also how the teachers were far from being mere theorists but were concerned also with the consequences of their interpretations for medical practice. When these lectures were delivered is difficult to decide, for there are hints both for and against a date around 550. While the commentary on On the nature of the child is edited from the single surviving manuscript, the other two have a much mor...

X H E QUESTION THAT I have posed may seem at first to be antiquarian in the narrowest sense. One of my colleagues suggested that I make the title more provocative by asking. Did the Mathers disagree about the Salem trials, and who cares? What could be more parochial than asking whether two embattled ministers, serving in the same congregation, disagreed toward the end of one of the most shamefu...

This article investigates the representation of “dulle Griet” by the seventeenthcentury artists David II Teniers and David III Ryckaert in the context of Catholic Flanders. In a society preoccupied with hierarchical order both the state and church aimed to root out archaic beliefs and customs, and to save society from witchcraft. The representations of mad Meg are interpreted as comic archaisms...

In 1692 and 1693, in Salem, Massachusetts, more than 150 colonists were accused of witchcraft, resulting in 19 being hanged and one man being crushed to death. Contributions to these events included: historical, religious and cultural belief systems; social and community concerns; economic, gender, and political factors; and local family grievances. Child witnessing, certainty of physician diag...

Clinicians and patients frequently have a different understanding and interpretation of the nature of an illness. While many reasons for these discrepancies can be postulated, differences in sociocultural background often play an important role—especially in the field of psychiatry. At our tertiary psychiatric hospital in South Africa, where standard Western teachings are followed, clinicians a...

A teacher by profession, Yakubu has for the past 15 years been a volunteer for the Ghana Guinea Worm Eradication Programme, and one of the biggest obstacles he has had to overcome is the entrenched belief that attributes guinea-worm disease to the will of the gods or witchcraft. “It took some time before I was able to erase these gods, curses and superstitions from their minds,” Yakubu says. Li...