Plagues and artistic votive expressions (ex voto) of popular piety

In past centuries, epidemics, the scourge of humankind, caused pain, anger, uncertainty of the future, social as well as economic disorder and a significant impact on their victims, involving also their spiritual sphere. The latter effect led to undoubted effects on participation in the religious and social life of communities. The custom of preparing artistic votive expressions has been lost in the mists of time and evidence of ex voto gifts, offered by believers to pagan gods, has been found in prehistoric archaeological sites. Furthermore, several finds from the Ancient Greek and Roman worlds may be observed in our museums. These remains are generally ceramic and metal artifacts, reproducing limbs and other body parts which had been healed. These elements, according to the belief of those making the offerings, had benefited from the miraculous intervention of a thaumaturgical deity. With the advent of Christianity, some pre-existing religious practices were endorsed by the new religion. Believers continued to demonstrate their gratitude in different ways either to miracle-working saints or to the Virgin Mary, because they thought that, thanks to an act of faith, their own health or that of a family member would benefit from the direct intervention of the divine entities to whom they had prayed. In the Ancient Greek world, it was believed that the god Asclepius could directly influence human events, as testified by the popularity of shrines and temples to the god, especially at Epidaurus. In the Christian world as well, particular places have been detected, often solitary and secluded in the countryside or in the mountains, where, according to tradition, direct contact was established between the faithful and Saints or the Virgin Mary Herself. Manifestations occurred by means of miracles and apparitions, thereby creating a direct link between the supernatural world and believers. Religious communities, in these extraordinary places, responded to the call through the building of shrines and promotion of the cult. Over time, the faithful reached these places of mystery, performing pilgrimages with the aim of strengthening their religious faith, but also with the purpose of seeking intercession and grace. In this case, the request for clemency assumed spiritual characteristics and also became a profession of faith. Accordingly, the shrines in the Christian world are places where supernatural events may occur. In these environments the believer resorted to faith, when medicine showed its limits in a tangible way. For the above reasons, while epidemics were occurring, the requests for clemency were numerous and such petitions were both individual and collective. In particular, by means of votive offerings (ex voto) the believers, both individually and collectively, gave the evidence of the received grace to the thaumaturgical Saint. Through the votive act, a perpetual link between the believer and the Saints or Holy Virgin was forged and a strong request for communion was transmitted. The aim of the present study is to describe the role played by votive tablets (ex voto) in the last 500-600 years, as visible evidence of human suffering. From this perspective, these votive expressions may assume the role of markers because, in accordance with the expressions of popular faith, they allow us to follow the most important outbreaks that have caused distress to Christian communities.

I Want to Believe: A Short Psychobiography of Mary Baker Eddy

The 18th and 19th centuries were beset with new religious movements in the United States: Shakers, Latter Day Saints, Millerites, and Seventh Day Adventists to name a few. One group, Christian Science, held radically different views than their counterparts and their origins lay in the most unlikely of places, a perpetually ill and poor woman from New Hampshire. Much has been said about Mary Baker Eddy: some say that she was a prophet, others that she was a fraud. Herein no such judgments are made. This study seeks to look into the life of Mary Baker Eddy from a psychological lens in the hopes that insight can be gained into the founding of the First Church of Jesus Christ Scientist and perhaps to allay the binary of Mrs. Eddy as either prophet or fanatic.

Women, writing, and healing: rhetoric, religion, and illness in An Collins, "Eliza," and Anna Trapnel

Focusing on An Collins, "Eliza," and Anna Trapnel, this essay considers the interconnections of mind, body, and spirit in the mid-seventeenth century. Given their gender and their era, that the writing of all three serves as a means of expressing religious devotion is not surprising--what may be, however, is the role of illness as both catalyst for and topic of work that is also deeply and consciously rhetorical. Articulating what may be as much illness enabled as it is divinely inspired, their work further suggests a more than merely intuitive sense of language's capacity to heal body as well as soul.

