Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-kw2vx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-12T01:05:51.466Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 12 - Making Connections between the Medical Properties of Stones and Philosophy in the Work of Albertus Magnus

from Part II - The Borders of Pharmacology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 October 2023

By
Athanasios Rinotas
Edited by
Petros Bouras-Vallianatos  and
Dionysios Stathakopoulos
Petros Bouras-Vallianatos
Affiliation:
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Dionysios Stathakopoulos
Affiliation:
University of Cyprus
Get access

Summary

Albertus Magnus was not a physician but manifested a positive attitude towards medicine. His main interest was in harmonising Galenic and Aristotelian doctrines that seemed to overlap on certain subjects; thus, he created a medico-philosophical approach to many illnesses and how they develop. In his On Minerals he writes of the special properties of stones and refers to certain stones as being capable of treating such diseases as epilepsy and melancholy. Yet Albertus does not refer to the way in which these stones could act and affect the aforementioned diseases. Therefore, the question that emerges is whether one can detect passages in his oeuvre which allow us to reconstruct a possible medico-philosophical explanation for the way in which these properties became associated with specific diseases. This chapter’s aim is to attempt to gather the scattered pieces of information from Albertus’ work and reconstruct this potential medico-philosophical formula

Keywords

Albertus Magnusmedicinemagical propertiesepilepsymelancholy
Type
Chapter
Information
Drugs in the Medieval Mediterranean
Transmission and Circulation of Pharmacological Knowledge
 , pp. 366 - 387
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Angel, M. 1992. ‘Propriétés accidentelles des pierres: couleur, dureté, fissilité, porosité et densité selon Albert le Grand’, Travaux du Comité français d’Histoire de la Géologie 6: 87–92.Google Scholar
Anzulewicz, H., and Söder, J. R. eds. 2008. De homine. Munster: Aschendorff.Google Scholar
Asúa, M. de. 2001. ‘Minerals, Plants and Animals from A to Z: The Inventory of the Natural World in Albert the Great’s Philosophia Naturalis’, in Senner, W. (ed.), Albertus Magnus: Zum Gedenken nach 800 Jahren. Neue Zugänge, Aspekte und Perspektiven. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 389–400.Google Scholar
Asúa, M. de. 2013. ‘War and Peace: Medicine and Natural Philosophy in Albert the Great’, in Resnick, I. M. (ed.), A Companion to Albert the Great: Theology, Philosophy and the Sciences. Leiden: Brill, 269–97.Google Scholar
Baldner, S. 1999. ‘St. Albert the Great and St. Thomas Aquinas on the Presence of Elements in Compounds’, Sapientia 54: 41–57.Google Scholar
Barney, S. A. et al. trans. 2006. The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Borgnet, A. ed. 1890a. Alberti Magni opera omnia: De sensu et sensate. Paris: L. Vivès.Google Scholar
Borgnet, A. ed. 1890b. Alberti Magni opera omnia: De mineralibus. Paris: L. Vivès.Google Scholar
Borgnet, A. ed. 1890c. Alberti Magni opera omnia: De somno et vigilia. Paris: L. Vivès.Google Scholar
Borgnet, A. ed. 1890d. Alberti Magni opera omnia: De memoria et reminiscentia. Paris: L. Vivès.Google Scholar
Borgnet, A. ed. 1893–4. Alberti Magni opera omnia: Super IV libros Sententiarum. 2 vols. Paris: L. Vivès.Google Scholar
Chandelier, J. 2017. Avicenne et la médecine en Italie. Paris: Honoré Champion.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Draelants, I. 2005. ‘Échanges dans la Societas des naturalistes au milieu du XIIIe siècle: Arnold de Saxe, Vincent de Beauvais et Albert le Grend’, in James-Raoul, D., Jacquart, D., and Soutet, O. (eds.), Par les mots et les textes … Mélanges de langue, de littérature et d’histoire des sciences médiévales offerts à Claude Thomasset. Paris: Presses de l᾽Université Paris-Sorbonne, 219–38.Google Scholar
Filthaut, E. ed. 1955. Quaestiones super de animalibus. Munster: Editio Coloniensis.Google Scholar
Gilon, O. 2018. ‘Savoirs médicaux et traditions philosophiques: Le cas de la mélancholie au XIIIe siècle’, in Kaluza, Z. and Dragos, C. (eds.), Regards sur les traditions philosophiques (XIIe–XIVe siècles). Leuven: Leuven University Press, 69–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hossfeld, P. ed. 1980. De causis proprietatum elementorum. Munster: Aschendorff.Google Scholar
