Syllabus
1. Introductory lessonRequirements for completion of the course, instructions for guided tours, overview of the most important reading on the subject available to students, FAQ.2.
Historiography as a Craft: Introduction to Sources, Archives and LibrariesThe course is primarily aimed at students of natural sciences (bio-medicine) who have had very little exposure to historical research. In this experimental seminary we would like to change that.
We will explain how to search for historical resources, what to expect in an archive and how are these institutions structured in the Czech Republic. We will focus on written sources providing basic information on writing materials, equipment, languages, alphabets etc. prevalent in medieval as well as early modern documents.
Suggested reading:Karel Černý, History of medicine in the Czech Republic: past and present, History of Medicine (the Russian Journal for the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences) 3, 2016, 2, pp. 185-198. DOI: 10.17720/2409-5834.v3.2.2016.20e (copies available on request).
Copies of additional materials will be provided during the lesson.3. Medicine in Greece from the Earliest Prehistory until 500 BCEOn the basis of the four categories of sources an overview of the sickness rate and medical practice in the prehistoric and early historic Greece before 500 BC will be presented.
During this period, it is quite possible to discern several medical specializations or “traditions” – an invasive one (surgical interventions), a non-invasive one (healing wounds etc.), caring or assistance (incl. midwifery) and possibly also a dental care. Only at the end of the period in question, at the turn of the 6th and 5th centuries BC, a medical conception including not only a conservative and invasive healing, but also a “background” theory of the functioning of the human body was being created.
This gradual process might have been related to the establishing and spreading of an individual healing deity –Asclepius. Unfortunately, many aspects of this process – and in general of the medicine of the period in question – remain still unknown and uncertain.Suggested reading:L.
A. Schepartz, S.
C. Fox & Ch.
Bourbou (Eds.) 2009: New Directions in the Skeletal Biology of Greece. Princeton: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens.N.
Ch. Stampolidis & Y.
Tassoulas (Eds.) 2014: HYGIEIA. Health, Illness, Treatment from Homer to Galen.
Athens: Museum of Cycladic Art and Hellenic Republic Ministry of Culture and Sports.4. Medicine in the Classical AntiquityA basic overview of the medicine in the Classical Antiquity will be presented.
First, the sources and the origins of medicine in the prehistoric and Archaic Greece will be outlined. The core of the lecture will cover the development of medicine in the Classical and later periods in the Graeco-Roman world and will focus on both the important personalities (Hippocrates, Soranos of Ephesus, Dioscorides, Galen, Sts.
Cosmas and Damian etc.) and the material aspects of medicine, such as the testimony of the human skeletal remains and the religious aspects of medicine of those times (the worship of healing deities, esp. Asclepius; incl. the description of selected archaeological sites related to it).Suggested reading:P.
A. Baker 2013: The Archaeology of Medicine in the Greco-Roman World.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.V. Nutton 2013: Ancient Medicine.
Abingdon: Routledge.N. Ch.
Stampolidis & Y. Tassoulas (Eds.) 2014: HYGIEIA.
Health, Illness, Treatment from Homer to Galen. Athens: Museum of Cycladic Art and Hellenic Republic Ministry of Culture and Sports.5.
Medieval MedicineAnnotation will be provided later.6. European History of Medicine in Early Modern EraThis lecture will provide an overview of history of medicine since the late medieval period to 1740.
We will focus on major changes in the discipline like gradual development of universities or how traditional scholarly Greek and Arabic medical sources became obsolete during the 16th and 17th centuries. We will also describe the anatomic and botanical revolution and why profound changes in one area of science do not necessarily anticipate similar changes in other parts of the discipline.
We will shortly describe particular foci like paracelsian medicine or iatromathematics (i.e. astrology in medicine). Suggested reading:Roy Porter: The greatest benefit to mankind: a medical history of humanity.
New York: W. W.
Norton 1999.Mirko D. Grmek et al.: Storia del pensiero medico occidentale.
Vol. 2, Dal rinascimento all’inizio dell’ottocento, Roma: Laterze 1996.7. Medicine from Enlightenment to PresentThis lesson will pick up where the previous exposition on pre-Enlightenment medicine left off.
We will however limit our exposition to Central Europe – primarily Habsbourg countries. The lesson will first discuss history of medical thought during the 18th century (for example ideas of sensibility and irritability, iatromechanical theory etc.) in order to provide background for profound changes that followed.
