Words, Demons, and Illness

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yan Liu

Abstract This article examines a salient medical practice in medieval China: healing by incantation. Focusing on the seventh century, when the status of incantatory healing reached its apex, I show how the Tang court incorporated the technique into its medical institutions and how physicians used it to treat diverse illnesses. In particular, this article investigates incantation from an etiological perspective. By studying the incantatory remedies of the famous physician Sun Simiao, I reveal an etiological eclecticism that encompassed both demonic and functional causes of illness. This demonstrates a strong practical sensibility in Sun’s works. A further study of vermin (particularly worms), which were etiologically related yet different from demons, shows the entanglement of the two etiologies that tied the activity of worms to the physiology of the body. These observations suggest that medieval Chinese medicine often involved the working of multiple etiologies in a linked and dynamic manner.

2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (3 (67) p.1) ◽  
pp. 116-117
Author(s):  
V. O. Olkhovskyi ◽  
O. M. Peshenko

Damage to the cervical portion of the spine (CPS) and the corresponding perivertebral morphological structures can significantly affect the status of the function of maintaining the vertical position of the body through the formation of disorders of the musculoskeletal system (MSS), in particular the spine – the basic system of the kinematic chain of the MSS. Since, in case of SPS injuries the processes of compensation of the spinal motion segment (SMS) are violated, an identification of informative biomechanical indicators – is topical for forensic-medical practice.


Scrinium ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Dirk Krausmüller

Abstract At the Fifth Ecumenical Council the concept of a ‘composite hypostasis’ was enshrined in dogma. This implied that after the incarnation the divine and human natures had the status of parts that constituted a single whole. In order to make this concept intelligible a comparison was drawn with the human compound where two different natures, the soul and the body, formed one being. In the seventh century Maximus, the foremost Chalcedonian theologian of the time, came to the conclusion that the differences between the incarnated Word and a human individual were too great for a strict comparison to be useful. Yet he continued to defend the notion of composition. Indeed, his views on this point have been lauded as an important step in the development of doctrine. This article seeks to show that composition itself had become problematic, and that it was relentless Nestorian polemic that induced Maximus, and his contemporary Leontius of Jerusalem, to change their understanding of the concept.


2014 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 868-870
Author(s):  
Aileen R. Das

Paul of Aegina's (fl.c. 630)Pragmateiais the only extant Greek medical text from antiquity that discusses the extraction of arrows and small missiles. In his book on surgery, Paul details how to extract arrows according to their properties and the parts of the body which they have wounded (6.88). He prefaces his instructions by describing how arrows differ in their material, figure, size, number, mode, and power. Paul's account of arrow varieties appears to reflect the environment of his medical practice, seventh-century Alexandria, for he refers to Egyptian arrow types when listing the material composition and sizes of different arrows.


Screen Bodies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-36
Author(s):  
Daisuke Miyao

The process of modernization in Japan appeared as a separation of the senses and remapping of the body, particularly privileging the sense of vision. How did the filmmakers, critics, and novelists in the 1920s and 1930s respond to such a reorganization of the body and the elevation of vision in the context of film culture? How did they formulate a cinematic discourse on remapping the body when the status of cinema was still in flux and its definition was debated? Focusing on cinematic commentary made by different writers, this article tackles these questions. Sato Haruo, Ozu Yasujiro, and Iwasaki Akira questioned the separation of the senses, which was often enforced by state. Inspired by German cinema released in Japan at that time, they explored the notion of the haptic in cinema and problematized the privileged sense of vision in this new visual medium.


