Tag: James A. Marcum
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Giorgio Baglivi and The Practice of Physick
James MarcumWaco, Texas, United States “To form a right Judgment of Diseases, is a very difficult Matter.” With this opening sentence, Giorgio Baglivi (Figure 1) began his 1696 treatise De Praxi Medica, which was translated in 1704 as The Practice of Physick (Figure 2).1 Throughout the treatise, he frames the problems plaguing late seventeenth and…
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Schola Medica Salernitana and medieval medical philosophy
James MarcumWaco, Texas, United States The naissance of Schola Medica Salernitana, or the medical school at Salerno, on the Italian southwest coast is shrouded in myth and controversy. According to one tradition, the school’s beginning dates to Parmenides, a pre-Socratic philosopher who, in 540 BC, founded a medical school in the Greek colony of Elea…