[Spiritual ties of the Military Medical (Medical and Surgical) Academy]

Before the revolution in its educational, research and clinical potential of Military Medicine (medical and surgical) Academy was on the head position among European institutions. Not less outstanding position among all secular institutions Russian Academy held by the number and wealth of churches, chapels and baptisteries. In the temples of the academy was concentrated a significant number of miracle-working icons and of the particles holy relics, there served some of faith and piety devotees and some of them were canonized. The article presents a brief historical overview of the major Academy shrines--spiritual ties of the different generations.

[History of medicine in the Amazon region. Disappearance of the shaman and Christianization of healing rituals among the tariano Indians, at the urban outskirts of Manaus]

A brief history of medicine in Amazonas: the end of shamanism and the progressive Christianisation of therapeutical rites among the Tarianos, in the suburbs of Manaus.

The Lourdes medical cures revisited

This article examines the cures recorded in Lourdes, France, between 1858, the year of the Visions, and 1976, the date of the last certified cure of the twentieth century. Initially, the records of cures were crude or nonexistent, and allegations of cures were accepted without question. A Medical Bureau was established in 1883 to examine and certify the cures, and the medical methodology improved steadily in the subsequent years. We discuss the clinical criteria of the cures and the reliability of medical records. Some 1,200 cures were said to have been observed between 1858 and 1889, and about one hundred more each year during the "Golden Age" of Lourdes, 1890-1914. We studied 411 patients cured in 1909-14 and thoroughly reviewed the twenty-five cures acknowledged between 1947 and 1976. No cure has been certified from 1976 through 2006. The Lourdes phenomenon, extraordinary in many respects, still awaits scientific explanation. Lourdes concerns science as well as religion.

An issue of blood: the healing of the woman with the haemorrhage (Mark 5.24B-34; Luke 8.42B-48; Matthew 9.19-22) in early medieval visual culture

The textual and visual tradition of the story of the woman with the haemorrhage (Mark 5.24b-34parr), the so-called Haemorrhoissa, is related in a specific way to Christ's healing miracles but also to conceptions of female menstrual blood. We notice that with regard to the specific 'issue of blood' of the Haemorrhoissa, there is a visual lacuna in the specific iconography that developed around the story from early Christian times: in the transposition from text to image, there is no immediate depiction of her bleeding. However, the early medieval reception of the story also became an important catalyst for uterine taboos, menstruation and tits relation to magical healing, understood as a system of health practices. In this context, the dissemination of the motif in everyday material culture clearly points to a deep-rooted connection to uterine and menstrual issues. The paper considers both expressions and their-anthropologically framed-relation to this female 'issue of blood', which the Haemorrhoissa came to embody and epitomise literally, as well as figuratively.

[Medicinal plants and symbols in the medieval mystic altarpiece]

The medieval mystic altarpiece towers above the altar table. It is linked to the evocation of a religious mystery beyond our faculty of reasoning. Symbolism of an enclosed garden evokes the image of the Heavenly Garden isolated by a wall from the rest of earthly world. In this mystic chiefly Rhenan altarpiece the enclosed garden is that of Virgin Mary who in the Middle Ages was likened to the spouse in the song of songs. The Blessed Virgin is painted with flowers, lily, rose, violet, lily of the valley. Most of these are medicinal plants in order to implore a faith healing for the believers. All in all about fifty plants are showed on Rhenan altarpieces and on 14th century mystic altarpieces almost contemporary of Issenheim's altarpiece, some Italian, some Rhenan.

Faith-based social services: saving the body or the soul? A research note

Faith-based organizations might be ideal social service providers, claiming to transform clients' lives with holistic support while meeting immediate needs. While organizations have such goals, their success is impacted by constituencies with differing goals for the organization. Clients with goals not commensurate with an organization's may compromise its ability to attain its goals. Three questions are examined here: What are the goals of faith-based service providers? When asked what they think about the services, do clients share the organizational goals? Are organizations likely to meet either set of goals? Homeless persons patronizing faith-based soup kitchens were interviewed; service activities of organizations were observed. Clients' goals focused on survival in their current situation. Organizations' goals ranged from meeting clients' immediate needs to transforming clients through spiritual restoration. Congregations studied met clients' immediate needs. However, clients' accommodational goals were potentially problematic for organizations with spiritual goals.

