What’s Your Sign?

I know that I’ve been quiet lately, but it’s because my last set of essays was due in early June and since then I’ve been working intently on my dissertation.  I’m studying the Gildbook of the Barber-Surgeons of York, held at the British Library, and have been reading about medieval medicine and the types of books consulted by medieval practitioners.

Medicine during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Era was practiced by a wide variety of people.  Most illnesses were treated at home by the women of the household or by members of the community with herbal and folk knowledge.  Barbers and surgeons were skilled laborers who undertook more complex treatments, notably cutting for cataract, surgically removing anal fistulas and cancers, repairing broken bones and disjointed limbs, trepanation for head injuries, treatment of venereal diseases, and leechcraft (bleeding).  At the highest level of medical care was the physicus, usually university-educated and Latinate, urban, and less likely to preform surgical procedures, which were considered undignified manual work.  Though these seem like hard and fast categories, dividing lines were actually blurry and many similarities are found between the groups.  Sources shows that educated physicians used folk knowledge and herbal remedies, and ‘uneducated’ barbers often owned and consulted books in Latin and other languages.  As skilled tradesmen, barbers and surgeons often formed guilds to regulate their trade and to promote education through apprenticeship.  The York guild was one of the most prominent outside of London and has left us excellent records of its activity.

Some of the most important books used by medical practitioners were those containing charts to assist in treatment.  Late medieval medicine was based on theories inherited from the ancient world that were filtered through classical thinkers such as Galen, preserved and annotated by Islamic scholars, and reintroduced to Europe in the thirteenth century.  Astrology was the most important of these, and while it influenced many aspects of medieval life it was most strongly tied to medicine.  It was a system in which humans were intimately tied to the movements of the cosmos, and an individual’s horoscope determined the ratio of humours that created his or her personality and body type.  Movements in the heavens (in addition to an individual’s age, sex, and behavior) could lead to humoral imbalances, and potential treatments had to be scrutinized to assure that the stars were aligned favorably.  A good example is bleeding: it was clear that the Moon affected tides, and was also believed to affect the ebb and flow of humours in the body.  If the Moon was located in the sign that corresponded to a specific body part that member should that member be bled, or the patient might die from the loss of humours.  Practicing astrology, though, was incredibly complex, so doctors developed helpful charts to assist in diagnosis and treatment.  The popular ‘Zodiac Man’ illustrated the signs that governed different parts of the body, while charts called volvelles used movable parts to r favorable conditions for treatment.

The Gildbook of the Barber-Surgeons of York, which includes a variety of common medical charts, was begun in the 1480s and added to until the end of the eighteenth century.  Primarily a ceremonial text rather than one consulted on a daily basis, it is mostly in English and contains the gild’s ordinances and oath, portraits of monarchs, a liturgical calendar, and medical illustrations and texts.  (Click for bigger images.)

Page from the liturgical calendar for September.  The entries in red are feast days in honor of saints, which is where the term ‘red letter day’ originated.  Many of the red days celebrate saints associated with northern England or medicine.

The head of Christ and personifications of the four humours, clockwise from top left: melancholy man, sanguine man, phlegmatic man, and choleric man.

Vein Man: explanation of bleeding points, most of which are located on the arms and face.  These delicate illustrations are influenced by Flemish artwork of the period, possibly transmitted via trade links of the city of York, which was an important mercantile center.

Zodiac Man.  Pretty self-explanatory.  I’m enamoured of the lovely goat illustration for capricorn.  And amused by scorpio, which I’ve noticed is usually drawn as a multi-legged dragonish sort of creature.

The Volvelle.  The pointer determines the sun sign, and the piece that would determine the moon sign is missing.  The figures at the top are Saints John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, and below are Saints Cosmas and Damian, all traditional patron saints for medieval barbers and surgeons.  Cosmas is holding the ubiquitous symbol of medieval medicine, the urine flask, and Damian prepares medicine.

In addition to the Gildbook I’m looking at a variety of other medieval medical texts.  Some of my favorites are small handbooks called vade mecum, which means ‘bring me along.’  These were small pieces of parchment folded and sewn together at the bottom and attached to the belt or slipped into a pocket for quick reference.  They contained calenders and medical charts like the ones above, only in miniature.  I spent a delightful afternoon with six vade mecum in the British Library last week, and was pleased to see and feel the wear indicative of frequent use, not unlike my own notebook.  Sadly, there aren’t many digital versions of these texts, probably because they’re a bitch to unfold and photograph.  Below is an image from British Library MS Egerton 2724.  This image is part of a faded calendar showing activities for different months.  This specific text is unusual compared to the others I’ve looked at, being square rather than rectangular and using a different folding system.  I wish there were some others online I could show you, because I’ve seen some very beautiful examples.

