[Definition of the real domain of the history of sciences and exploring the relationship with the philosophy of science]. / Définition du domaine propre de l'histoire des sciences et considérations sur ses rapports avec la philosophie des sciences.

The specific field of the history of science is the study and explanation of the origin and transformation of the structures of scientific knowledge. The historian of science should render understandable the reality of scientific research. The relationships between the history of science and the philosophy of science are examined stating that (1) the philosophical theories on the development of science have a scientific content only as much as they may be compared with the results of the history of science, and (2) the philosophy of science does not refer to an immediate historical reality but to an intellectual reconstruction of the past.

[The De fibra motrice et morbosa]. / IL de fibra motrice et morbosa di Giorgio Baglivi.

Baglivi published in Perugia, for the first time in 1700, his reflections about the fibers as fundamental parts of the living organisms. The text, conceived as a letter to Alessandro Pascoli, underlines the role of the cerebral membrane in physiological and pathlogical phenomena. The Specimen quatuor librorum de fibra motrice et morbosa has been printed in 1702 as an answer to the book of A. Pacchioni De durae matris fabrica et usu. Living fibres are the fundamental structural elements making up the human body and the living organisms, seats of the vital functions and main causes of diseases. In formulating the living fibers theory, Baglivi places himself as a first bridge between classical medicine and the reductionist method of natural sciences.

[The decline and emergence of diseases]. / Déclin et émergence des maladies.

Presenting the various approaches that have so far been employed in the historical study of diseases, the author analyzes their characteristics, points to their limitations, and emphasizes their complementarity. In most cases historians restrict themselves to studying diseases separately, one by one, failing to bring to light reciprocal influences. After defining the concept of pathocenosis, the author examines some of the diseases prevalent in the pathocenoses of former days. He also describes the historical path taken in the conceptualization of diseases.

[The Zagreb Etruscan ceremonial fragment and an ancient Egyptian medical papyrus]. / Zagrebacki etruscanski obrednik i staroegipatski medicinski papirus.

The Archeological museum in Zagreb treasures the linen strips of an Egyptian mummy with inscriptions in Etruscan, and an Egyptian medical papyrus. The Etruscan text has been deciphered, but only a small part has been translated. This religious-magical ceremonial might be in relation with theurgical measures for health protection, promotion and restitution. The medical text on the papyrus is a hieratic script dating back to Pharaonic New Kingdom, probably a fragment of a medicine book similar to the Ebers papyrus. This article provides its transcription and translation. Three recipes for a powder and ointments which were used in the local treatment of inflammed moist skin lesions are presented.

[Ragusa (Dubrovnik) community physicians of the Middle Ages]. / Les médecins communaux de Raguse (Dubrovnik) au Moyen Age.

Several medieval cities on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea renewed the Byzantine tradition of hiring a public physician, thus offering their citizens the service of qualified doctors. The case of Ragusa is typical. The archives of this city-state have been preserved since the XIIIth century; the names, origins and professional titles of public physicians are well known. The conditions of their employment reveal not only their duties and the salary but also many aspects of communal hygiene and medical ethics.

[The iconography of consumption in the ancient world]. / Les représentations figurées de la consomption et du corps émacié dans l'antiquité.

There is in Delphi a votive statue - representing a man affected with phtisis - which is said to have been dedicated by Hippocrates himself. A little bronze found in Soissons could refer to the legend of Perdiccas' love sickness. We draw a parallel between Perdiccas' bronze and a mosaique in Lambiridi. Others representations (portraits, coins, statues of rickety children and iconographies of the Old Age) of weak and thin bodies are here studied following a medical approach.

-Malaria in the eastern Mediterranean in prehistory and antiquity-. / La malaria dans la Méditerranée orientale préhistorique et antique.

Paleopathological data support the hypothesis that malaria recrudescences in Greece occurred at the Mesolithic, at the top of the classic period and at the beginning of the Turkish conquest. Malaria due to Plasmodium falciparum did not appear until the 5th century B.C.

[The concept of emerging disease]. / Le concept de maladie émergente.

To avoid misinterpretations one should substitute the ambiguous notion of 'new disease' with 'emerging disease'. A disease can be classified emergent in at least five different historical situations; 1) it existed before it could be first identified but was overlooked from a medical point of view because it could not be conceptualized as a nosological entity; 2) it existed but was not noticed until a quantitative and/or qualitative change in its manifestations; 3) it did not exist in a particular region of the world before its introduction from other regions; 4) it never existed in a human population but only in an animal population; 5) it is completely new--the triggering germ and/or necessary environmental conditions did not exist prior to the first clinical manifestations. A series of historical examples illustrate this classification.