Medicina Nei Secoli

Many diseases induce alterations in the human skeleton, leaving traces of their presence in ancient remains. Paleopathological examination of human remains not only allows the study of the history and evolution of the disease, but also the reconstruction of health conditions in the past populations. This paper describes the most interesting diseases observed in skeletal samples from the Roman Imperial Age necropoles found in urban and suburban areas of Rome during archaeological excavations in the last decades...

Trauma, diseases, diet, daily work and environmental factors shape bodies. From birth to death, these processes leave on the skeleton markers that can be recognized and studied, thus providing an overview of the health conditions of past populations. The present work analyzes data collected in seven necropolises. During our study, we exploited nonspecific stress and dental pathologies as key indicators of health conditions. In particula; we analyzed the three most common indicators of stress: porotic hyperostosis; enamel hypoplasia; and Harris lines on shins...

The bone tissue remodeling due to strong physical/working activity is defined as ergonomic markers or MSM (Muscoloskeletal Stress Markers) (Capasso et al. 1999) and MOS (Markers of Occupational Stress). Among them we can find: enthesopaties, arthropaties, non metrical stress and traumas markers. In the present study, the analysis of these traits has been used to clarify habitual activity patterns of four imperial populations from Suburbium: Castel Malnome, Casal Bertone area Q, Via Padre Semeria e Quarto Cappello del Prete...

In the paleobiological studies, the osteometry is a method for gaining insight into human populations of the past. The analysis of the data obtained from measurements of the skeleton can be applied in the determination of sex and degree of sexual dimorphism intra and interpopulation. The results obtained from osteometrical data of postcranial allow us to formulate hypotheses on certain aspects related to the living conditions of the people who lived in the urban and suburban area of ancient Rome.

Demography evaluates the traits of human populations mainly by measuring their sizes and fluctuations. Due to their features, the archeological population structures refer to the distribution of people based both on sex and age at death. These parameters have a direct impact on the risk of death because they vary significantly with age and sex and this is reflected in a proportional sharing of deaths in several groups at risk. This chapter deals with the demographic structure of several imperial communities scattered through the roman Suburbium...

They analyzed the data of excavation of eleven Roman necropolis of the territory of the imperial age. The funeral rite most widespread is inhiumation; cremation is generally around 10% of the total sample. The burials are generally primary and single, more rarely bisome or multiple. The body was placed without a specific orientation, almost always supine, with arms either stretched or flexed and lower limbs generally relaxed. Sometimes the body was wrapped in a shroud or in a tight bandage. The state of preservation of the skeletal remains is very variable as influenced by soil type...

The recent excavations carried out by the Superintendence for the Colosseum, the Roman National Museum and the Archaeological Area of Rome allowed to uncover a large number of burial grounds of Imperial Age. In this work we present the data for 11 cemeteries scattered throughout the Suburbiumn, dating between 1st and 3rd centuries AD. A whole sample of 6061 tombs has been investigated and 5280 skeletons were anthropologically analyzed. All the field data have been scored in appropriate standardized charts in order to make easy their storage and processing in a dedicated database...

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The first specific techniques and triages for medical resuscitation developed in the XVIII century, specifically to rescue the drowned persons. The topic of resuscitation in strictly connected to the theme of the apparent death, to the dread of the "buried alive", to the progress of forensic medicine and to the administrative and legislative policies. The contribute aims to focus on the contribution of the medical and pathologic nosology about the conception of the apparent death, read as asphyxia.

Ethical issues always played an important role in the historical development in psychiatry. As wll known, many ancient cultures associated mental illness with gods and divine punishments. In the first centuries of the Christian Era, mental illness is often interpreted according to demonological views and in connection with theological conceptions of sin. The article briefly examines the history of mental illness medical and cultural interpretations, focusing on medieval medicine and the treatment of psychiatric patients from Antiquity to the Early modern Period...

Starting from archive documents, the present article aims to retrace the history of a once well-known pharmacy based in S. Eustachio square, in Rome, and then commonly denominated Corsi's. Thanks to the information gathered in Roman archives, it is possible to throw light on the events related to this apothecary, whose activity, as found out, lasted since the XVIII until the first decades of the XX century, under the property of two families, first the Conti and then the Corsi. Notwithstanding its long establishment, this pharmacy seems to have suddenly vanished from the official documents registered within the archives...