History of the 19th century medicine will focus primarily on the process of professionalization in medicine, new approaches in nursing and so called microbiological revolution. Suggested reading:Roy Porter: The greatest benefit to mankind: a medical history of humanity.
New York: W. W.
Norton 1999.8. Excursion to New Town Medical Campus and General Faculty Hospital (guided tour)This is guided tour through the New Town (Nové Město) campus with historical commentary.
Since the medieval period the medical faculty was located in so called Karolinum building located not far away from Old Town Square. During the early modern period this setup became gradually untenable due to overcrowded conditions, obsolete facilities and so on.
Long awaited change came during reign of emperor Joseph II (1780-1790) when the General Faculty Hospital was founded in its present location and shortly after that the development of additional medical facilities took off. 9. History of Charles University and Prague Medical FacultyThis lecture provides an overview of history of the Prague Medical Faculty since its inception in 1348 to the WWII.
In the first part, while discussing the medieval history, we will attempt to put Prague’s foundation into proper context as harbinger of expansion of tertiary education in central Europe. The faculty went through the period of stagnation after the Hussite Wars in Bohemia and temporarily ceased operation during the 16th century.
However, medicine still remained subject at the Prague school. Seventeenth century Catholic restoration brought about a new dawn of medical studies in Prague with professors coming from abroad in order to teach generation of students inspired by, among others, English Baconian Science.
During the Enlightenment period the university underwent series of reforms enforced by the Habsburg absolutist regime. The “long” 19th century (1790-1914) was probably the most famous period in the history of Prague medical school which achieved several priorities (the oldest gynecological clinic in the world was founded here, for example).
In the interwar period the Charles university became leading institution in the area of tertiary education within the borders of newly established Czechoslovakia. First women became professors and the medical faculty directly participated on foundation of schools in Brno (Moravia) and Bratislava (present Slovakia).
Suggested reading:František Kavka – Josef Petráň (eds.), A History of Charles University, I-II, Prague 2001 (chapters on medical faculties by L. Hlaváčková and P.
Svobodný).10. Karolinum: a Historical Jewel of the Charles University in Prague (field trip)Charles University (established in 1348) has been the most important research and teaching institution in the Czech Lands.
Since its beginning, the Faculty of Medicine has been a part of the university. One of university historical colleges, the Karolinum, once a seat of the Facultxy of Medicine (17th–19th century) belongs to the most important monuments („places of memory“) in the history of both the university, the city and the country (present day Czech Republic).Suggested reading:Josef Petráň, Karolinum, Prague 2010.František Kavka – Josef Petráň (eds.), A History of Charles University, I-II, Prague 2001 (chapters on medical faculties by L.
Hlaváčková and P. Svobodný).11.
Plague: A Failing Horseman of ApocalypseWord “plague” is charged with layers of meaning as a result of its continuous presence in European history since the antiquity. Consequently, one might write several different histories of plague: biological history of plague bacterium, history of plague related theology, or demographics of plague epidemics.
This lesson will focus on academic writing on plague between the 15th to 18th centuries. We will attempt to explain how physicians perceived the plague in pre-microbial era.
How did they explain epidemics without the concept of infectious bacterium? Did they have the concept of patient-zero as we have today? Was early modern medicine completely helpless face to face this dangerous disease?Suggested reading:Karel Černý – Sonia Horn (eds.), Plague between Prague and Vienna: Medicine and Infectious diseases in Early Modern Central Europe, Prague: Nakladatelství Academia 2018.12. Cooking
Annotation
History of Medicine is a non-compulsory subject primarily aimed at students of General Medicine and Dentistry programs. In this course we try to provide something different from majority of natural science-related topics of the medical curriculum. We will follow three main goals. First is providing a basic chronological and topical framework for medicine in the past two millennia as one of the most important human endeavours. Students should gain general knowledge about themes like Hippocratic-Galenic medicine, medieval monastic medicine, changes (both progressive and regressive) during the period of Renaissance and Enlightenment, 19th century professionalization etc.
Second task of our course is to engage students in interesting and sometimes controversial historical discussions related among other things to moral failures of medical professionals, history of sexuality or history of nutrition (dieting, healthy/harmful food).
And finally, the First Faculty of Medicine was one of the four founding faculties of the Charles University. Consequently, it has long history extending into the medieval times. We would like to encourage students to get acquainted with rich, multi-lingual past of the institution they normally see only through the lenses of modern medical sciences.