Medieval Bodies: Life and Death in the Middle Ages

With wit, wisdom, and a sharp scalpel, Jack Hartnell dissects the medieval body and offers a remedy to our preconceptions.Medieval beliefs about the body were drastically different from ours today: Hair was thought to be a condensation of fumes emitted from the pores, ideas were supposedly committed to memory by being directly imprinted on the brain, and the womb of a goat was believed to function as a contraceptive. But while this medieval medicine now seems archaic, it also made a critical contribution to modern science.Medieval Bodies guides us on a head-to-heel journey through this era’s revolutionary advancements and disturbing convictions. We learn about the surgeons who dissected a living man’s stomach, then sewed him up again; about the geographers who delineated racial groups by skin color; and about the practice of fasting to gain spiritual renown. Encompassing medicine and mysticism, politics and art―and complete with vivid, full-color illustrations―Medieval Bodies shows us how it felt to live and die a thousand years ago. 95 color illustrations