Health and medicine in Wales

Results (24)

Luft, Diana, Medieval Welsh medical texts, 2 vols, vol. 1, Cardiff: University Press of Wales, 2020.

– open-access PDF: <link>

abstract:

This volume presents the first critical edition and translation of the corpus of medieval Welsh medical recipes traditionally ascribed to the Physicians of Myddfai. These offer practical treatments for a variety of everyday conditions such as toothache, constipation and gout. The recipes have been edited from the four earliest collections of Welsh medical texts in manuscript, which date from the late fourteenth century. A series of notes provides sources and analogues for the recipes, demonstrating their relationship with the European medical tradition. The identification of herbal ingredients in the recipes is based on pre-modern plant-name glossaries rather than modern dictionaries, and has led to new interpretations of many of the recipes. Comprehensive glossaries allow the reader to find any recipe based on the ingredients and equipment used in it or the condition treated. This new interpretation of these texts clearly shows that they are not unique, but rather form part of the medical tradition that was common throughout Europe during the Middle Ages.

Parina, Elena, “Medical texts in Welsh translation: Y pedwar gwlybwr and Rhinweddau bwydydd”, in: Aisling Byrne, and Victoria Flood (eds), Crossing borders in the Insular Middle Ages, 30, Turnhout: Brepols, 2019. 47–63.

Luft, Diana, “Uroscopy and urinary ailments in medieval Welsh medical texts”, Transactions of the Physicians of Myddfai Society 2011–2017 (2018): 187–197.

PubMed: <link>

abstract:

The corpus of late fourtenth-century medieval Welsh medical recipes often attributed to the legendary Physicians of Myddfai includes a number of recipes meant to treat urinary ailments, as well as directions on how to diagnose conditions, and provide prognosis to patients, based on the appearance of their urine. These directions are quite obviously related to similar types of instructions in contemporary Latin texts as well as those in the European vernaculars. However the recipes for urinary ailments, strange as some of them may seem, also form part of this wider European medical culture. This paper demonstrates the continuity between the Welsh remedies for urinary ailments and those of medieval England and Europe. It goes on to explore the relationship between the Welsh remedies and older texts such as the herbal attributed to Macer Floridus, Medicina de Quadrupedibus which was translated into Old English, and ultimately Classical sources. While at first glance it may seem that the medical texts attributed to the Physicians of Myddfai are a bit odd, or idiosyncratic, in reality they are firmly embedded in the western medical tradition, and echo the medical ideas that were being propagated in all European vernaculars at this time.

(source: PubMed)

Owen, Morfydd E., “The doctor in the Laws of Hywel”, Transactions of the Physicians of Myddfai Society (2018): 69–80.

Falileyev, Alexander, and Morfydd E. Owen, The Leiden leechbook. A study of the earliest Neo-Brittonic medical compilation, Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Kulturwissenschaft, Innsbruck: Institut für Sprachen und Literaturen der Universität Innsbruck, 2005.

Owen, Morfydd E., “Prolegomena i astudiaeth lawn o Lsgr. NLW 3026C, Mostyn 88 a’i harwyddocâd”, in: R. Iestyn Daniel, Jenny Rowland, Dafydd Johnston, and Marged Haycock (eds), Cyfoeth y testun: ysgrifau ar lenyddiaeth Gymraeg yr Oesoedd Canol, Cardiff: University Press of Wales, 2003. 349–384.

Owen, Morfydd E., “Manion? Meddygol”, Dwned 7 (2001): 43–63.

Owen, Morfydd E., “Medics and medicine”, in: T. M. Charles-Edwards, Paul Russell, and Morfydd E. Owen (eds), The Welsh king and his court, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2000. 116–141.

Owen, Morfydd E., “The medical books of medieval Wales and the physicians of Myddfai”, The Carmarthenshire Antiquary 31 (1995): 34–83.

Lambert, Pierre-Yves, “Le fragment médical latin et vieux-breton du manuscrit de Leyde, Vossianus lat. fo 96A”, Bulletin de la Société archéologique du Finistère 115 (1986): 315–328.

Cule, John H., Wales and medicine: a source-list for printed books and papers showing the history of medicine in relation to Wales and Welshmen, Cardiff, 1980.

Stuart, Heather, “A ninth century account of diets and dies aegyptiaci”, Scriptorium 33:2 (1979): 237–244.

Persee.fr: <link>

Owen, Morfydd E., “Meddygon Myddfai: a preliminary survey of some medieval medical writing in Welsh”, Studia Celtica 10–11 (1976–1976): 210–233.

Jones, Ida B., “Hafod 16, a mediaeval Welsh medical treatise (suite et fin)”, Études Celtiques 8:2 (1959, 1958–1959): 346–393.

Journal volume: Persée – Études Celtiques, vol. 8, fascicule 1, 1958: <link> Persée – Études Celtiques, vol. 8, fascicule 2, 1959: <link>

Jones, Ida B., “Hafod 16, a mediaeval Welsh medical treatise (suite)”, Études Celtiques 8:1 (1958, 1958–1959): 66–97.

Journal volume: Persée – Études Celtiques, vol. 8, fascicule 1, 1958: <link> Persée – Études Celtiques, vol. 8, fascicule 2, 1959: <link>

Jones, Ida B., “Hafod 16, a mediaeval Welsh medical treatise”, Études Celtiques 7:1 (1955, 1955–1956): 46–75.

Journal volume: Persée – Études Celtiques, vol. 7, fascicule 1, 1955: <link> Persée – Études Celtiques, vol 7, fascicule 2, 1956: <link>

Jones, Ida B., “Hafod 16, a mediaeval Welsh medical treatise (suite)”, Études Celtiques 7:2 (1956, 1955–1956): 270–339.

Journal volume: Persée – Études Celtiques, vol. 7, fascicule 1, 1955: <link> Persée – Études Celtiques, vol 7, fascicule 2, 1956: <link>

J., Ll. G., and Ll. R., “Mélanges: Folk-medicine in Wales”, Revue Celtique 6 (1883–1885): 505–507.

Internet Archive: <link>

Williams, John [ed.], and John Pughe [tr.], The physicians of Myddvai: Meddygon Myddvai, or, the medical practice of the celebrated Rhiwallon and his sons, of Myddvai, in Caermarthenshire, physicians to Rhys Gryg, lord of Dynevor and Ystrad Towy, about the middle of the thirteenth century, Llandovery: D. J. Roderic for the Welsh MSS Society, 1861.

Internet Archive: <link>, <link>, <link>