Books and Book Chapters by Lori Jones
Disease and the Environment in the Medieval and Early Modern Worlds, 2022
Disease and the Environment in the Medieval and Early Modern Worlds, 2022
Appraisals of which plague environments were naturally pathogenic and which were accidental after... more Appraisals of which plague environments were naturally pathogenic and which were accidental aftermaths of spreading epidemics, however, evolved over time as longstanding Hippocratic ideas about the respective unhealthiness of particular environments and people were reworked in response to changing medical norms and contemporary socio-cultural and political considerations. Such issues included, among other things, increasing (and increasingly concentrated) urban poverty, religious conflict, and global trading and diplomatic relationships.
Across and beyond the pre-modern Mediterranean world, Christian, Islamic and Jewish healing tradi... more Across and beyond the pre-modern Mediterranean world, Christian, Islamic and Jewish healing traditions shared inherited medical paradigms containing similar healthy living precepts and attitudes toward body, illness and mortality. Yet, as the chapters collected here demonstrate, customs of diagnosing, explaining and coping with disease and death often diverged with respect to knowledge and practice. Offering a variety of disciplinary approaches to a broad selection of material emerging from England to the Persian Gulf, the volume reaches across conventional disciplinary and historiographical boundaries.
Book coming out soon! For a link to the publisher site, click here: https://boydellandbrewer.com/9781914049095/death-and-disease-in-the-medieval-and-early-modern-world/
Death and Disease in the Medieval and Early Modern World: Perspectives from Across the Mediterranean and Beyond, 2022
Death and Disease in the Medieval and Early Modern World: Perspectives from Across the Mediterranean and Beyond, 2022
When we stop looking for images of plague symptoms and look instead for images of contemporary me... more When we stop looking for images of plague symptoms and look instead for images of contemporary medical practice, something new appears: an adaptation of the iconic Phlebotomy/Bloodletting Man and Wound Man diagrams to this specific disease.In exploring the interrelationship between the Bubo Man image and the accompanying texts, this chapter asks: How did illustrators intend to depict plague by repurposing existing didactic diagrams? What might these images indicate about late medieval efforts to understand and manage plague? And what does the imagery suggest about the process by which visual representation of plague found its way into plague treatises, a primarily textual tradition?
Transforming Medical Education: Historical Case Studies of Teaching, Learning, and Belonging in Medicine in Honour of Jacalyn Duffin, edited by Delia Gavrus and Susan Lamb, 2022
This chapter explores how and under what circumstances plague tracts reflect physicians’ struggle... more This chapter explores how and under what circumstances plague tracts reflect physicians’ struggles to reconcile, on the one hand, the received canonical knowledge that underscored their university medical education and, on the other hand, their personal and cumulative experience with the disease between the mid-fourteenth and mid-eighteenth centuries. It also touches on how plague literature influenced medical education in the medieval and early modern eras.
Genre in Medical English: Sociocultural Contexts of Production and Use 1500–1820, edited by Irma Taavitsainen, Turo Hiltunen, Jeremy Smith and Carla Suhr, 2022
A version of John Mirfield’s Gouernayl of Helþe found in Wellcome Collection MS 674 demonstrates ... more A version of John Mirfield’s Gouernayl of Helþe found in Wellcome Collection MS 674 demonstrates the continuing relevance and adaptability of medieval regimens to post-medieval contexts. First composed in the late fourteenth century, Mirfield’s work was among the earliest medical texts printed in late-fifteenth-century England. It then reappeared, considerably revised, in a late-sixteenth-century manuscript. This chapter traces the substantive changes made to Mirfield’s medieval regimen over time to understand which aspects of health culture were identified as needing revision, notably in terms of the non-naturals, and what was regarded as harmful or beneficial to health.
Asclepius, the Paintbrush, and the Pen: Representations of Disease in Medieval and Early Modern European Art and Literature, edited by Rinaldo Canalis and Massimo Ciavolella, 2021
To what extent can we use pre-modern imaginaries of plague signs and symptoms as observations tha... more To what extent can we use pre-modern imaginaries of plague signs and symptoms as observations that both are understandable in a modern system of diagnosis and allow us to see, with our eyes, what witnesses saw in the past? Pre-modern and modern diagnostic and descriptive criteria differ considerably; indeed, what medical writers deemed important or even
worth describing changed both within the pre-modern era itself and then again in the post laboratory era. The lack of medical diagrams of the plague before the nineteenth century further complicates our attempts to associate what ‘they’—our observers from the late medieval and early modern eras—were seeing. I argue here, it is possible to ‘see’ plague in the past by tracing subtle changes in the conventions used to describe it.
