jennifer Sherman Roberts There’s a beautiful moment in Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem “Gate A-4” in which travelers from all over the world come together—despite differences in language, experience, and culture–to commune over apple juice and cookies after helping a fellow passenger: She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool … Continue reading Stone Soup: A new project about recipes and community→
By Cynthia D. Bertelsen Building on my last post on picturing New World foods in Thomas Hariot’s A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia, I now turn to the textual descriptions of those foods. After listing a number of food items and comparing them to similar English ingredients, Hariot commented … Continue reading Describing Seething Meat in the New World→