Concerning hereditary physicians in Ireland and their books
Memini namque magnates Hyberniae, dare agrum domestico medenti, non quidem qui ab Academiis institutus rediisset: sed sanaret aegros. Habet nempe is librum, ab Atavis sibi relictum, remediis resertum. Adeoque libri haeres, semper agri illius haeres est. codex iste, signa morborum depingit, ac remedia vernacula. feliciusque sanantur infirmi Hyberni, ac longe fortiores sunt, quam Itali, qui pagis singulis, suos habent Medicastros, e cruore miserorum viventes.
Translated by Joyce as follows: “The Irish nobility have in every family a domestic physican, who has a tract of land free for his remuneration, and who is appointed, not on account of the amount of learning he brings away in his head from colleges, but because he can cure disorders. These doctors obtain their medical knowledge chiefly from books belonging to particular families left them by their ancestors, in which are laid down the symptoms of the several diseases, with the remedies annexed; which remedies are the productions of their own country. Accordingly the Irish are better managed in sickness than the Italians, who have a physician in every village.”
physicians
medicine
Irish medicine and medical writing
Irish medical writing, especially vernacular texts produced in the later middle ages.
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