Lawrence Conrad

Last updated

Lawrence Irvin Conrad (born 1949) is a British historian and scholar of Oriental studies, specializing in Near Eastern studies and the history of medicine. He currently serves as historian for the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine in London.

Contents

Education and career

Conrad received his Ph.D. from Princeton University, completing his dissertation on The Plague in the Early Medieval Near East in 1981. [1] After a brief period working at the American University of Beirut, he moved in 1985 to the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine at University College, London. [2] In 2001, he moved to the University of Hamburg, where he remained until his retirement in 2008. [3] Conrad is known for his work on medieval Near Eastern social history, Arabic and Islamic medicine, and Arabic, Greek, and Syriac historiography.[ citation needed ]

Selected publications

Authored books

Edited books

Translated books

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Galen</span> Greek physician, surgeon and philosopher (129-c.216)

Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus, often Anglicized as Galen or Galen of Pergamon, was a Greek physician, surgeon and philosopher with Roman citizenship. Considered to be one of the most accomplished of all medical researchers of antiquity, Galen influenced the development of various scientific disciplines, including anatomy, physiology, pathology, pharmacology, and neurology, as well as philosophy and logic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Islamic philosophy</span> Philosophical tradition in Muslim culture

Islamic philosophy is philosophy that emerges from the Islamic tradition. Two terms traditionally used in the Islamic world are sometimes translated as philosophy—falsafa, which refers to philosophy as well as logic, mathematics, and physics; and Kalam, which refers to a rationalist form of Scholastic Islamic theology which includes the schools of Maturidiyah, Ashaira and Mu'tazila.

Early Islamic philosophy or classical Islamic philosophy is a period of intense philosophical development beginning in the 2nd century AH of the Islamic calendar and lasting until the 6th century AH. The period is known as the Islamic Golden Age, and the achievements of this period had a crucial influence in the development of modern philosophy and science. For Renaissance Europe, "Muslim maritime, agricultural, and technological innovations, as well as much East Asian technology via the Muslim world, made their way to western Europe in one of the largest technology transfers in world history.” This period starts with al-Kindi in the 9th century and ends with Averroes at the end of 12th century. The death of Averroes effectively marks the end of a particular discipline of Islamic philosophy usually called the Peripatetic Arabic School, and philosophical activity declined significantly in Western Islamic countries, namely in Islamic Spain and North Africa, though it persisted for much longer in the Eastern countries, in particular Persia and India where several schools of philosophy continued to flourish: Avicennism, Illuminationist philosophy, Mystical philosophy, and Transcendent theosophy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pedanius Dioscorides</span> Greco-Roman physician and pharmacologist, prominent writer on plant drugs (AD c.40-90)

Pedanius Dioscorides, “the father of pharmacognosy”, was a Greek physician, pharmacologist, botanist, and author of De materia medica —a 5-volume Greek encyclopedia about herbal medicine and related medicinal substances, that was widely read for more than 1,500 years. For almost two millennia Dioscorides was regarded as the most prominent writer on plants and plant drugs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Pococke</span> English orientalist and biblical scholar (1604–1691)

Edward Pococke was an English Orientalist and biblical scholar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Doctrine of signatures</span> Ancient herbalist theory

The doctrine of signatures, dating from the time of Dioscorides and Galen, states that herbs resembling various parts of the body can be used by herbalists to treat ailments of those body parts. A theological justification, as stated by botanists such as William Coles, was that God would have wanted to show men what plants would be useful for.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Medieval medicine of Western Europe</span> Aspect of history

Medieval medicine in Western Europe was composed of a mixture of pseudoscientific ideas from antiquity. In the Early Middle Ages, following the fall of the Western Roman Empire, standard medical knowledge was based chiefly upon surviving Greek and Roman texts, preserved in monasteries and elsewhere. Medieval medicine is widely misunderstood, thought of as a uniform attitude composed of placing hopes in the church and God to heal all sicknesses, while sickness itself exists as a product of destiny, sin, and astral influences as physical causes. On the other hand, medieval medicine, especially in the second half of the medieval period, became a formal body of theoretical knowledge and was institutionalized in the universities. Medieval medicine attributed illnesses, and disease, not to sinful behaviour, but to natural causes, and sin was connected to illness only in a more general sense of the view that disease manifested in humanity as a result of its fallen state from God. Medieval medicine also recognized that illnesses spread from person to person, that certain lifestyles may cause ill health, and some people have a greater predisposition towards bad health than others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ibn Tufail</span> Arab Andalusian Muslim polymath

