Ancient medical texts, modern reading problems
Mem. Inst. Oswaldo Cruz
;
101(supl.2): 147-150, Dec. 2006.
Article
in English
| LILACS
| ID: lil-441355
ABSTRACT
The word tradition has a very specific meaning in linguistics: the passing down of a text, which may have been completed or corrected by different copyists at different times, when the concept of authorship was not the same as it is today. When reading an ancient text the word tradition must be in the reader's mind. To discuss one of the problems an ancient text poses to its modern readers, this work deals with one of the first printed medical texts in Portuguese, the Regimento proueytoso contra ha pestenença, and draws a parallel between it and two related texts, A moche profitable treatise against the pestilence, and the Recopilaçam das cousas que conuem guardar se no modo de preseruar à Cidade de Lixboa E os sãos, & curar os que esteuerem enfermos de Peste. The problems which arise out of the textual structure of those books show how difficult is to establish a tradition of another type, the medical tradition. The linguistic study of the innumerable medieval plague treatises may throw light on the continuities and on the disruptions of the so-called hippocratic-galenical medical tradition.
Full text:
Available
Index:
LILACS (Americas)
Main subject:
Textbooks as Topic
/
Translating
/
Cultural Characteristics
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Mem. Inst. Oswaldo Cruz
Journal subject:
Tropical Medicine
/
Parasitology
Year:
2006
Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Brazil
Institution/Affiliation country:
Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro/BR
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