Healing options during the plague: survivor stories from a fourteenth-century canonization inquest

Witness testimonies in the 1363 canonization inquest for Countess Delphine de Puimchel help us explore differing reactions to the first two waves of plague in 1348 and 1361, the diverse social and healing networks available to the sick, and the importance of affect in the healing process. Every witness in the inquest had lived through both the 1348 and 1361 epidemics. Their testimonies show that sufferers actively sought out healing even when they feared that none existed, healing practitioners continued to care for the sick through both waves of epidemic, and emotion played an important role in sufferers' healing. Their language allows us to look at the interaction between miracle and medicine, the interaction of healing practitioners, and the expectations of sufferers during severe epidemics in the later Middle Ages.

Present at the creation: the clinical pastoral movement and the origins of the dialogue between religion and psychiatry

The contemporary dialogue between religion and psychiatry has its roots in what is called the clinical pastoral movement. The early leaders of the clinical pastoral movement (Anton Boisen, Elwood Worcester, Helen Flanders Dunbar, and Richard Cabot) were individuals of talent, even genius, whose lives and work intersected one another in the early decades of the twentieth century. Their legacy endures in the persons they inspired and continue to inspire and in the professional organizations and academic programs that profit from their pioneering work. To understand them and the era of their greatest productivity is to understand some of what psychiatry and religion have to say to each other. Appreciating their legacy requires attention to the context of historical movements and forces current in America at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century that shaped religious, psychiatric, and cultural discourse. This essay attempts to provide an introduction to this rich and fascinating material. This material was first presented as a Grand Rounds lecture at The New York Presbyterian Hospital, Payne Whitney Westchester in the Department of Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medical College.

The limits of Catholic science and the Mexican revolution

This article examines the church's embrace of scientific methodologies in the late nineteenth century. It is argued that in general, the shift worked to repel liberal ridicule and control popular devotions. However, in Mexico the effects were mixed. During the Mexican Revolution, a desperate church was forced to apply these new scientific methodologies to increasingly unauthorized cults.

[Magical and religious healing in Byzantium]

Religious and magical ways of healing have been known and practiced since the very beginning of human history. In the present article, the Byzantine philosophical, cultural, historical and "methodological" aspects of this way of healing are discussed. The article outlines the development of magic healing in Byzantium from the 4th to the 15th century. During this period magical therapy included the cult of patron saints--listed by the author--and pleading for divine intervention as well. The activity of "anargyroi" and the use of magical objects and amulets is also discussed in detail. Exorcism was also a part of religious therapy both against psychical and somatical diseases. In early Christianity, and especially in Byzantium the devil or other demons were also supposed to cause various somatical or psychical illnesses by "intrusion" or "internalisation," i.e. by possession or obsession of their victims.

"Pur sarripu pursa trutin": monster-fighting and medicine in early medieval Scandinavia

This paper seeks evidence among our extensive Scandinavian mythological texts for an area which they seldom discuss explicitly: the conceptualisation and handling of illness and healing. Its core evidence is two runic texts (the Canterbury Rune-Charm and the Sigtuna Amulet) which conceptualise illness as a "purs" ("ogre, monster"). The article discusses the semantics of "purs," arguing that illness and supernatural beings could be conceptualised as identical in medieval Scandinavia. This provides a basis for arguing that myths in which gods and heroes fight monsters provided a paradigm for the struggle with illness.

Moral transgression and illness in the Early Modern North

This article seeks to understand how people in the early modern age interpreted the nature of illness and the role that morality played in these interpretations. From this point of view illnesses were not only psycho-physical states or subjects for medical diagnosis but they were also subjects for narratives or stories through which people tried to understand what had caused their illness, and why it was happening to them. Illnesses were understood as strictly connected with the patient's character and were regarded as possible consequences of his personality. On the other hand, the interpretations also emphasised the ambivalence of a healer. Personal experiences and an understanding of one's life situation intertwined in these stories.