Next week I’ll take a look at a few more interesting medical manuscripts, but now it’s time for bed.  I have to get up early tomorrow because I’m leaving for York to do research in the city archives.  Looking forward to exploring the city walls and cathedral, and I’ll be sure to twitter all sorts of useless things during my trip.

Olympia

It’s the first day of the ABA’s Antiquarian Book Fair at Olympia, the ‘oldest and most prestigious event of its kind.’  I’ve been looking forward to this for years and will be there when the doors open, twittering of course!

You can get complimentary tickets to the show here.

Hand Sanitizer

Yesterday I twittered about the new hand sanitizers at the British Library, and when I saw it being RT’d I decided that I should clarify my 140 characters because the tweet makes things sound worse than they really are.

The library installed sanitizer gel dispensers during the swine flu crisis a few weeks ago, and in the current email reader bulletin they note that the gel can cause damage to collection items if you don’t wait 30 seconds for it to dry.  They did put up signs by each dispenser explaining the need to wait before touching anything, and it would undoubtedly take more than thirty seconds just to get back to your desk from the bathroom anyway.  Basically, I just found the email amusing as a tug-of-war between our society’s panic over disease and the continuous, low-level panic of managing library collections.

What really annoys me about the hand sanitizers is this:

A)  You should be washing your hands!  The gel isn’t, as far as I know, going to get rid of dirt, grease, or cupcake icing, and the BL regulations have always asked patrons to wash their hand thoroughly before handling collection materials.  So then if you’ve washed your hands, why do you need the sanitizer?  Might it not encourage people to forgo proper washing?

B)  Washing your hands correctly is still the best way to prevent the spread of the flu.  Hand sanitizers should be reserved for times when this is difficult or impossible, not for regular use.  Installing permanent dispensers sends the message that washing your hands isn’t enough.  Everybody panic more!

C)  It panders to the lowest common denominators of ignorance and fear.  Our culture is already full of scary and misleading messages about germs, some spread by rumors, others created by ad agencies to guilt and frighten people into buying more of their cleaning products.  Basic precautions such as washing your hands are fine.  We don’t need another product to be safer, certainly not installed in a bathroom full of sinks and soap.

Watch your backs stone tablet makers!

Got Medieval just lambasted Arianna Huffington’s confusion regarding book history.  Don’t miss this.  It’s very funny and there’s a graph that I want to hang on my wall.

New Blogs

Two new blogs to note:

The Private Library covers different aspects of collecting from the viewpoint of a collector and rare book librarian.  Started in March, there are already tons of great posts up.

Julian Wilson’s Bibliopole is ‘a blog dedicated to antiquarian books and other aspects of bibliophilia, with a smattering of musings about natural history, science, technology, fossils, classical antiquity and literature.’  His first fascinating post is on the Dodo and its missing foot.

Statistical Outlier

Last night I started The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward Tufte, which is excellent.  If you haven’t read it you may know it as the book featuring what I call the ‘Napoleon Graph‘, which Tufte calls the ‘best statistical graph ever drawn.’

But another graph featured in the book is even more interesting.  It’s a tenth, possibly eleventh-century, depiction of the movement of the planets across the zodiac over time, and comes from a commentary on astronomy.  The graph was included in an appendix added by an unknown transcriber of the main work.   It’s not accurate at all—among many problems is the fact that the horizontal axis of any one planet can’t be reconciled with the others—but it was probably intended as a simple schematic for teaching purposes.

What’s really unusual here is that the graph has no known predecessor, and seems to have sprung purely from the imagination of it’s creator.  Medieval writers and artists very rarely deviated from tradition.  Most images, whether of scientific, medical, fictional, or religious subjects, were part of traditional illustrative cycles that had existed since the late classical period.  There was some room for individual artists to maneuver within these tropes, but it was rare for something to appear completely out of the blue.

Not only is the graph unique, but it’s conceptually eight hundred years ahead of its time.  According to Tufte, time-series charts didn’t appear again until the late eighteenth century, when academics and designers began experimenting with a variety of quantitative displays.  And H. Gray Funkhouser, author of ‘A Note on a Tenth Century Graph’ in Osiris (vol. 1, Jan 1936) notes that the use of grids was uncommon even into the 1850s.

You can read Funkhouser’s short piece on the graph here if you have access to JSTOR.  And here’s a larger image.

Egypt

So the pictures from my trip to Egypt are finally up here.

My favorite thing was cycling around Luxor for two days.  It’s a great cycling destination because it’s flat, and while the congestion isn’t as bad as in Cairo it’s still loads of fun weaving in and out of traffic composed of cars, donkey carts, pedestrians, and carriages.  You get a much better feel for things, can stop on a whim, and the other drivers are generally courteous because they’re used to many types of vehicles being on the road.  (Polite honks when passing are standard.)  It also meant complete independence from tour operators and drivers, a huge relief compared to the situation in Cairo.

