Friday 4 November 2011

Constantinus Africanus


or Constantine the African (c. 1020-1087), born at Carthage (in Africa, hence his soubriquet of Africanus) as a Jew, but later converting to Christianity, was a translator of medical texts from Arabic into Latin (Jordan, 1996). He studied at the University of Salerno in Italy, Western Europe’s first organized medical school, and later entered the monastery of Monte Cassino as a Benedictine monk (Walsh, 1908). He spent nearly twenty years of his life at Monte Cassino, and it was during this period that most of his writing was completed. Among the 30-odd works attributed to him are translations of Hippocrates, Galen, Isaac Judaeus, and Haly Abbas (Lagasse, Goldman, Hobson & Norton, 2007). He viewed the brain as the seat of mental illness and recommended hydrotherapy as a treatment for mental illness (Darton, 1999). The use of water as a treatment for madness continued for centuries, and Tuke (1882) gives details of the use of holy wells throughout medieval Britain for this purpose (Hills, 1901; Simpson & Roud, 2000).


Constantinus Africanus examining a urine sample


References:

Darton, K. (1999). Notes on the history of mental health care. Mind: London. Retrieved from                 http://www.mind.org.uk/Information/Factsheets/History+of+mental+health/Notes+on+the+History+of+Mental+Health+Care.htm

Hills, F.L. (1901). Psychiatry – ancient, medieval and modern. The Popular Science Monthly 59, 3, 31-48.

Jordan, W.C. (Ed.) (1996). The Middle Ages: an encyclopedia for students. New York, NY:  Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Lagasse, P., Goldman, L., Hobson A., & Norton, S.R. (Eds.) (2007). Constantinus Africanus. In The Columbia encyclopedia. (6th edition). New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Simpson, J., & Roud, S. (2000). A dictionary of English folklore. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

Tuke, D.H. (1882). Chapters in the history of the insane in the British Isles. London, England: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co.

Walsh, J.J. (1908). Constantine Africanus. In The Catholic encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved from New Advent http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04295b.htm


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