The Trotula
The Trotula: An English Translation of the Medieval Compendium of Women's Medicine
Edited and translated by Monica H. Green
Series: The Middle Ages Series
Copyright Date: 2002
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press
Pages: 248
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt3fhj5p
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The Trotula
Book Description:

The Trotulawas the most influential compendium of women's medicine in medieval Europe. Scholarly debate has long focused on the traditional attribution of the work to the mysterious Trotula, said to have been the first female professor of medicine in eleventh- or twelfth-century Salerno, just south of Naples, then the leading center of medical learning in Europe. Yet as Monica H. Green reveals in her introduction to the first English translation ever based upon a medieval form of the text, the Trotula is not a single treatise but an ensemble of three independent works, each by a different author. To varying degrees, these three works reflect the synthesis of indigenous practices of southern Italians with the new theories, practices, and medicinal substances coming out of the Arabic world.Green here presents a complete English translation of the so-called standardized Trotula ensemble, a composite form of the texts that was produced in the midthirteenth century and circulated widely in learned circles. The work is now accessible to a broad audience of readers interested in medieval history, women's studies, and premodern systems of medical thought and practice.

eISBN: 978-0-8122-0208-3
Subjects: Language & Literature
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  1. Front Matter
    Front Matter (pp. i-vi)
  2. Table of Contents
    Table of Contents (pp. vii-viii)
  3. Note on the Paperback Edition
    Note on the Paperback Edition (pp. ix-ix)
  4. List of Illustrations
    List of Illustrations (pp. x-x)
  5. Preface
    Preface (pp. xi-xviii)
  6. Introduction
    Introduction (pp. 1-64)

    Why have different societies, at different times, seen diseases that we no longer see? Why did they interpret physiological processes differently from the way we do? Why did they employ therapeutic techniques that seem to us inexplicable? These questions are at the heart of any history of medicine. A strictly biological approach would search for genetic alterations, changing patterns in interactions between human hosts and microbial predators, or alterations in the environment. These kinds of physical changes no doubt occurred and profoundly affected the morbidity and mortality of medieval women. Yet from what little we know about the general afflictions...

  7. The Trotula
    • Book on the Conditions of Women
      Book on the Conditions of Women (pp. 65-88)

      [1] When God the creator of the universe in the first establishment of the world differentiated the individual natures of things each according to its kind, He endowed human nature above all other things with a singular dignity, giving to it above the condition of all other animals freedom of reason and intellect. And wishing to sustain its generation in perpetuity, He created the male and the female with provident, dispensing deliberation, laying out in the separate sexes the foundation for the propagation of future offspring. And so that from them there might emerge fertile offspring, he endowed their complexions...

    • On Treatments for Women
      On Treatments for Women (pp. 89-112)

      [132] In order that we might make a concise summary of the treatment of women, it ought to be noted that certain women are hot, while some are cold. In order to determine which, one should perform this test. We anoint a piece of lint with oil of pennyroyal or laurel or another hot oil, and we insert a piece of it the size of the little finger into the vagina at night when she goes to bed, and it should be tied around the thighs with a strong string. And if it is drawn inside, this is an indication...

    • On Women’s Cosmetics
      On Women’s Cosmetics (pp. 113-124)

      [242] In order that a woman might become very soft and smooth and without hairs from her head down, first of all let her go to the baths, and if she is not accustomed to do so, let there be made for her a steambath in this manner.² Take burning hot tiles and stones and with these placed in the steambath, let the woman sit in it. Or else take hot tiles or hot black stones and place them in the steambath or a pit³ made in the earth. Then let hot water be poured in so that steam is...

  8. Appendix: Compound Medicines Employed in the Trotula Ensemble
    Appendix: Compound Medicines Employed in the Trotula Ensemble (pp. 125-136)
  9. Materia Medica Employed in the Trotula
    Materia Medica Employed in the Trotula (pp. 137-164)
  10. Notes
    Notes (pp. 165-208)
  11. Bibliography
    Bibliography (pp. 209-220)
  12. Index
    Index (pp. 221-227)
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