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Complex and Lasting Theories
Human Nature and Gender
The Ancient Medical Opinions
• In medical history stereotypes of the past abound, most of which are
designed to enhance the image of modern medicine.
• While there can be no denial that medicine has improved, from the
standpoint of longevity and quality of life, we should avoid seeing
views of the past as “simplistic” or “primitive.”
• Shallow generalizations such as “People back then thought
_________” are inherently flawed: the past is no less complex than
the present, different theories competed for dominance based on
evidence and effectiveness.
• Then, as now, answers were sought that could make sense out of
observable phenomena.
• When it comes to assumptions about gender we haven’ t given-up
nearly as much of the “old ways” of thinking as we would often like
to believe.
It’s afrom
Greek
Thing
• All medical opinion,
Greco-Roman
Antiquity through
the Renaissance was developed out of Greek Medical
theory.
• For all Greek medicine, regardless of the differences of
opinion, HEALTH=BALANCE.
• Someone who is healthy has a “well-balanced” body and
life, and illness is equated with extremes and excesses.
• Not all people have the same “ideal balance.” The key to
Greek medicine is keeping each individual at his or her
personal ideal.
The Ancient
Cosmos.
(Cosmos=
Greek for
“order,” as
in the
arrangement
of all things.)
The Setting
The Aristotelian Cosmos
Four Elements of Empedocles:
Fire
hot, dry
hot
dry
hot, wet
Air
qualities
cold, dry
Earth
wet
cold
Water
(The Fifth, again,
was Aether , the
material component
of the perfect celestial
spheres: the “ Quintessence.”)
cold, wet
1
Aristotle’s
Hierarchy
The Earliest Texts: The Hippocratic Corpus
Human Males
Human Females
“Rational Soul” -- complete
self-awareness, reason, able to
think in the abstract.
Blooded
creatures
Other furry animals
“Sensitive Soul” -- accounts for sensation and
movement..
Feathered, egg laying animals
Unfeathered,, non-furry animals
Fish
Insects, mollucs, etc.
“Nutritive Soul” -- able to obtain nourishment, grow, and
reproduce.
Plants
UnBlooded
creatures
Rocks, inert matter, etc.
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Hippocrates (c. 460-377 b.c.e.), and the Hippocratic Corpus:
A collection of texts on medical practice.
Hippocrates was the primary figure in a “school.” (The writings are those of
the physicians in the “school.”)
• Central to all is the concept of “balance” as a key to health: hot and cold, wet
and dry tendencies must be balanced in the body.
• Different people are different in their constitution aor proper “balance” but not
in a hierarchical way.
• Female identity and health was associated with the womb, from which it was
assumed that all specifically feminine ailments had their cause, a weak point in
female health, as it always tended toward imbalances.
• Note: “Hysteria:” a disorder of the “hyster” -- Greek for womb.
• “Pangenesis” men and women were regarded as contributing equally to the
production of children. Each was assumed to contribute a “seed” drawn from
all the different parts of the body. (This explained children resembling their
parents.)
∴ A certain equality was implied between female and male, but also a sense that,
because the woman possessed different anatomy, women needed to be treated
according to separate methods.
Applying elements to
People: The work of
Aristotle.
Aristotle (384-322 b.c.e.) and Galen (130-200 c.e.):
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Aristotle was a philosopher, or theorist, rather than a
physician.
wove the concept of “four elements” together with another
theory, that of bodily fluids or “humors” for explaining the
human constitution.
This was based on the “man as microcosm” idea (of Plato
and others.)
Health is a matter of proper humoral balance.
Gender differences, as well as differences in complexion
and temperament, and changes brought by age, can be
explained according the “humoral theory.”
There is a clear hierarchy in Aristotle: Hot is better than
Cold.
Galen was a Greek physician and anatomist some four
centuries after Aristotle.
Galen combined Aristotle’s theory of humors with his own
dissections and observations to develop a model for the
“humoral” practice of medicine.
Aristotle and Galen come down through the medieval
period and the Renaissance as the “big names” in the field.
Some factors influencing humors
in individuals:
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The humoral balance of parents
Age (the natural life cycle)
Diet
Behavior
Involuntary experiences
Astral/Celestial influence
Emblems and Talismans
(particularly in the Renaissance)
Yellow
Bile: Hot, Dry
Fall
Choleric
Four Humours:
& Dispositions
Blood: Hot, Wet
Summer
Black
Bile: Cold, Dry,
Winter
Sanguine
melancholy
Phlegm: Cold, Wet
Spring
Phlegmatic
The Greek physician
Galen refined this
theory for actual
medical practice.
Aristotle and Galen on Male and
Female Issues:
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Humorally, the woman was a deformed man: As the child was being formed in
conception, or in the womb, the balance of humors had not produced enough
heat to result in a male.
One “problem” could have been the conditions of conception, including
position of the parents, astral influence, and weather.
It was also believed that the womb had left and right compartments, even as
there were left and right testes, and that the right was always inherently
warmer than the left. In the production of a female, the baby developed on the
left side, where there was insufficient heat to “cook” the coagulated seed into a
male.
The woman appears as an imperfect man: necessary for reproduction, but in a
perfect world, with no change, such a distinction would be unneccessary.
Aristotle believed that there was only one “seed” for making babies -- it came
from the man and was deposited in the woman for development.
Galen contended that there were two “seeds” one contributed by each parent.
Aristotle’s view on seed dominated in the Renaissance, and into the nineteenth
century.
2
A Second Opinion: Soranus
•
Soranus was a Greek physician writing in Alexandria in the second century,
c.e., thus, a rough contemporary of Galen.
