Ancient and Medieval Sciences (Not Currently Active)

J. Stannard, “Aspects of Byzantine Materia Medica,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers (1984): 205-211

J. Scarborough, “Herbs of the Field and Herbs of the Garden in Byzantine Medicinal Pharmacy,” Byzantine Garden Culture (2002), 177-188

A. Touwaide, “Latin Crusaders, Byzantine Herbals,” Visualizing Medieval Medicine (2006), 25-50

The group discussed three articles:

E. Savage-Smith, “Magic-Medicinal Bowls” in Science, Tools & Magic (1997), pp. 72–105

E. Lev, “Reconstruction of the Inventory of materia medica used by members of the Jewish Community of Medieval Cairo …” in Journal of Ethnopharmacology (2006): 428–444

L. Chipman, “Recipes by Hippocrates, Galen and Hunayn in the Epidemics and in Medieval Arabic Pharmacopoeias” in Epidemics in context (2012), pp. 285–301

The group read three articles on ancient pharmacology:

“Mithradates’ Antidote: A Pharmcological Ghost” by Laurence M. V. Totelin, Early Science and Medicine, Vol. 9, No. 1 (2004), pp. 1-19

“Pharmacology and Toxicology at the Court of Cleopatra VII: Traces of Three Physicians” by John Scarborough, in Arsdall, Anne Van, and Graham, Timothy, eds. Medicine in the Medieval Mediterranean: Herbs and Healers from the Ancient Mediterranean through the Medieval West: Essays in Honor of John M. Riddle, Routledge, 2012.

“A recipe for a headache: Translating and interpreting ancient Greek and Roman remedies” by Laurence M.V. Totelin, in Imhausen, Annette, and Pommerening, Tanja, eds. Beiträge zur Altertumskunde : Writings of Early Scholars in the Ancient Near East, Egypt, Rome, and Greece : Translating Ancient Scientific Texts, De Gruyter, 2011.

The group discussed Peter Dear's "Afterword" for the Palgrave Handbook of Literature and Science and Mary Baine Campbell's chapter on "Literature" from The Cambridge History of Science: Volume 3, Early Modern Science (2006), edited by Katharine Park and Lorraine Daston.

We read the first two chapters from David Wootton's recent book, The Invention of Science, L. Daston’s review (from the Guardian), and A. Wulff’s review (from the Financial Times).

The group discussed Kleber Cecon's "Chemical Translation: The Case of Robert Boyle’s Experiments on Sensible Qualities," Annals of Science, Vol. 68, No. 2, April 2011, pp. 179-198, as well as Pamela Smith's "In the Workshop of History: Making, Writing, and Meaning," West 86th, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Spring-Summer 2012), pp 4-31.

The group joined the "Science Beyond the West" group for a special event: Dimitri Gutas and H. Floris Cohen discussed Cohen’s recent book, How Modern Science Came Into the World: Four Civilizations, One 17th-Century Breakthrough (Amsterdam University Press, 2011).

Planning meeting for 2015-2016

Sue Wells of Temple University introduced her draft chapter, "'The Anatomy of Melancholy' and Early Modern Medicine."

Nahyan Fancy of Depauw University introduced his paper, "Avicenna, Ibn al-Nafis, and New Developments in Physiology in Western Eurasia, 1200-1560"