Disease Dispersion and Impact in the Indian Ocean World, 2020
By placing the Indian Ocean World (IOW) into the larger global histories of five major infectious... more By placing the Indian Ocean World (IOW) into the larger global histories of five major infectious diseases—malaria, tuberculosis, leprosy, smallpox, and plague—this paper offers a synthetic state-of-the-field assessment of what is
now known or postulated about the origins and trajectories of these diseases. Focusing in particular on the mediaeval period, the paper demonstrates the significant value of using an integrated, multi-disciplinary approach in
historical epidemiology that blends palaeogenetics with more traditional historical sources to trace the possible connectivities of the five diseases into, across, and from the IOW. It argues that although the IOW has neither been
included substantially thus far in global health history, nor has it generated any samples of pathogen ancient DNA (aDNA), it is nevertheless possible to begin to reconstruct the pre-modern histories and conceivable spread of these five major human diseases in and across this region of the world. As archaeology, bioarchaeology, genetics, and document-based history forge stronger alliances,
this region of intense historical human activity, migration, and trade—of connectivity—must necessarily be incorporated into wider discussions of the history of global health.
Papers by Lori Jones
Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 2021
As one of the most popular medieval plague treatises produced during the Second Plague Pandemic, ... more As one of the most popular medieval plague treatises produced during the Second Plague Pandemic, John of Burgundy's tract offers an excellent example of how medical books changed over time and place: in their material formats (such as manuscript to print), their textual contents and meanings, the people involved in their production, their readership, and sometimes even their purpose. The seemingly formulaic structure and medical contents of plague tracts has contributed to a long-standing perception that they were largely static or even ahistorical, one treatise easily exchanged for another. However, by examining copies of the treatise as individual and unique productions, rather than simply seeing the apparent uniformity of a few exemplars (or even the entire genre), we can begin to trace the itineraries through which they traveled and the rich tapestries of change that mark their life stories.
Epoiesen, 2022
What if the concerns of the present time exist or have been exacerbated not only because of what ... more What if the concerns of the present time exist or have been exacerbated not only because of what transpired in the past but also because of our lack of knowledge, or lack of consideration, of that history? What if we can learn something about ourselves by studying history? Here, we bring together several seemingly disparate threads – pedagogical and personal – to show why history does matter and how presenting historical findings in novel ways can help us to heal the wounds of the past while rediscovering ourselves.
CENTAURUS JOURNAL OF THE EUROPEAN SOCIETY FOR THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE, 2022
In the 17th century, English plague-tract writers began replicating a practice begun some decades... more In the 17th century, English plague-tract writers began replicating a practice begun some decades earlier by their French and Italian counterparts: creating local histories to better describe the disease and explain how best to manage it. After the great London outbreak of 1665, however, plague deaths often went unrecorded and English tract-writing declined significantly. Without local epidemics to record or historicize, the authors became remote spectators of plague elsewhere, their own outbreaks perhaps now seemingly safe in the past. When plague raged in Marseille in 1720, the disease generated fear but was in some ways a bygone event to English tract-writers. Marketing their tracts as historical accounts, a number of English authors likened the Marseille plague to the epidemics that were forming part of England's social memory. 18th-century English tract-writers relegated their plague epidemics to the past by both firmly historicizing them and making the disease definitively foreign. Plague had not come to an end, but it was no longer their plague.
By placing the Indian Ocean World (IOW) into the larger global histories of five major infectious... more By placing the Indian Ocean World (IOW) into the larger global histories of five major infectious diseases—malaria, tuberculosis, leprosy, smallpox, and plague—this paper offers a synthetic state-of-the-field assessment of what is now known or postulated about the origins and trajectories of these diseases. Focusing in particular on the mediaeval period, the paper demonstrates the significant value of using an integrated, multi-disciplinary approach in historical epidemiology that blends palaeogenetics with more traditional historical sources to trace the possible connectivities of the five diseases into, across, and from the IOW. It argues that although the IOW has neither been included substantially thus far in global health history, nor has it generated any samples of pathogen ancient DNA (aDNA), it is nevertheless possible to begin to reconstruct the pre-modern histories and conceivable spread of these five major human diseases in and across this region of the world. As archaeol...
