Alain Touwaide at History of Science Society 2013 annual meeting

Alain Touwaide (born 19 September 1953 in Brussels-Berchem Sainte Agathe) is a US historian of medicine and sciences of Belgian origin. He taught history of Greek medicine and its tradition, Food history and other topics in the Medical Humanities at the University of California Los Angeles (

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...

), during the academic years 2015-2016 (fall and winter terms), 2016-2017 (winter and spring terms), 2017-2018 (spring term), 2018-2019 (winter term). His education includes first degrees in classics (1975) as well as oriental philology and history (1977) and a PhD in classics (1981), all earned at the University of Louvain. He received his

habilitation à diriger des recherches Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including a ...

at the

University of Toulouse The University of Toulouse (french: Université de Toulouse) was a university in the French city of Toulouse that was established by papal bull in 1229, making it one of the earliest universities to emerge in Europe. Suppressed during the Frenc ...

(1997). He won numerous prizes and grants, among others of the Earth Watch Institute, and has taught at several universities in Spain, Italy, France and Belgium. Touwaide is proficient in several languages. His main research area is medicinal plants of Antiquity, his approach being

transdisciplinary Transdisciplinarity connotes a research strategy that crosses many disciplinary boundaries to create a holistic approach. It applies to research efforts focused on problems that cross the boundaries of two or more disciplines, such as research o ...

, that is, not only philological and historical, but also botanical and medical, ethnological and anthropological, constituting ethnobotany and ethnopharmacology. In 2005, Touwaide received a grant of the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...

for a four-year research project “Medicinal plants of Antiquity: A Computerized Database”. Ancient Greek therapeutical texts were digitized, indexed and analyzed both in the original and in translation. From 2007-2008 he was president of the Washington Academy of Sciences. He has been elected as a Fellow of the International Academy for the History of Pharmacy (1991), the

Linnean Society The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature colle ...

(1997), the Washington Academy of Sciences (2003), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2009), and the

Royal Society of Medicine The Royal Society of Medicine (RSM) is a medical society in the United Kingdom, headquartered in London. History The Society was established in 1805 as Medical and Chirurgical Society of London, meeting in two rooms in barristers’ chamber ...

, UK (2010). He is the co-founder and current scientific director of the Institute for the Preservation of Medical Traditions and has been affiliated with the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

from 2002 through 2016, where he was a historian of science in the botany department of the

National Museum of Natural History The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2021, with 7 ...

. In September 2019, he was awarded the Kremers Award from the American Institute of the History of Pharmacy. He is one of the founders, and the principal investigator of the

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

Chair ''Plantae Medicinales Mediterraneae-Plants for Health in the Mediterranean Traditions'', which was established at the

University of Salerno The University of Salerno ( it, Università degli Studi di Salerno, UNISA) is a university located in Fisciano and in Baronissi, Italy. Its main campus is located in Fisciano while the Faculty of Medicine is located in Baronissi. It is organize ...

, Italy, in 2020.

Selected publications

* Alain Touwaide. ''Greek Medical Manuscripts - Diels' Catalogues'', 5 volumes,

De Gruyter Walter de Gruyter GmbH, known as De Gruyter (), is a German scholarly publishing house specializing in academic literature. History The roots of the company go back to 1749 when Frederick the Great granted the Königliche Realschule in Be ...

, 2020. * Alain Touwaide. ''A Census of Greek Medical Manuscripts. From Byzantium to the Renaissance''.

Routledge Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law ...

, 2016. * ''Tractatus de herbis. Sloane MS 4016.'' Volume of study accompanying the facsimile reproduction of manuscript London,

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

, Sloane 4016. Barcelona: M. Moleiro Editor, 2013. *

Peter Dendle Peter Dendle is a professor of English at Penn State Mont Alto, teaching classes on folklore, 20th and 21st century representations of the Middle Ages, Old and Middle English (language and literature), and the monstrous (in film, folklore, and s ...

& Alain Touwaide & (eds.). ''Health and Healing from the Medieval Garden. Proceedings of the 15th Annual Medieval Studies Conference at The Pennsylvania State University''. Boydell & Brewer, 2008. *Jean A. Givens, Karen M. Reeds & Alain Touwaide (eds). ''Visualizing Medieval Medicine and Natural History, 1200-1500'' (AVISTA Studies in the History of Medieval Technology, Science and Art, volume 5). Ashgate, 2006. *Gianni Aliotta,

Daniele Piomelli Daniele Piomelli is an Italian-born American scientist. He studied neuroscience in New York City, with James H. Schwartz and Eric R. Kandel at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons (PhD, 1983-1988) and later with Paul Greengard at ...

, Antonino Pollio & Alain Touwaide. ''Le piante medicinali del “Corpus Hippocraticum'' (Hippocratica Civitas 5). Guerini Associati, 2003.

References

External links

Institute for the Preservation of Medical Traditions

Full list of publications

UNESCO Chair Salerno - Plants for Health in the Mediterranean Traditions
{{DEFAULTSORT:Touwaide, Alain 1953 births Living people Belgian medical historians Université catholique de Louvain alumni