Ibn Ṭufail was an Arab Andalusian Muslim polymath: a writer, Islamic philosopher, Islamic theologian, physician, astronomer, and vizier.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Islamic literature</span> Literature with influences based on Islamic religion

Islamic literature is literature written by Muslim people, influenced by an Islamic cultural perspective, or literature that portrays Islam. It can be written in any language and portray any country or region. It includes many literary forms including adabs, a non-fiction form of Islamic advice literature, and various fictional literary genres.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rufus of Ephesus</span> Late 1st and early 2nd century Greek physician

Rufus of Ephesus was a Greek physician and author who wrote treatises on dietetics, pathology, anatomy, gynaecology, and patient care. He was an admirer of Hippocrates, although he at times criticized or departed from that author's teachings. While several of his writings survive in full and have been critically edited, most are fragmentary and lack critical editions. His writings explore subjects often neglected by other authors, such as the treatment of slaves and the elderly. He was particularly influential in the East, and some of his works survive only in Arabic. His teachings emphasize the importance of anatomy and seek pragmatic approaches to diagnosis and treatment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moses ben Joshua</span> 14th-century Catalan philosopher and physician

Moses Narbonne, also known as Moses of Narbonne, mestre Vidal Bellshom, maestro Vidal Blasom, and Moses Narboni, was a medieval Catalan philosopher and physician. He was born at Perpignan, in the Kingdom of Majorca, at the end of the thirteenth century and died sometime after 1362. He began studying philosophy with his father when he was thirteen and then studied with Moses and Abraham Caslari. He studied medicine and eventually became a successful physician, and was well versed in Biblical and rabbinical literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Medicine in ancient Rome</span> Aspect of history

Medicine in ancient Rome was highly influenced by ancient Greek medicine, but also developed new practices through knowledge of the Hippocratic Corpus combined with use of the treatment of diet, regimen, along with surgical procedures. This was most notably seen through the works of two of the prominent Greek physicians, Dioscorides and Galen, who practiced medicine and recorded their discoveries. This is contrary to two other physicians like Soranus of Ephesus and Asclepiades of Bithynia, who practiced medicine both in outside territories and in ancient Roman territory, subsequently. Dioscorides was a Roman army physician, Soranus was a representative for the Methodic school of medicine, Galen performed public demonstrations, and Asclepiades was a leading Roman physician. These four physicians all had knowledge of medicine, ailments, and treatments that were healing, long lasting and influential to human history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Grigore</span>

George Grigore is a Romanian writer, essayist, translator, professor, researcher in Middle Eastern Studies.

<i>Hayy ibn Yaqdhan</i> Arabic philosophical novel and allegorical tale written by Ibn Tufail

Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān is an Arabic philosophical novel and an allegorical tale written by Ibn Tufail in the early 12th century in Al-Andalus. Names by which the book is also known include the Latin: Philosophus Autodidactus ; and English: The Improvement of Human Reason: Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan. Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān was named after an earlier Arabic philosophical romance of the same name, written by Avicenna during his imprisonment in the early 11th century, even though both tales had different stories. The novel greatly inspired Islamic philosophy as well as major Enlightenment thinkers. It's the most translated text from Arabic, after the Quran and the One Thousand and One Nights.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Youssef Ziedan</span> Egyptian scholar (born 1958)

Youssef Ziedan is an Egyptian writer and scholar who specializes in Arabic and Islamic studies. He is a public lecturer, columnist, and prolific author of more than 50 books. He is also director of the Manuscript Center and Museum at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ibn Butlan</span> Arab Nestorian Christian physician

Abū 'l-Ḥasan al-Muḫtār Yuwānnīs ibn al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAbdūn ibn Saʿdūn ibn Buṭlān known as Ibn Buṭlān was a physician and Arab Christian theologian from Baghdad during the Abbasid era. He left his hometown for travels throughout the Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and Asia Minor during which he practiced medicine, studied, wrote, and engaged in intellectual debates most famously the Battle of the Physicians with Ibn Riḍwān. He was a first-hand witness of the Schism of 1054 in Constantinople, contributing a work to the discussions surrounding it for Patriarch Michael I Cerularius. After his time in Constantinople he remained in the Byzantine Empire, becoming a monk in Antioch during the end of the Macedonian Renaissance.

