TY - BOOK ID - 86341618 TI - Innovation in Byzantine medicine : the writings of John Zacharias Aktouarios (c.1275-c.1330) PY - 2020 SN - 9780198850687 0198850689 9780191885631 9780192591081 0191885630 019259107X 0192591088 PB - Oxford : Oxford University Press, DB - UniCat KW - Medicine, Medieval KW - Medicine, Medieval. KW - History of Medicine. KW - Medizin. KW - Erfindung. KW - Actuarius, Joannes KW - Byzantine Empire. KW - Byzanz. KW - Humoralism KW - History, Medieval KW - History of Medicine, Medieval KW - History of Medicine, Renaissance KW - Medicine, Medieval History KW - Medicine, Renaissance KW - Medieval History (Medicine) KW - Renaissance Medicine KW - Medieval History KW - Histories, Medieval (Medicine) KW - History Medicine, Medieval KW - History, Medieval (Medicine) KW - Medieval Histories (Medicine) KW - Medieval History Medicine KW - Medieval medicine KW - Byzantium. KW - Byzantine Empire KW - Medicine, Medieval - Byzantine Empire KW - History of Medicine UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:86341618 AB - Byzantine medicine remains a little known and misrepresented field not only in the context of debates on medieval medicine, but also among Byzantinists themselves. It is often viewed as 'stagnant' and mainly preserving ancient ideas, and our knowledge of it continues to be based to a great extent on the comments of earlier authorities, which are often repeated uncritically. 0This volume presents the first comprehensive examination of the medical corpus of, arguably, the most important Late Byzantine physician: John Zacharias Aktouarios (c.1275-c.1330). Its main thesis is that John's medical works show an astonishing degree of openness to knowledge from outside Byzantium combined with a significant degree of originality, in particular, in the fields of uroscopy and human physiology. The analysis of John's edited (On Urines and On Psychic Pneuma) and unedited (Medical Epitome) treatises is supported for the first time by the consultation of a large number of manuscripts, and is also informed by evidence from a wide range of medical sources, including those previously unpublished, and texts from other genres, such as epistolography and merchants' accounts. The contextualization of John's corpus sheds new light on the development of Byzantine medical thought and practice, and enhances our understanding of the Late Byzantine social and intellectual landscape. Through examination of his medical observations in the light of examples from the medieval Latin and Islamic worlds, his theories are also placed within the wider Mediterranean milieu, highlighting the cultural exchange between Byzantium and its neighbours. ER -