Bibliography
Pierce A.
Grace
Contributions to journals
Grace, Pierce A., “Medicine in Gaelic Ireland and Scotland, c.1350–c.1750”, Irish Historical Studies 44:166 (November, 2020): 201–223.
abstract:
Between c.1350 and c.1750 a small group of professional hereditary physicians served the Gaelic communities of Ireland and Scotland. Over fifty medical kindreds provided advice regarding health maintenance and treatment with herbs and surgery. Their medical knowledge was derived from Gaelic translations of medieval European Latin medical texts grounded in the classical works of Hippocrates and Galen, and the Arab world. Students studied in medical schools where they copied and compiled medical texts in Irish, some for use as handbooks. Over 100 texts are extant. Political upheaval and scientific advances led to the eclipse of this medical world. Through examination of the Gaelic medical manuscripts and other sources this article provides an assessment of medicine in Gaelic Ireland and Scotland from the mid-fourteenth to the mid-eighteenth centuries.
abstract:
Between c.1350 and c.1750 a small group of professional hereditary physicians served the Gaelic communities of Ireland and Scotland. Over fifty medical kindreds provided advice regarding health maintenance and treatment with herbs and surgery. Their medical knowledge was derived from Gaelic translations of medieval European Latin medical texts grounded in the classical works of Hippocrates and Galen, and the Arab world. Students studied in medical schools where they copied and compiled medical texts in Irish, some for use as handbooks. Over 100 texts are extant. Political upheaval and scientific advances led to the eclipse of this medical world. Through examination of the Gaelic medical manuscripts and other sources this article provides an assessment of medicine in Gaelic Ireland and Scotland from the mid-fourteenth to the mid-eighteenth centuries.
Grace, Pierce A., “From blefed to scamach: pestilence in early medieval Ireland”, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 118 C (2018): 67–93.
abstract:
Between A.D. 540 and 795 a series of major epidemics occurred in Ireland. Recorded in the Irish annals, each outbreak was given a name in Latin or Irish, but without clinical details the identity of specific diseases is speculative. Tentative diagnoses are: bubonic plague (blefed, second buide chonnail, mortalitas puerorum), relapsing fever or infectious hepatitis (first buide chonnail), Hansesn's disease or any scaly skin disorder (samthrosc, lepra), smallpox (bolgach), dysentery (riuth fola), lameness from polio or a cattle zoonosis (baccach) and pneumonia (scamach). Through examination of the annals and their interpretation by medical and other historians, this article provides an overview of the diseases in Ireland during the early medieval period and offers novel suggestions as to the identity of some of the disorders described.
abstract:
Between A.D. 540 and 795 a series of major epidemics occurred in Ireland. Recorded in the Irish annals, each outbreak was given a name in Latin or Irish, but without clinical details the identity of specific diseases is speculative. Tentative diagnoses are: bubonic plague (blefed, second buide chonnail, mortalitas puerorum), relapsing fever or infectious hepatitis (first buide chonnail), Hansesn's disease or any scaly skin disorder (samthrosc, lepra), smallpox (bolgach), dysentery (riuth fola), lameness from polio or a cattle zoonosis (baccach) and pneumonia (scamach). Through examination of the annals and their interpretation by medical and other historians, this article provides an overview of the diseases in Ireland during the early medieval period and offers novel suggestions as to the identity of some of the disorders described.