The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 2016
The digitisation of historical disease images and their widespread availability on the internet h... more The digitisation of historical disease images and their widespread availability on the internet have been a boon to education and research, but with unintended consequences, including the misrepresentation of infectious diseases in the past and the viral spread of misinformation. Many medieval images containing scenes of infectious disease come from nonmedical sources and are not meant to convey any medical meaning. Erroneous modern captions have led to the publication of several historical images labelled as depictions of the plague, although artistic and textual evidence shows that they are not. Mislabelled images lose their intended historical narrative, and their use creates a distorted view of the past and of the disease in question. Scholars should give the same careful consideration to an image's evidentiary context that they would insist on giving to all other forms of evidence. Medical education literature accepts that the evidentiary use of images enhances the teaching and publication of research on historical infectious diseases. 1-3 Visual representations of microscopic pathogens, their modes of transmission, and their symptoms give students and readers a better understanding of diseases. Visualisations of people's responses to epidemics throughout history also reveal the personal effects of infectious disease. Images highlight the reality that disease is more than a biological event; it also has sociocultural, political, intellectual, and institutional identities and consequences. 4
Notes and Queries, 2020
There is a long tradition of miscrediting works to a fourteenth-century physician known as John o... more There is a long tradition of miscrediting works to a fourteenth-century physician known as John of Burgundy, John with the beard (a` la barba, cum barba, von barba), or, in some texts, John of Bordeaux. John’s name has been attached to the most widely circulated plague treatise in late-medieval and early-modern England but also has been misattributed to a number of other medical texts, both historically and in recent years. What complicates matters further is that this same ‘John of Burgundy’ has been hopelessly tied up with what is now considered to be a fictional work: Mandeville’s Travels. He is sometimes identified as the real author of the work, sometimes as the narrator, and in other instances as a physician encountered by the narrator. Here we attempt to unpack what is known about the historical John of Burgundy, how a variety of medical works came to bear his name, and why modern scholars need to be wary of such attributions.
Medieval and early modern medical theory incorporated Greco-Roman and Islamicate traditions that ... more Medieval and early modern medical theory incorporated Greco-Roman and Islamicate traditions that associated particular landscapes with the generation of disease. Explanations of recurrent plague outbreaks between the mid-fourteenth and early eighteenth centuries thus relied, in part, on the concept of diseased landscapes. This paper offers a general historiographical overview of theories on the relationship between landscapes and diseases. It also provides a critical re-evaluation of how contemporaries adapted these theories to explain recurrent plague outbreaks. Focusing on English plague treatises, in particular, the paper demonstrates that while the overall landscape-disease relationship remained largely intact, broader issues such as nationalism and colonialism shifted the discourse such that plagued landscapes were ‘re-located’ from the English kingdom to definitively foreign places such as the Ottoman Empire.
The digitisation of historical disease images and their widespread availability on the internet h... more The digitisation of historical disease images and their widespread availability on the internet have been a boon to education and research, but with unintended consequences, including the misrepresentation of infectious diseases in the past and the viral spread of misinformation. Many medieval images containing scenes of infectious disease come from non-medical sources and are not meant to convey any medical meaning. Erroneous modern captions have led to the publication of several historical images labelled as depictions of the plague, although artistic and textual evidence shows that they are not. Mislabelled images lose their intended historical narrative, and their use creates a distorted view of the past and of the disease in question. Scholars should give the same careful consideration to an image's evidentiary context that they would insist on giving to all other forms of evidence. Medical education literature accepts that the evidentiary use of images enhances the teaching and publication of research on historical infectious diseases. 1–3 Visual representations of microscopic pathogens, their modes of transmission, and their symptoms give students and readers a better understanding of diseases. Visualisations of people's responses to epidemics throughout history also reveal the personal effects of infectious disease. Images highlight the reality that disease is more than a biological event; it also has sociocultural, political, intellectual, and institutional identities and consequences. 