Pain, poison, and surgery in fourteenth-century China

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

From the dry sands of Egypt… Greek medicine labels on papyrus

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

Stone Soup: A new project about recipes and community

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

Describing Seething Meat in the New World

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