The Articella is a collection of medical treatises bound together in one volume that was used mainly as a textbook and reference manual between the 13th and the 16th centuries. In
medieval times
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
, several versions of this anthology circulated in manuscript form among medical students. Between 1476 and 1534,
printed editions of the Articella were also published in several
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
an cities.
The collection grew around a synthetic exposition of
classical Greek medicine written in
Baghdad
Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...
by the
physician
A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...
and
polyglot Hunayn bin Ishaq
Hunayn ibn Ishaq al-Ibadi (also Hunain or Hunein) ( ar, أبو زيد حنين بن إسحاق العبادي; (809–873) was an influential Nestorian Christian translator, scholar, physician, and scientist. During the apex of the Islamic A ...
, better known in the West as Ioannitius. His synthesis was in turn based on
Galen
Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus ( el, Κλαύδιος Γαληνός; September 129 – c. AD 216), often Anglicized as Galen () or Galen of Pergamon, was a Greek physician, surgeon and philosopher in the Roman Empire. Considered to be one of ...
's ''Ars Medica'' (''Techne iatrike'') and thus became known in Europe as ''Isagoge Ioannitii ad Tegni Galieni'' (''Hunayn's Introduction to the Art of Galen'').
In the mid-13th century, the emergence of formal medical education in several European universities fueled a demand for comprehensive textbooks. Instructors from the influential
Scuola Medica Salernitana
The Schola Medica Salernitana ( it, Scuola Medica Salernitana) was a Medieval medical school, the first and most important of its kind. Situated on the Tyrrhenian Sea in the south Italian city of Salerno, it was founded in the 9th century and rose ...
popularized the practice of binding other treatises together with their manuscript copies of the Isagoge. These included
Hippocrates
Hippocrates of Kos (; grc-gre, Ἱπποκράτης ὁ Κῷος, Hippokrátēs ho Kôios; ), also known as Hippocrates II, was a Greek physician of the classical period who is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of ...
’ Prognostics as well as his Aphorisms,
Theophilus Protospatharius's De Urinis and De Pulsibus and many other classic works.
See also
*
Medieval medicine of Western Europe
References
* Cornelius O'Boyle. Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Copies of the "Ars Medicine": A Checklist and Contents Descriptions of the Manuscripts. Articella Studies: Texts and Interpretations in Medieval and Renaissance Medical Teaching, no. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, and CSIC Barcelona, Department of History of Science, 1998.
* Jon Arrizabalaga. The "Articella" in the Early Press, c. 1476-1534. Articella Studies: Texts and Interpretations in Medieval and Renaissance Medical Teaching, no. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, and CSIC Barcelona, Department of History of Science, 1998.
* Papers of the Articella Project Meeting, Cambridge, December 1995. Articella Studies: Texts and Interpretations in Medieval and Renaissance Medical Teaching, no. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, and CSIC Barcelona, Department of History of Science, 1998.
External links
Medieval manuscripts - Articella{{authority control
History of medicine
Medical books
Medieval books