Skin pathology and medical prognosis in medieval Europe: the secrets of Hippocrates.
This article analyzes a medieval text known as The Secrets of Hippocrates. Neither secret (because of its wide circulation in manuscript and print) nor by Hippocrates, the work offered readers a means of offering a prognosis of impending death based on observable signs on the skin. Although the aphorisms that make up the text make little sense in a modern medical understanding, the Secrets of Hippocrates fits well within three medieval traditions: the tradition of secrets literature, the medieval medical tradition, and the tradition of medieval Christian views about the body. First, like other books of secrets, a genre to whose conventions the text closely adheres, the Secrets of Hippocrates offered a shortcut to socially useful knowledge: the ability to offer an accurate medical prognosis. Second, the treatise corresponded to the medieval physician's concern for the so-called nonnaturals, such as diet and exercise. Third, it fit with a medieval Christian notion that sickness and sin were related, as were sin and ugliness. Just as a leper's deformities were a window to his sinful soul, so skin pathologies could clue a medieval physician to the lethal disease hidden inside the body.
Ackerman Smoller
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Department of History, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, 72204-1099, USA.
D003880:Dermatology / Q000266:history*; D005060:Europe; D049691:History, Medieval; D006801:Humans; D008373:Manuscripts as Topic / Q000266:history; D010686:Philosophy, Medical / Q000266:history*; D011379:Prognosis; D011643:Publishing / Q000266:history; D012871:Skin Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000266:history*