Helsinki|university of Helsinki
In medieval medicine, comprehensiveness and individuality of treatment were emphasized. For example, leaf lettuce was not suitable for everyone.
Now it is finally ready: a dissertation on the birth of Finland’s oldest book.
This book, or rather the manuscript, is of Constantine Africanus Latin translation work Pantegni, Theorica. It was once Europe’s first comprehensive medical textbook and handbook.
The work fascinatingly opens up a medieval, very comprehensive understanding of human health.
University teacher of Latin at the Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki Outi Kaltio wanted to find out in more detail the stages of the book’s creation in his dissertation.
Kaltion the version of the Pantegni, Theorica, which is the subject of the study, kept in the National Library, is estimated to date from the second half of the 12th century, perhaps from around 1150–1175. The book is therefore almost 900 years old.
The book is written by hand on 210 parchment leaves, i.e. it has 420 pages. The parchments are animal skin, and on the sides you can see, for example, openings for blood vessels.
The work came to Finland from Russia in 1832 as an imperial donation.
The work is significant in many ways.
For the first time, everything that was known about the structure, function, diseases and their cure of the human body was gathered into it. The Latin-language work was used in Europe’s first medical schools and universities until the 14th century.
HS wrote Pantegni, from Theorica in March 2022.
Read more: Finland’s oldest book was found in the caches of the National Library: now its mysterious markings are being solved like a Rubik’s cube
After the reader’s feedback, HS also wrote about why the old book was touched without protective gloves.
Read more: Many were enraged when Finland’s oldest book was touched without protective gloves – Was it a terrible mistake?
In the book anatomy, functions of different organs, external factors affecting health, diseases and their causes, treatments and medicines are discussed, among other things.
The theoretical basis is the humoral doctrine of four body fluids (blood, phlegm, bile, black bile) and basic quality (hot, cold, dry, moist) which goes back to ancient medicine and was refined by Arab scholars.
The relationship of fluids and qualities in the body, the complex, was individual for each person, and according to the humoral theory, the complex was influenced by numerous factors, such as age, sex, climate and nutrition.
One of the central themes of the work, external factors affecting health, had a significant aftereffect until modern times, especially in sanatorium culture and bath doctrine.
“In humor theory we started from the assumption that health was the result of a balanced complex, while diseases were caused by an upset of the balance,” says Kaltio.
“We tried to influence health with the help of so-called non-natural things, such as exercise, rest, food, climate, sleep and wakefulness, emotions, sex and baths. The doctor’s job was to know his patient so well that he knew what was good for each complex.”
“Pantegni, in Theorica, food ingredients are treated in great detail. For example, leaf lettuce has a cold and damp complex, and it depends on a person’s own complex whether leaf lettuce is good for them.”
Nowadays, many guidelines related to health care, such as official nutritional recommendations, are drawn up for everyone. On the other hand, many alternative treatments and Chinese medicine emphasize human individuality, and thus, according to Kalti, they have echoes of medieval medicine.
But how is it: have the secrets of the National Library’s Pantegni, Theorica’s birth stages finally been revealed?
“Not definitively. But it has turned out that the manuscript of the National Library contains Constaninus’s initial version, i.e. a very early version of the fifth book of the work, i.e. the one dealing with non-naturals. That’s what I say.”
According to Kalti, one of the purposes of his dissertation is to publish a modern edition and an English edition of Pantegni, Theorica.
“I would like this interesting work to be made available to a wider audience.”
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