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The late Middle Ages
Published in Michael J. O’Dowd, The History of Medications for Women, 2020
Although there is some dispute as to her identity, it is claimed that Trotula of Salerno wrote Curandarum Aegritudinem Muliebrium, Ante, In et Post Partum, better known by its short title, De Passionibus Mulierum, which dates from about 1050. The first printed version of the book was produced by Schottus of Strasburg in 1544 (Ricci, 1943). Elizabeth Mason-Hohl translated the text into English in 1940. The booklet was devoted to gynecology, obstetrics and care of the newborn. Most of the text is devoted to medications for female disorders. Trotula prescribed fumigation with ginger, laurel and savin for oligomenorrhea. For ‘uterine suffocation’ she advised asafetida. Her text includes a discourse on the repair of perineal lacerations with silk thread. The technique was closely followed by Mauriceau in the seventeenth century.
English Obstetrical Textbooks Before 1740
Published in Audrey Eccles, Obstetrics and Gynaecology in Tudor and Stuart England, 2018
The standard mediaeval text on obstetrics was a Latin work generally called Trotula, after the name of its author. It was this book that Chaucer’s doctor of physic used, and the name at least seems to have been familiar to his audience. Trotula is said to have been a female doctor in the eleventh century at the then prestigious medical school of Salerno, and in her book claims to have specialised in women’s diseases out of sympathy for women too modest to consult male doctors about gynaecological problems.1 Some of the details in her book show that if theory and practice agreed at all, the mediaeval woman may have fared better in some respects than her Tudor and Stuart counterpart.
The Medical Schools of Salerno and Montpellier. The Arabists
Published in Charles Greene Cumston, An Introduction to the History of Medicine, 2018
Trotula not only treats of diseases of women and labour, but also all other branches of medicine. She wrote on epilepsy, diseases of the eyes and ears, and those of the teeth and gums. Whatever view we take of her historicity, the doctrines of Trotula are rather more practical than theoretical and her general teachings accord with those of Galen.
The influence of Arabic medicine on surgery in the Low Countries1
Published in Acta Chirurgica Belgica, 2020
The Latinized versions of Constantin the African and Gerard of Cremona were still more systematized in the School of Salerno. The scholars of this School opted for a more theoretical approach of the obtained Arab information and integrated it in four different areas of interest: in diagnostics, for instance in the various ‘Urine Tracts’; in pharmacology, with the onset of antidotaria; in obstetrics and gynecology with the well know Trotula texts; and finally and most importantly with the famous surgical scholars Roger Frugardi of Salerno (pre 1140–ca.1195), Roland of Parma (1st half 13th cent.), William of Saliceto (1210–1277), and father and son Borgognoni of Lucca (resp. Hugo 1160–1257, and Theodoric 1205–1296).