On the second day we rode all the way from downtown Luxor to the Valley of the Kings, with the last leg an incredible ride up a mountain pass that was deathly silent when tour buses weren’t rumbling past.  The way back was a beautiful downhill glide.  In all seriousness, the best day ever.

The bikes themselves were pretty incredible: Chinese Forever Bikes, heavy steel cruisers that looked like they’d seen their fair share of action.  Each had its own little quirks, and we became very attached to them.  Now I have to find one in London.

Other awesome stuff about Egypt:

• Street life, shopping, and eating happens almost all night.  Wandering busy streets in the cool dark.
• Food, food, food.
• People asking about Obama.
• Seeing the desert from the airplane.
• Eons of graffiti.
• Lots of military/security guys with scary guns.
• Visiting a medieval mosque.
• First glimpse of the Giza pyramids from between suburban apartment buildings in various states of growth and decay.
• The Egyptian Museum, a rambling, dusty place that probably hasn’t changed since my dad visited in the 70s.
• Amazing tomb paintings in the Valley of the Kings.
• Kingfishers hunting along the Nile.
• ‘Security’ checkpoints where bags are not searched and a beeping metal detector means ‘go ahead.’
• Royal mummies.  And understanding why it’s controversial for hoards of under-dressed foreigners to be allowed in their presence.
• Seriously, what is up with all the under-dressed tourists?
• Finding out how scary camels are.
• Being completely alone in the crumbling Temple of Seti I.
• Traveling through the countryside, seeing agricultural practices that haven’t changed much in thousands of years.
• Karnak.
• Shocked looks on the faces of people in tour buses as they passed us on our bikes in the Valley of the Kings.
• Being called ‘Spice Girls’ more than once.
• Seeing Hapshepshut’s mummy and temple.
• Learning Egyptian Arabic.
• Hearing the call to prayer wash over the city, especially in the evening.
• Strong tea in beautiful curved glasses.

Now some photos.  Oh, and to keep this slightly on-topic, here’s Thoth, god of writing and technology:

Do You Know This Fish?

Yesterday I took the afternoon off and splurged a bit.  I have a decidedly nerdy passion for antique technology, much of which fits neither my collecting budget nor my living space.  One of the exceptions* is old type, which meets all the right criteria—small and inexpensive but with a satisfying tactility and lovely smell of grease and ink.  (Oh, and it’s sort of related to what I study for a living.)  These are my first purchases; I’m afraid it may become a habit when I have money again.

* I also enjoy fountain pens, scientific/engineering tools, and cameras.

I’d had my eye on Moby Dick here for months.  Now you are mine!  (Note to self: purchase white ink.)

Spotting this Penguin logo in the crowded case was one of my favorite moments in antiquing ever.  Now I can put it on everything I own.

Then there’s this:

Yes, yes it is a very dapper fish wearing a top-hat, monocle, and tail-coat.  With a cane in his fin.

The bizarre thing is that it seems so familiar, yet I can’t place it.  Is it a character from an old advertising campaign?  Or maybe it’s just that I’ve seen so many other dressed-up fish in cartoons and illustrations.  (He’s also reminiscent of Mr. Peanut.)  If anyone wants to help me out here… you know the drill.

Readers in Art

The very cool Art Inconnu blog features ‘forgotten, little-known, and under-appreciated art’, and two recent posts have highlighted images of readers - check out Reading Part 1 and Part 2.  [via BibliOdyssey]

British Library Fail, ABC News Win

It was already shaping up to be a bad week.  Yesterday an office mix-up (or a scribal transcription error, in book history terms) resulted in my room being treated for bedbugs while I was at the library.  I walked in to find my mattress stripped, soaking wet with insecticide, and leaning against a wall covered in posters that are now water damaged.  Then I lost my residence hall id card, which grants access to the building and cafeteria.  It’s probably lying on the floor of the British Library.  This makes my life slightly more difficult for the next few days, and entails a £25 fee.

But the major blow came this afternoon.  I was supposed to start research for my dissertation on the Gild Book of the Barber Surgeons of York.  After an hour of waiting for it to be delivered (happily reading in the sun on the crowded piazza) I was advised that my book was on display and I would have to fill out a three-page application form to request special access.  The gild book is not in the British Library’s permanent gallery, so I have to assume it’s part of the Henry VIII show that starts next week and basically runs until my dissertation is due.  And the application form states that ‘Access is not normally granted for manuscripts in temporary exhibitions.’  Wonderful.  There goes my ulcer.

I did have a laugh when I got home and saw this tongue-in-cheek ABC news clip about Harlequin Romance novels which is interspersed with readings by male celebrities.  Paul Rudd should really do audiobooks, and I don’t know how they convinced George Will to read, but whoever thought of that is a genius.  Also making an appearance, my uber-nerd crush.  Seth Rogen, you can read me romance novels any day.  Rowr.  [via Consumerist]