Ex voto are devotional objects, widely used in Italy as a form of prayer or wish, or as thanksgiving for a grace received. In a broader historical perspective, votive offerings are hung in Greek, Etruscan, Roman shrines and later in churches or to show gratitude for miracles obtained, healing from illness or infirmity, or as a simple supplication and prayer. The ex voto here presented seem to be unique in the world: made of majolica, they come from the church of St. Roch in Castelli (Abruzzo). They depict breast benign and malignant lesions (mastitis, abscess, fat necrosis, inflammatory cancer, infiltrating carcinoma) in three dimensions, performing an accurate and personalized portrait of breast diseases (in some cases with the depicted name of the sick woman), showing fine details of each disease, and demonstrating accurate knowledge of the female anatomy and pathology...

The article discusses the main changes in legislation concerning granting the licenses for opening a new pharmacy in Bologna in the Middle Ages and Early Modern period. The organization of all traders, including apothecaries, was subordinated, as almost everywhere in Italy, to the Guilds. In the 2nd half of 16th century the Arte de' Speziali of Bologna came under the jurisdiction of the Collegio di Medicina, leading to disagreements between the two corporations. Giovanni Baldi, in his Notizie storiche su la farmacia bolognese (Bologna, 1955) mentioned one of these controversies, dating on the second half of 18th century...

Ettore Biocca's archive reflects the liveliness of scientific interests and the extreme political and social sensibility that distinguished the personality to confirin the image, still alive in the memories of those who knew him, of a free spirit, impulsive, independent; a character incapable of compromise, always ready to hear his voice everywhere warned the environment threatened or violated human rights. His archive provides interesting ideas for historical research, especially the study of Parasitology in Italy and world...

Boethius of Dacia's opera "De somnis" can be defined as a brief treaty that partially follows the traditional quaestio scheme. It includes a passage that seems to copy Etienne Tempier's proposition number sixty-five, which condemns the importance attributed to astrology by many medieval authors. Boethius moves off Aristotle's "De somno et vigilia" idea of physiological dreams to assert a new kind of oneiric phenomena linked to constellations, that, according to the author, aren't divinely inspired, whereas they are to be considered as natural events...

In Book III of the De generatione animalium, Aristotle discusses about the problem of spontaneous generation, which will be object of interest for centuries, up to modern science. The aim of the paper is to examinate this topic trying to highlight what is the most remarkable problem in the Aristotelian theory: the ability of the matter of self-moving and self-reproducing and, connected to this, the relationship that exists in nature, in the Aristotelian biology, between a teleological based function and the presence of a necessary counterbalance in material form...

The work moves from the low mortality of the plague of Palermo in 1575 - 1576 in comparison to similar outbreaks and contemporary analysis of the activity of Ingrassia, a man that the city government had wanted at his side. The extraordinary health interventions, including those to favor of the predisposition of health building to isolation, gears for a more wide-ranging than the traditional one. The isolation adopted by Ingrassia wasn't a novelty because it was already in use half a century earlier, as the Previdelli wrote...

The article offerts a short introduction to the history of medieval hospitals in Viterbo, as descripted by the main 19th century historical local testimonies. Viterbo, as well known to the historians of Middle Age, has been an important town in medieval Italian history; its centrality in the religious way to Rome is well testified by the numerous hospitals and assistance building, some of which, along the main pilgrimage routes, still surviving and well preserved.

This article addresses the strategies employed by Nahua community of Mexixo to deal with health problems. Drawing on qualitative research, it discusses the choice of plural therapeutic itineraries, including the use of informal and formal healthcare.

Exploration of the Medici chapels in San Lorenzo in Florence revealed the burials of nine infantile members of the Medici family. Eight children were found in the intact tomb of the last Grand Duke Giangastone (1671- 1737). The crypt contained several small coffins collapsed to the floor or randomly spread over a raised plank, as a result of the disastrous flood of the Arno river in 1966, which partly upset the tomb and left a layer of dry mould. The children's remains, mostly skeletonised, were found inside the coffins or scattered on the floor or on the plank, probably transported by the water...