Healing and Society in Medieval England: A Middle English Translation of the Pharmaceutical Writings of Gilbertus Anglicus ed. by Faye Marie Getz

Abstract

REVIEWS FAYE MARIE GETZ, ed. Healing and Society in Medieval England: A Middle English Translation ofthe Pharmaceutical Writings ofGzfber­ tus Anglicus. Wisconsin Publications in the History of Science and Medicine, vol. 8. Madison: University ofWisconsin Press, 1991. Pp. lxxiii, 378. $37.50. Faye Marie Getz identified the Middle English text at folios 48-3lOv in Wellcome manuscript 537 as translated from Gilbertus Anglicus's thirteenth-century Compendium medicine. Her edition provides an intro­ duction, the Middle English text with manuscript notes anda commentary, "a rough guide" to thefolionumbers ofsourcepassagesin the1510 printing ofGilbertus's Latin Compendium, a glossary ofMiddle English, a list of plants by genus, and a bibliography. To acquire some sense ofwhat sort ofbook the Middle English transla­ tion might be, we must look to the manuscript in which it occurs. Section 6 of Getz'.s introduction describes Wellcome 537 as a codex comprising a collection ofsix booklets, written on paper and bound together. Ifwe set aside for the moment the question of intended utility raised by the presence of the gold-leaf initials in the Middle English translation, the implied reader or user ofWellcome 537 appears to have been a practicing medicus, knowledgeable about making sizable quantities ofthe medicines he prescribed and capable ofconsulting a book containing both Latin and English texts. The editor's descriptive enumeration ofthe contents shows that Latin items alternate with Middle English in the book. The first seven items (fols. 6-lOv, line 12), mostly calendrical or astrological, appear in Latin, followed by two folios ofshort English recipes (fols. 10v-12v, line 16) after which follow Latin astrological texts (fols. 12v-14v) to complete one booklet of the manuscript. Another booklet (fols. 15-46v), entirely in English, consists primarily of materials translated from four uroscopies, followed by recipes. The largest booklet (fols. 48-310v, pt. 4 of the manuscript)contains the Middle English Gilbertus translation ofdiagnoses and treatments ofailments from headache to hemorrhoids, followed by a medicine for the stone in English. The next booklet (fols. 311-22v) in­ cludes mathematics for calculating dates ofthe moon and the first Sunday in a year and short Latin items on the course ofthe moon in the signs ofthe zodiac, information useful, as our editor points out, for astrological medi­ cine. The last booklet (fols. 323-36), which has "cover" pages ofits own, contains the changes ofthe moon and lunar tables in English. Given these contents, wecan concludethat, z/Wellcome537 was used by a practitioner, 203 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER he was one whose praxis encompassed astrological prognostications and calculations, humoral and uroscopic diagnostics, and the therapeutics of mostly herbal recipes. Dietary and behavioral regimens, phlebotomy, and surgery also regularly play roles in the Middle English Gilbertus text. Comparing this book to recipe collections, whether late antique like Marcellus's or medieval like theLiber de diversis medicinis in the Thornton manuscript, we are immediately struck by how much more there is to this Middle English text than just herbal or animal recipes. For here we find many of Gilbertus's descriptions of symptoms, Middle English "tokens," accompanied by his complex humoral etiologies, as well as a range of treatments that extend well beyond medieval pharmacopoeia. Each chap­ ter opens with a definition ofthe organ discussed ("A man-is tonge hap two seruicis. Oon is to taast with a mannes metis and drinkis; anopir is to speke"). The "greuancis" (Latin do/ores) from which the organ suffers are enumerated in the order they are taken up by each chapter's subdivisions. The various humoral causes call for various remedies. When first remedies fail, other treatments are available. At the level of the individual recipe we observe differences between the Gilbertian recipes for earache and the early-fifth-century recipes, which Getz brings forth for comparison. The recipes for earache in Marcellus can be translated as follows: Bruise the tenderest leaves ofthe ash and squeeze out their juice and pour it warmed into the painful ears. Put a young ash branch, that is already flowing with its own sap, partly in the fire-place. When the juice flows along the other part, catch it carefully and drip it, with oil added, lukewarm, into the ears. The...