Jesus and people with disabilities: old stories, new approaches

According to some authors, the healing narratives in the New Testament have fuelled destructive attitudes toward disability among Christians. The purpose of this paper is to explore a subset of Jesus' miracle healings for more constructive messages, and for guidance about pastoral care for people with disabilities. Of twenty-nine miracle accounts found in the four gospels, five were selected for this study that deal with physical disability in individual persons. Using the socio-rhetorical interpretive method, the stories are mined for themes regarding spiritual aspects of healing, identity, faith, sin and touch.

Diagnosis of miracle or miraculous diagnosis? Comments on early modern understanding of unnaturalness

The paper deals with certain aspects of healing miracles in the 17th century. In the beginning I outline methods recently developed in the history of medicine to deal with unnatural phenomena. I use division suggested by Anne-Marie Korte and comment on sceptical, apologetical and hermeneutical approach. Further I demonstrate difficulties which we face in study of miracles on two specific cases: Our Lady of Foy, and (missing) burning scars of injured brewers. In the end I describe perhaps the most specific contemporary definition of "miraculous" which stemmed from tradition of forensic medicine. For this purpose I use a treaties of Johannes Franciscus Löw ab Erlsfeld, professor of Prague Medical Faculty in the beginning of the 18th century which follow work of famous papal physician of the previous century Paolo Zacchia.

Neurology in Holy Scripture

This paper discusses possible neurological disorders in one of the oldest and most important monuments of human literature--'The Holy Scriptures'. These include epilepsy, neuromuscular disorders, speech disorders, psychogenic disorders, head trauma, and subarachnoid hemorrhage. The approach to and the 'miraculous' healing of these ailments is discussed.

[The first mention of physicians in Würzburg. An unknown indication to Ortolf of Baierland]

The oldest account book ever found for the Bavarian monastery of Aldersbach records the existence of physicians in the Episcopal city of Würzburg in 1291-2. The anonymous Cistercian monk who recorded this account wrote in detail about a few academic physicians, phisici. But there are also some rather interesting occurrences recorded in the book. The abbot of Aldersbach at the time, Henry, suffered from a rather severe illness, and the book allows us to follow the path of this illness to some medical authorities at the end of the 13th century. He met physicians in Würzburg and Paris, which was the centre of the medical field in Central Europe at the time. Ultimately no-one was able to help Henry, and in his last try to get medical help he looked to the highest of all physicians in the medieval thinking; Christ himself. He made a pilgrimage to the lacrimae Christi, a relic probably presented in Regensburg, but died on the 26th of September 1295.

[Hospitals, leper-houses and holy healers and in medieval Berry]

Around the year 1000 many problems have been put throughout the beginning of urbanization, the increase of the country people, the pilgrimages and the spreading trade. The study of the medieval Charts allows to clarify how the sick were cured in the first hospitals-hôtels-Dieu- and how the lepers were isolated and kept outside the cities. When the recovery was impossible the intercession of saints was the only hope for the knight as well as for the peasants.

[So the confessionals speak!: Disease, gender and social class in the nineteenth century Seville]

María Juana Cañaveral Villena had suffered a disease which prevented her from using her legs for more than four years. In the evening 25th October 1872 she was anointed some fat and she was given to drink three sips of water, both of them previously passed by so-called perolito de san José. This provoked a total recovery. This fact is the beginning of a research work over different aspects of the Sevillian life of those days. This study gathers together among other things the response from the ecclesiastical authorities, the sociological characteristics of the two families involved in the event, the josephine movement as a form of popular religious manifestion, the controversy over the matter held by the theologian Mateos-Gago and the group of Seville rationalist physicians, the impact in the medical and no-medical literature, as well as, the attempts to explain the disease and the cure of doña María Juana.

Jesus and the eye: New Testament miracles of vision

PURPOSE

To compile and appraise the accounts of the miracles of vision in the New Testament.

METHODS

We carried out a critical analysis of the compilation of ocular miracles using past medical knowledge and historical reconstruction based on the accounts of the apostles and of various historians living in the first three centuries ad.

