[Miraculous recoveries in the frescoes of the Decani Monastery].
Serbian medieval medicine can be said to have the same characteristics as western medicine of those times in terms of practical medical science, whereas the ancillary medical branches were under Byzantine influence. Besides the compositions of Christ's miracles and paraboles are underlying part of the fresco/painting, the scenes of Christ's miraculous recoveries have an important place in the christian iconography of the New Testament events. One of the most impressive cycles of Christ's miracles in the Serbian and Byzantine medieval art was painted in c. 1340 year in the church dedicated to the Ascension of Lord Christ at Dechani Monastery and constructed between 1327 and 1335. A considerable number of 22 frescoes of different artistic value and technique displays the miraculous recovery of patients afflicted by various chronic ailments: paralytics (razlabljeni), lepers, and handicapped (blind, lame and deaf). One scene presents the bleeding (krvotociva) women. Scenes of recovery from nervous and mental diseases are especially impressive. Patients with atrophic arm, these with hemiplegy, epilepsy, an somnambulist boy, lunatics and possessed are there painted. The magnificent compositions of the miraculous recovery of a patient with ascites (debela, vodena bolest) and these affected by disorders of mainly neuromuscular and locomotor systems are performed by talented masters. The King Stefan Urosh Dechanski Third (1322-1331) founded the hospital in the Dechani Monastery, as a purely medical institution for providing treatment. This hospital was organized and modelled on the hospital in the Pantocrator Monastery in Constantinople. His biographer Gregory Camblak described that this hospital took in patients suffering from epilepsy (svestenoga neduga radi stradalcem) and serious nervous disorders, lepers, cripples, paralytics and those with lung diseases. Regardless of differences in the artistic level, most of these frescoes are impressively natural and realistic. This supports the ascertain that masters painted even some of patients from Monastery Hospital. The scenes of Christ's miraculous recoveries in the Dechani Monastery are undoubtelly significant for both the cultural history and the Serbian medieval medicine. This considerable cycle of the monumental painting and frescoes with medical matter, constitutes the basis for research of the Serbian medicine of the Middle-Ages.
Jović
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N
Department of Neurology and Psychiatry for Children and Youth, Medical School, Belgrade.
Jancić-Stefanović
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J
D002410:Catholicism / Q000266:history*; D049691:History, Medieval; D006801:Humans; D008512:Medicine in the Arts; D010151:Paintings / Q000266:history*; D015022:Yugoslavia