Prognosis, medical ethics and the deathbed in late medieval England
Prognostication was a key tool of the physician in the pre-modern period: a time when diagnosis was difficult, treatment often ineffective and surgery a dangerous last resort. This paper will survey the wide range of prognosticatory methods available to the learned physician and demonstrate that the methods used were open to interpretation and therefore to manipulation and ambiguity. It will argue that ambiguous prognostics were useful to the late medieval medical practitioner as he strove to care for both the body and the soul of patients approaching death.
Date:
22 October 2015, 17:30 (Thursday, 2nd week, Michaelmas 2015)
Venue:
Rewley House, 1-7 Wellington Square OX1 2JA
Venue Details:
No 11 Conference Room
Speaker:
Dr Jo Edge
Organising department:
Department for Continuing Education
Organiser contact email address:
gradschool@conted.ox.ac.uk
Hosts:
Dr Cathy Oakes (Department for Continuing Education, University of Oxford),
Dr Sandie Byrne (Department for Continuing Education, University of Oxford),
Dr Christine Jackson (Department for Continuing Education, University of Oxford)
Part of:
Graduate Seminar Programme in the Arts and Humanities
Booking required?:
Required
Booking email:
gradschool@conted.ox.ac.uk
Audience:
Members of the University only
Editor:
Sarah Cocks