RESULTS

Three blind adult male beggars residing on three different street locations were described. Two had previously had good vision that had declined over a long time and the third had been born blind. The manifestations of the ocular diseases in these cases were meagre, precluding any precise diagnosis. The healing methodology did not rely on physical examination, detailed history, or the use of medicines. Jesus' tools consisted of spitting, touching, praying and the use of words. Visual outcome reported as a complete cure was realized in all three incidents.

CONCLUSIONS

The accounts of miracles in the Gospels appear to be historically reliable, yet subject to different interpretations: faith in the miracle (the Christian perspective); sorcery (the Jewish perspective); mythology (the atheist perspective), and scientifically possible human action by a charismatic, compassionate, knowledgeable man (the scientific perspective: psychotherapy or suggestion).

Wonder or fake - investigations in the case of the stigmatisation of Therese Neumann von Konnersreuth

We investigated two compresses used by Therese Neumann (T.N.), a woman who lived from 1898 until 1962 in Konnersreuth, Germany. The compresses were soaked with blood during the appearance of stigmata on T.N.'s body on a Friday. T.N. became very popular among the faithful in Germany at this time. The question was whether this blood was from T.N. herself or from a family relative or an animal. The comparison of the HV1 and HV2 mtDNA sequence obtained from the compresses with the sequences from a reference sample from a maternally related niece of T.N. revealed an identity. Furthermore, we obtained a short tandem repeat (STR) profile from the bloodstains that were identical with the STR profile from a gummed envelope. The envelope contained a letter written by T.N. in the 1930s. Therefore, our investigations gave no indication for any manipulation.

William James, faith, and the placebo effect

Long considered a fact of medicine and of clinical investigation, the placebo effect has recently been challenged. The thought of the great American psychologist and philosopher William James, particularly his understanding of the practical value of faith, helps to illuminate the nature of the placebo effect and the implications of this puzzling phenomenon for understanding healing and the practice of medicine.

Teresa Urrea: Mexican mystic, healer, and apocalyptic revolutionary

This article is a study of the mystical and apocalyptic dimensions of Teresa Urrea. As explained in this article, Urrea’s mystical experiences and visions are unique for their connection with a propheticapocalyptic and political worldview. This apocalyptic dimension is more than a communication of a hidden message or spiritual world; it also includes a reading of history that is catastrophic and discontinuous. The crisis and terror of history are given expression in Urrea’s mystical and apocalyptic pronouncements. In particular, the chaotic and oppressive circumstances of Mexican society during the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz was confronted and denounced in Urrea’s mystical and apocalyptic ministry. This apocalyptic healer castigated those culpable or even complicit with the injustices affecting the indigenous communities of Mexico during the late nineteenth century. In the case of Urrea, the transformation and healing of Church and society was an important aspect of her spiritual, healing powers. Because Urrea possessed neither arms nor the weapon of the pen, her sole weapon became her mystical experiences and the insight and healing powers that flowed from them. People of Mexico—especially indigenous groups—began to flock to her hoping that she would bring God’s presence to the troubled and chaotic circumstances of their lives. Her compassion and tenderness for the afflicted as well as the apocalyptic expectations that she stirred up among the indigenous groups of Northern Mexico were enough to get this mystical-political Mexican mestiza exiled from her homeland.

Medical miracles and the longue durée

The hematologist-historian author became interested in the nature 'medical miracles', following a request to write a report on a set of bone marrows that was sent to the Vatican as a possible miracle cure in a cause for canonization. She questioned the prevalence of medical miracles, their structure, and relationship to other 'official' miracles that are recognized by the Church. Evidence was drawn from a variety of sources: oral testimony of pilgrims at feast day celebrations, ex voto paintings, and 160 miracle files in 67 canonization records of the Vatican Archives. Some changes can be detected through time, but the results also testify to remarkable longue durée in the healing experience: the patterns of suffering and despair, the gestures of pleading, the presence of beds and dreams, the astonishment of the caregivers, and above all the simultaneous recourse to medicine and religion both.

