Recording Religion and Health

Chair: Wei-Sein Wan

“There is nothing funny about Humours: The origins of the humoral theory in Hippocratic Medicine” by Keith Stewart

The theory of the humours (blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile) dominated western medicine, even up until the nineteenth century. The origins of this theory are generally recognised as being from the work of the Greek Hippocratic doctors of the fifth century BCE, with a further development by the physician Galen in the second century CE. However, a close reading of the various Hippocratic texts shows that the original idea of the humours, in the fifth century BCE, is much more complex and diverse than the later theory of humours developed by Galen, which was used as the basis for the humoral theory for nearly two millennia. This paper will present a number of the ideas developed by the Hippocratic doctors to explain the workings of the human body, without any sophisticated knowledge of human anatomy. This will show that there were a range of possible theories, relating to humours and other similar substances, available in the Hippocratic texts. It was the later medical writers, such as Galen, who developed selected parts of the Hippocratic texts, to create a more robust theory describing four fundamental fluids to explain health and disease, which has been called the theory of the humours.

"To what extent did monastic identity in thirteenth century England shape provision of healthcare and approaches to wellbeing?” by Tamsin Gardner

My on-going research uses a wide variety of sources to analyse the ways in which being a Benedictine or Cistercian monk affected the healthcare arrangements, facilities, spaces available and treatments a monk would experience in the course of maintaining health and coping with illness.  This paper will focus specifically on how sickness, wellbeing and healthcare are presented in theological treatises, medical manuscripts associated with the houses and some hagiography on the subject written by or about monks from these two orders.  I plan to explore the apparent contradiction in the evidence that, as Carole Rawcliffe suggests there is a reluctance to cure sickness in light of suffering being viewed as a gift or a punishment from God and therefore as she has argued, to seek a cure without the involvement of God might be considered profane. However, conversely there is documented evidence of external cures being sought. Does this evidence show a relaxation of monastic values or is it a reaction to other developments in the monastic environment at this time such as regulatory pressures in respect of monks studying medicine and performing surgery?

“Holy Exiles: Learning to live from a Gospel-Shaped Identity in the letter of 1 Peter.” by David Shaw

In the New Testament, the letter of 1 Peter is written to a group of churches in Asia Minor who are suffering sporadic, but increasing hostility for their Christian faith. In this context the author of 1 Peter urges them, “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’” (1:14-16). The recipients are identified as ‘obedient children’ whose way of life has been radically altered by their encounter with God such that they are to continually live in a way that aligns with God’s character. With all this in mind, the present paper seeks to address two questions: (1) what is the nature of holiness, especially as it pertains to how being called to be holy relates to  one’s identity and how one lives that out in light of who God is? And (2) given the difficult circumstances of the churches to which he writes, how does the author of 1 Peter ground his argument towards motivating a life characterized by holiness in the face of opposition?