A History of Geology and Medicine

About this book

The historical links between geology and medicine are surprisingly numerous and diverse. This, the first ever volume dedicated to the subject, contains contributions from an international authorship of geologists, historians and medical professionals.

Rocks, minerals, fossils and earths have been used therapeutically since earliest times and details recorded on ancient papyri, clay tablets, medieval manuscripts and early published sources. Pumice was used to clean teeth, antimony to heal wounds, clays as antidotes to poison, gold to cure haemorrhoids and warts, and gem pastes to treat syphilis and the plague, while mineral springs preserved health. Geology was crucial in the development of public health. Medical men making important geological contributions include Steno, Worm, Parkinson, Bigsby, William Hunter, Jenner, John Hulke, Conan Doyle, Gorini and various Antarctic explorers.

A History of Geology and Medicine will be of particular interest to Earth scientists, medical personnel, historians of science and the general reader who has an interest in science.

Contents

- Geology as medicine and medics as geologists / Duffin, C. J.
- Lithotherapeutical research sources from antiquity to the mid-eighteenth century / Duffin, C. J.
- Cryptopalaeontology / Liñán, E., Liñán, M. & Carrasco, J.
- The stomatological use of stones cited in the Kitab al-tasrif treatise (Abulcasis, 1000 CE) / Carrasco, J. & Liñán, M.
- The gem electuary / Duffin, C. J.
- Medicinal terra sigillata: a historical, geographical and typological review / Macgregor, A.
 - Materia medica in the seventeenth-century Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo / Rolfe, W. D. I.  
- History of the pharmaceutical use of pumice / Duffin, C. J.
- Pharmaceutical use of gold from antiquity to the seventeenth century / Console, R.
- Bezoar stones, magic, science and art / Barroso, M. D. S.
- Some early eighteenth century geological Materia Medica / Duffin, C. J.
- Religiosity and magic in some lithoiatric practices of European folk medicine / Aliverti, M.
- Britain’s spa heritage: a hydrogeological appraisal / mather, J. D.
- Groundwater – Medicine by the Glassful? / Robins, N. S. & Smedley, P. L.
- Sunday Stone: an enduring metaphor of mining diseases and underground mining conditions / Pearn, J. H. & Gardner-Thorpe, C.
- The influence of geology in the development of public health / Bergman, B. P.
- From flesh to fossils – Nicolaus Steno’s anatomy of the Earth / Bek-Thomsen, J.
- Diagnosing fossilization in the Nordic Renaissance: an investigation into the correspondence of Ole Worm (1588–1654) / Hoch, E.
- Education forms the tender mind / Gardner-Thorpe, C.
- James Parkinson’s ‘system of successive creations’ / Lewis, C.
- From obstetrics to oryctology: inside the mind of William Hunter (1718–1783) / Liston, J. J.
- John Jeremiah Bigsby, MD: British Army physician and pioneer North American geologist / Wilson, L. G.
- Five eighteenth-century medical polymaths / Hull, G. C.
- John Whitaker Hulke, surgeon and palaeontologist / Wills, S.
- Dr Arthur Conan Doyle’s contribution to the popularity of pterodactyls / Martill, D. M. & Pointon, T.
- Physicians and their contribution to the early history of earth sciences in Austria / Angetter, D. C., Hubmann, B. & Seidl, J.
- Medical geologists during the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration / Guly, H.
- Vomiting stones: mental illness and forensic medicine in 18th century Italy / Porro, A., Cristini, C., Falconi, B., Franchini, A. F. & Lorusso, L.
- Geology, conservation and dissolution of corpses by Paolo Gorini (1813–1881) / Lorusso, L., Falconi, B., Franchini, F. A. & Porro, A.

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