The healing Buddha

The iconography of the healing Buddha embraces two healing traditions, symbolized by the healing stone lapis lazuli from Central Asia and by the myrobalan fruit from the ayurvedic medicine of ancient India. The first mention of the healing Buddha is in Buddhist texts of the first century BC, and the earliest extant icons date from the fourth century AD. This suggests the cult of the healing Buddha was a relatively late development in the history of Buddhism. Worshippers sought his help in alleviating spiritual, mental and physical suffering, as well as for medical cures. In China followers believed he was also a cosmic Buddha, to whom one appealed for longevity and protection from disasters. This form of faith-based healing remains vibrant in China, Japan and Tibet to this day.

Our heels are praying very hard all day

In this article, prayer is represented not as a single or individual action, but as an entirely integrated part of nursing work. Case examples from American, Irish, and Australian Catholic women's religious congregations who nursed in hospitals in the 19th century are used to analyze the significance of prayer to Catholic sisters' nursing. The issue highlighted in this historical examination of prayer is the power of the sickroom (particularly the deathbed scene) in the battle for souls. Sisters' prayers functioned as invitations to religious experiences and means for patients to meet God. Although based on an ancient religion that embraced medieval notions of penance and Counter-Reformation evangelism through good works, sisters' practices, in the turmoil of 19th-century immigration and social upheaval, contributed greatly to the production of the modern hospital and the modern nurse.

St. Luke and his cult as holy healer of the Serbs

Most school doctors, who lived in the period of Early Christianity from 1st to 4th century A.D. and who were canonized saints, have been known, up to these days, among people and in scientific and medical circles as Holy Healers. It is understood that only exclusively educated medical experts, trained to heal professionally and prepare medicines are considered Holy Healers. Out of all Holy Healers, St. Kosma and Damian, St. Panteleimon, St. Luke, etc., are highly respected by our people. St. Luke (1st century A.D.) is specially honored by Serbian nation. His relics were taken to Smederevo in 1453 and then the town became ?the place of many cures and new healing spot". Out of these relics, only the foot of St. Luke was preserved in a very good condition and it remained in the possession of the Serbian Orthodox Church. In old documents written in old Greek and clerical-slavic language, St. Luke is glorified as ?reliable doctor both for soul and body..." St. Luke is respected as a protector of medicine and pharmacy, doctors and pharmacists, and patients, as well as many families (family patron of the Serbs), even of the whole regions. Many chemist's shops and hospitals are named by this Saint, what is the confirmation that his cult and recognition of his personality and his work are still present in our milieu. <br><br><font color="red"><b> This article has been retracted. Link to the retraction <u><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2298/SARH1010674U">10.2298/SARH1010674U</a></u></b></font>

Abject pilgrimage and healing in Jaume Roig's Spill

In the Spill o Llibre de les dones, the 15th century writer and physician from Valencia, Jaume Roig, uses the motif of pilgrimage to attack earthly women, particularly women healers. Roig undermines the salutary function of medieval pilgrimage in order to expose worldly women in their effort to harm male pilgrims. Since men cannot rely on earthly women, they must seek a healing encounter with the Virgin, whose salutary ministrations are always constant and efficacious. Roig's assault on women through pilgrimage relates to wider social attempts to marginalize traditional women healers from legitimate salutary practice, since he aims to dissuade male readers from seeking women's healing services in everyday society.

Miraculous healings as a time- and space-conditioned category--the example of St. Thecla

The phenomenon of miracle has been present in each time period and each civilization, and what has changed was not its definition but its content. Gautama Buddha, Apostle Paul, Mohammed, Church fathers from Origen and Augustine of Hippo to Gregory the Great and Thomas Aquinas were all studying miracles and trying to find out the rules and systematization for them. The present paper explores the intriguing differences (e.g., the proportions of miracle types) and similarities (e.g. saintly "specialization") between some Eastern and Western miracle accounts, analyzing the possible underlying reasons. As a case study, the collection of miracles performed by St. Thecla (Basil of Seleukia, 5th c. AD) has been used. The major conclusion of the paper is that miracle accounts quite consequently reflect cultural differences between East and West.