4 Thanks to multiple digitisation projects—and the reposting of digitised images online—scholars now have access to a greater variety and number of historical disease images than they ever have before. A quick search generates a plethora of images from all periods. Illustration of texts and presentations with engaging images of infectious diseases has never been simpler. Although improved access to the past is clearly a boon to education and research—and to the generation of public interest in the science of disease—it has unintended consequences. One key drawback is the occasional abrogation of the rigorous standards of evidence and interpretation that scholars otherwise expect within their own disciplines, which can result in an exponential spread of misinformation. This problem is not limited to images, of course: scholars regularly chastise colleagues in other disciplines for misrepresenting their evidence—eg, historical texts, scientific data, clinical results—to make arguments that such material cannot support in its original context. Even for cases in which corroborating microscopic evidence exists, care should be taken to avoid the imposition of modern disease assumptions onto historical images. 5,6 The original meanings behind digitised, cropped, and decontextualised historical images are often lost. Seemingly mundane actions, such as inaccurate modern captioning, can change an image's meaning into something that it was never meant to represent. Artistic conventions change over time, and both writers and artists describe the diseases that they portray through experiences that
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Books and Book Chapters by Lori Jones
Click here to go to the publisher site: https://www.mqup.ca/patterns-of-plague-products-9780228010791.php?page_id=&
For a link to the volume: https://www.routledge.com/Disease-and-the-Environment-in-the-Medieval-and-Early-Modern-Worlds/Jones/p/book/9780367151720#
Book coming out soon! For a link to the publisher site, click here: https://boydellandbrewer.com/9781914049095/death-and-disease-in-the-medieval-and-early-modern-world/
worth describing changed both within the pre-modern era itself and then again in the post laboratory era. The lack of medical diagrams of the plague before the nineteenth century further complicates our attempts to associate what ‘they’—our observers from the late medieval and early modern eras—were seeing. I argue here, it is possible to ‘see’ plague in the past by tracing subtle changes in the conventions used to describe it.
now known or postulated about the origins and trajectories of these diseases. Focusing in particular on the mediaeval period, the paper demonstrates the significant value of using an integrated, multi-disciplinary approach in
historical epidemiology that blends palaeogenetics with more traditional historical sources to trace the possible connectivities of the five diseases into, across, and from the IOW. It argues that although the IOW has neither been
included substantially thus far in global health history, nor has it generated any samples of pathogen ancient DNA (aDNA), it is nevertheless possible to begin to reconstruct the pre-modern histories and conceivable spread of these five major human diseases in and across this region of the world. As archaeology, bioarchaeology, genetics, and document-based history forge stronger alliances,
this region of intense historical human activity, migration, and trade—of connectivity—must necessarily be incorporated into wider discussions of the history of global health.
Papers by Lori Jones
Click here to go to the publisher site: https://www.mqup.ca/patterns-of-plague-products-9780228010791.php?page_id=&
For a link to the volume: https://www.routledge.com/Disease-and-the-Environment-in-the-Medieval-and-Early-Modern-Worlds/Jones/p/book/9780367151720#
Book coming out soon! For a link to the publisher site, click here: https://boydellandbrewer.com/9781914049095/death-and-disease-in-the-medieval-and-early-modern-world/
worth describing changed both within the pre-modern era itself and then again in the post laboratory era. The lack of medical diagrams of the plague before the nineteenth century further complicates our attempts to associate what ‘they’—our observers from the late medieval and early modern eras—were seeing. I argue here, it is possible to ‘see’ plague in the past by tracing subtle changes in the conventions used to describe it.
now known or postulated about the origins and trajectories of these diseases. Focusing in particular on the mediaeval period, the paper demonstrates the significant value of using an integrated, multi-disciplinary approach in
historical epidemiology that blends palaeogenetics with more traditional historical sources to trace the possible connectivities of the five diseases into, across, and from the IOW. It argues that although the IOW has neither been
included substantially thus far in global health history, nor has it generated any samples of pathogen ancient DNA (aDNA), it is nevertheless possible to begin to reconstruct the pre-modern histories and conceivable spread of these five major human diseases in and across this region of the world. As archaeology, bioarchaeology, genetics, and document-based history forge stronger alliances,
this region of intense historical human activity, migration, and trade—of connectivity—must necessarily be incorporated into wider discussions of the history of global health.
The paper was presented by co-author Lori Jones, University of Ottawa.
The program for the conference can be found at this link: http://indianoceanworldcentre.com/node/251.
CREDITS
Episode No. 270
Release Date: 19 September 2016
Recording Location: Paris, France
Editing and production by Chris Gratien
Images and bibliography courtesy of Lori Jones
The citation is: Monica H. Green and Lori Jones, "The Evolution and Spread of Major Human Diseases in the Indian Ocean World," in Disease Dispersion and Impact in the Indian Ocean World, ed. G. Campbell and E.-M. Knoll (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), pp. 25-57, ISBN: 978-3-030-36263-8, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-36264-5. Please feel free to contact me at [email protected] to obtain a copy of the essay.