Author(s):  
Е. N. Polyakov ◽  
M. I. Korzh

The article presents a comparative analysis of fortification art monuments in such East countries from Ancient Egypt to medieval China. An attempt is made to identify the main stages of the fortification development from a stand-alone fortress (citadel, fort) to the most complex systems of urban and border fortifications, including moats, walls and gates, battle towers. It is shown that the nature of these architectural structures is determined by the status of the city or settlement, its natural landscape, building structures and materials, the development of military and engineering art. The materials from poliorceticon (Greek: poliorketikon, poliorketika), illustrate the main types of siege machines and mechanisms. The advantages and disadvantages of boundary shafts and long walls (limes). The most striking examples are the defensive systems of Assyria, New Babylon, Judea and Ancient China.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 228
Author(s):  
Tomonari Kinoshita ◽  
Taichiro Goto

Despite complete resection, cancer recurrence frequently occurs in clinical practice. This indicates that cancer cells had already metastasized from their organ of origin at the time of resection or had circulated throughout the body via the lymphatic and vascular systems. To obtain this potential for metastasis, cancer cells must undergo essential and intrinsic processes that are supported by the tumor microenvironment. Cancer-associated inflammation may be engaged in cancer development, progression, and metastasis. Despite numerous reports detailing the interplays between cancer and its microenvironment via the inflammatory network, the status of cancer-associated inflammation remains difficult to recognize in clinical settings. In the current paper, we reviewed clinical reports on the relevance between inflammation and cancer recurrence after surgical resection, focusing on inflammatory indicators and cancer recurrence predictors according to cancer type and clinical indicators.


2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 395-422 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soyoung Suh

AbstractPrevious scholarship takes increasing Korean interest in ‘local botanicals’ () in its dynamic with Chinese counterparts as a gauge to measure the degree of independence and the extent of indigenisation of Korean medicine during the Chosn Dynasty (1392‐1910). Questioning this fundamental assumption about the development of Korean medicine, my article aims to scrutinise evocation of ‘the local’ in changing medical strategies concerned with Korean identity. While analysing major texts on local botanicals published during the early Chosn Dynasty, I claim that the classificatory arrangement used to map the local on botanicals often overlapped, and was not organised into a clear set of categories. Considering the traffic of herbal medicine across political and geographical boundaries, and the extreme diversity of botanical names, shapes and attributes, texts on local botanicals cannot be said to show clearly what belongs to a local ‘us’ or a foreign ‘them’. Instead, adjusting the names of botanicals, textualising the folk names of certain species, and publishing a series of books focusing on local botanicals reflected the socio-cultural need of scholars during the Chosn Dynasty to imprint motifs of the ‘local’ on Materia Medica simultaneously making a display of a separate Korean cultural identity. It was an accommodation of what was regarded as universal knowledge to a locale where the body of Chinese medicine had to be interpreted and mediated by the socio-cultural conditions of Chosn Korea.


Author(s):  
Valentina Sevagina ◽  
Sofiya Botsarova ◽  
Tatiyana Goncharova ◽  
Anastasiya Mikhlyaeva

The purpose of the article is to conduct a study of the main problems of delivery of orthopedic care in dentistry. It is known that dental health determines the overall health of the body. The comfort of life of the population depends on their condition, since damaged teeth negatively affect the state of the digestive system and respiratory organs. As for the aesthetics of the appearance, here teeth have a special role, since they are able to provide both proper speech and the necessary level of human sociability. Thus, improving the quality of delivery of medical care is an important task for the industry today. The problem of the availability of orthopedic dentists exists only in those areas of the region where there is no orthopedic care encounters at all, or orthopedic care encounters are carried out by part-time doctors. Accordingly, it can be said that municipal dental clinics are generally provided with the necessary personnel. In this regard, one can talk about the need to improve the quality of treatment of dental diseases in polyclinics, primarily in terms of orthopedic care for the population. However, today there are frequent cases of return visits for orthopedic care due to its poor-quality during initial treatment. And the doctor’s task during second denture treatment is to avoid mistakes made earlier and to provide competent and highquality orthopedic services. The author concludes that the results of a study of the work of orthopedic units of the region showed a steady growth of most indicators year by year, but a number of economic problems were found during the analysis of the profitability reserves of orthopedic dental care. So, it is necessary to create a unified system for calculating the financial plan for the correct assessment of the status of orthopedic dental care for the population, to analyze the quality indicators for subsidized denture treatment, to introduce the concept of “prosthesis working lifespan”, which will establish the reasons and justify the terms of the second denture treatment.


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