Thessalus of Tralles was a famous Roman physician and early adherent to the Methodic school of medicine. He lived in Rome, where he was the court physician of Emperor Nero. It was here that he died and was buried, and his tomb was to be seen on the Via Appia.

Vivian Nutton FBA is a British historian of medicine who serves as Emeritus Professor at the UCL Centre for the History of Medicine, University College London, and current President of the Centre for the Study of Medicine and the Body in the Renaissance (CSMBR).

The Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine (1968–1999) was a London centre for the study and teaching of medical history. It consisted of the Wellcome Library and an Academic Unit. The former was and is a world-class library collection owned and managed by the Wellcome Trust and staffed by librarians including academic librarians who held honorary lectureships at University College London. The Academic Unit was a group of university staff appointed at University College London that conducted a programme of university teaching, thesis supervision, seminars, conferences and publications.

Charmis of Marseilles was a famous Roman physician. A native of Massilia, he came to Rome during the reign of Nero. Pliny counted him as a "completely Greek physician". He achieved great fame and fortune in Rome by introducing the practice of cold bathing, which supplanted the astrological medicine of his fellow townsman Crinas. Crinas had in turn supplanted Thessalus, who followed the principles of the Methodic school of medicine.

References

  1. Conrad, Lawrence I. (1981). The Plague in the Early Medieval Near East (PhD thesis). Princeton University. Retrieved 27 May 2020.
  2. "U.K." (PDF). IASTAM Newsletter. International Association for the Study of Traditional Asian Medicine (6). 1985. Retrieved 27 May 2020.
  3. "Lawrence Conrad". Hamburger Professorinnen- und Professorenkatalog. Universität Hamburg. Retrieved 27 May 2020.
  4. Reviews of The Western Medical Tradition
    • Cook, Harold John (1997). "Book review: The Western Medical Tradition, 800 B.C. to A.D. 1800". Bulletin of the History of Medicine. Johns Hopkins University Press. 71 (2): 328–329. doi:10.1353/bhm.1997.0065. ISSN   1086-3176. S2CID   70760013.
    • Carmichael, Ann G. (1999). "The Western Medical Tradition: 800 B.C. to A.D. 1800 by Lawrence I. Conrad, Michael Neve, Vivian Nutton, Roy Porter, Andrew Wear (book review)". The Historian. Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 61 (3): 728–729.
    • Ferngren, Gary B. (29 February 1996). "Book Review | The Western Medical Tradition, 800 B.C. to A.D. 1800 By Lawrence I. Conrad, Michael Neve, Vivian Nutton, Roy Porter, and Andrew Wear". New England Journal of Medicine. Massachusetts Medical Society. 334 (9): 608–609. doi:10.1056/nejm199602293340919. ISSN   0028-4793.
  5. Zaman, Muhammad Qasim (1995). "The Early Arabic Historical Tradition: A Source-Critical Study, by Albrecht Noth. Second edition, in collaboration with Lawrence I. Conrad. (book review)". Middle East Studies Association Bulletin. Cambridge University Press. 29 (1): 80. doi:10.1017/s0026318400030881. ISSN   0026-3184. S2CID   164784076.
  6. Strohmaier, Gotthard (1997). "Lawrence I Conrad (ed.), The world of Ibn Tufayl: interdisciplinary perspectives on Hayy ibn Yaqzān (book review)". Medical History. Cambridge University Press. 41 (4): 505–507. doi: 10.1017/s0025727300063146 . ISSN   0025-7273.
  7. Hillenbrand, Carole (1986). "The Rise of Historical Writing Among the Arabs by A. A. Duri (book review)". Bulletin (British Society for Middle Eastern Studies). Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 13 (1): 74–76.