• In a book on Gynecology Soranus presented male and female as
complementary in their composition, rather than one superior to the other.
• “Balance” for Soranus was complex -- it meant the balance of the “pores” in
the body between “tension” and “laxity.” An imbalance one direction meant
an overproduction of bodily humors. An imbalance the other direction meant
an overexpulsion of humors.
∴ Health means that the body, being well-regulated, will expel as little as possible,
and the body will run at optimum “efficiency.”
• Sex and pregnancy were regarded by Soranus as imbalances. Necessary in
young men and women for reproduction, but harmful to the body.
• The ideal state was virginity. If not popular among the younger generation it
was still a goal: ideally one would develop a properly balanced and regulated
lifestyle. This would happen in old age if it was not achieved sooner.
• Such thinking was a common position in Alexandrian philosophy -- It was also
held by the Christian Church Father Clement of Alexandria, and had an
influence on early monasticism which developed in, and around, Alexandria.
Stages of Transmission in the West:
A sifting
process:
Popularization:
Those elements
are translated into
Latin which are most
useful at a popular
level.
Preservation or
“Cultural Triage”:
with the Barbarian
Medically, this meant
invasions and the
fall of Rome, many primarily drug recipes and
books were destroyed. prescriptions.
Medical experts,
Such as Galen and
Soranus, still use
Greek.
The most important
ideas, as determined
by Christian
monastics were
gathered in
collections.
The Renaissance Triumph of Aristotelian
Medicine
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Aristotle and Galen were recovered in stages: the first was in the medieval period,
the second was with the widespread recovery of Greek texts (and the Greek
language) in the Renaissance.
What these texts offered was a sophisticated and coherent theory of the body and
health. It was the only truly comprehensive and coherent theory available.
Though some Galenic ideas would be challenged in the Scientific Revolution, as
with all scientific theories, there was no reason to challenge the Aristotelian/Galenic
system except where it was clearly inadequate.
Overall, the explanatory power of Aristotle/Galen was tremendous. In addition to
accounting for differences we discussed earlier, Humoral theory had logical answers
for other questions, such as:
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What causes a lack of male heirs, and how may it be corrected?
What are the causes and cures of infertility?
How hermaprhodites be explained if mankind is normally male or female?
How can homosexuality be explained?
Why does celibacy seem to be more of a conquest than maintaining a “perfect balance?”
The Two Routes of Greek Medicine
to the Renaissance Period:
Greece
“Popularization
and
Preservation”
(David C. Lindberg)
Transmission
and
Development
via
Byzantium and Islam
Western Eastern
The Medieval Period:
• Monastics in the West, such as Hildegard of Bingen, developed
medical theory based on their own assumptions and observations,
lacking the proper “authoritative texts.”
• The ancient texts were preserved in the East, by Eastern Christians
and Moslems, who retained the ability to read and speak Greek.
• Beginning in the eleventh and twelfth centuries the Greek texts
began to be recovered. The assumption was that now that the
originals were being recovered better medicine was on the way.
• Soranus was recovered by a monastic named Constantine the
African, and his work contributed to the medical curriculum at the
newly founded medical university at Salerno.
• Aristotle and Galen were also recovered, along with Arabic
commentaries. These had a widespread influence on all aspects of
education at the universities, as we have seen in the writings of
Aquinas.
Questions to guide your reading:
• In Margaret King:
1. How would you characterize/summarize the role of
women in the Renaissance family?
2. What points in the reading did you find particularly
interesting or informative?
3. Is there anything which seems contradictory?
4. How does she support her points?
• In the Gadol reading:
1. What is her point or thesis?
2. How does she support her claims?
3
The Medieval Period:
Monastics in the West, such as Hildegard of Bingen, developed medical theory based on their
own assumptions and observations, lacking the proper “authoritative texts.”
The ancient texts were preserved in the East, by Eastern Christians and Moslems, who retained
the ability to read and speak Greek.
Beginning in the eleventh and twelfth centuries the Greek texts began to be recovered. The
assumption was that now that the originals were being recovered better medicine was on the way.
Soranus was recovered by a monastic named Constantine the African, and his work contributed
to the medical curriculum at the newly founded medical university at Salerno.
Aristotle and Galen were also recovered, along with Arabic commentaries. These had a
widespread influence on all aspects of education at the universities, as we have seen in the
writings of Aquinas.
The Renaissance Triumph of Aristotelian Medicine
Aristotle and Galen were recovered in stages: the first was in the medieval period, the second
was with the widespread recovery of Greek texts (and the Greek language) in the Renaissance.
What these texts offered was a sophisticated and coherent theory of the body and health. It was
the only truly comprehensive and coherent theory available.
Though some Galenic ideas would be challenged in the Scientific Revolution, as with all scientific
theories, there was no reason to challenge the Aristotelian/Galenic system except where it was
clearly inadequate.
Overall, the explanatory power of Aristotle/Galen was tremendous. In addition to accounting for
differences we discussed earlier, Humoral theory had logical answers for other questions, such as:
What causes a lack of male heirs, and how may it be corrected?
What are the causes and cures of infertility?
How hermaprhodites be explained if mankind is normally male or female?
How can homosexuality be explained?
Why does celibacy seem to be more of a conquest than maintaining a “perfect balance?”
Questions to guide your reading:
In Margaret King:
How would you characterize/summarize the role of women in the Renaissance family?
What points in the reading did you find particularly interesting or informative?
Is there anything which seems contradictory?
How does she support her points?
In the Gadol reading:
What is her point or thesis?
How does she support her claims?