Daily Medieval

It was Ignaz Semmelweis in the 1840s in Vienna who noticed a link between illness (and death) and unsanitary conditions, specifically a link...

Speaking of surgery recently, we need to take a look at Theodoric Borgognoni, who pioneered some practices that were ahead of their time. B...

Galen was one of the primary sources of medical expertise in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, often to the neglect of other authors. The...

It started with King Mithridates IV of Pontus (132 - 63 BCE), who was afraid of being poisoned. He wanted to know all about poisons, so he n...

Continuing our discussion about medieval hygeine , let's ask about soap and whence it came. The answer depends on how you define "s...

Scrofula, characterized by swellings on the neck, is caused when someone inhales air contaminated with mycobacterium. The bacteria infect th...

A copy of his work [ source ] ...was a typographical error. The word "acne" does not come from a classical language root; th...

(I apologize if the title—or the topic—is too crude for some.) The poor fellow to the right (the one half showing) is suffering from an an...

In 1527, when the healer and alchemist Paracelsus wanted to display his contempt for tradition, he burned a book in the town square in Basl...

Salerno, located on the lower "shin" of Italy's southwest coast, has been occupied continuously since pre-historic times, freq...

The history of medicine includes many brave and progressive thinkers who were not willing to follow the herd or be content with what was alr...