Jackson, S. V. 1986. Melancholia and Depression. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacquart, D. 1998a. ‘Medical Scholasticism’, in Grmek, M. D. (ed.), Western Medical Thought from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 197–240.Google Scholar
Jacquart, D. 1998b. La médecine médiévale dans le cadre parisien. Paris: Fayard.Google Scholar
Jacquart, D. 2013. ‘Anatomy, Physiology, and Medical theory’, in Lindberg, D. C. and Shank, M. H. (eds.), The Cambridge History of Science. Volume 2: Medieval Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 590–610.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacquart, D., and Micheau, F. 1990. La médecine arabe et l’occident médiéval. Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose.Google Scholar
Jeck, U. R. 1998. ‘Albert der Grosse über die Natur der Steine’, Zeitschrift 47: 206–11.Google Scholar
Jeck, U. R. 2000. ‘Virtus Lapidum: Zur philosophischen Begründung der magischen Wirksamkeit und der physikalischen Beschaffenheit kostbarer Mineralien in der Naturphilosophie Alberts des Grossen’, Early Science and Medicine 5.1: 33–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kemp, S. 1990. Medieval Psychology. New York: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Klibansky, R. et al. 1964. Saturn and Melancholy: Studies in the History of Natural Philosophy, Religion and Art. London: Nelson.Google Scholar
Kübel, W. ed. 1972. Super Ethica. Munster: Aschendorff.Google Scholar
Lindberg, D. C. 1992. The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, 600 B.C. to A.D. 1450. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
McKeon, R. 1961. ‘Medicine and Philosophy in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries: The Problem of Elements’, Thomist: A Speculative Quarterly Review 24.2: 211–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meyer, E. and Jessen, C. eds. 1867. De vegetabilibus libri VII. Berlin.Google Scholar
Nutton, V. 2013. ‘Early-Medieval Medicine and Natural Science’, in Lindberg, D. C. and Shank, M. H. (eds.), The Cambridge History of Science. Volume 2: Medieval Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 323–40.Google Scholar
Ottosson, P. G. 1984. Scholastic Medicine and Philosophy: A Study of Commentaries on Galen’s Tegni (ca. 1300–1450). Naples: Bibliopolis-Edizioni di filosofia e scienze.Google Scholar
Park, K. 2013. ‘Medical Practice’, in Lindberg, D. C. and Shank, M. H. (eds.), The Cambridge History of Science. Volume 2: Medieval Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 611–29.Google Scholar
Resnick, I. M., and Kitchell, , K. F. trans. 1999. Albertus Magnus On Animals: A Medieval Summa Zoologica. 2 vols. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Resnick, I. M., and Kitchell, , K. F. trans. 2008. Albert the Great: Questions concerning Aristotle’s On Animals. Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press.Google Scholar
Reynolds, P. L. 1999. Food and the Body: Some Peculiar Questions in High Medieval Theology. Leiden: Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Riddle, J. M. 1974. ‘Theory and Practice in Medieval Medicine’, Viator 5: 157–84.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Riddle, J. M., and Mulholland, J. A. 1980. ‘Albert on Stones and Minerals’, in Weisheipl, J. A. (ed.), Albertus Magnus and the Sciences: Commemorative Essays. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 203–34.Google Scholar
Rutkin, D. H. 2013. ‘Astrology and Magic’, in Resnick, I. M. (ed.), A Companion to Albert the Great: Theology, Philosophy and the Sciences. Leiden: Brill, 451–505.Google Scholar
Schipperges, H. 1980. ‘Das medizinische Denken bei Albertus Magnus’, in Meyer, G. and Zimmermann, A. (eds.), Albertus Magnus: Doctor Universalis 1280/1980. Mainz: Grunewald, 279–94.Google Scholar
Siraisi, N. G. 1980. ‘The Medical Learning of Albertus Magnus’, in Weisheipl, J. A. (ed.), Albertus Magnus and the Sciences: Commemorative Essays. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 379–404.Google Scholar
Siraisi, N. G. 1990. Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine: An Introduction to Knowledge and Practice. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stadler, H. ed. 1916–20. De animalibus Libri XXVI. 2 vols. Munster: Ascendorff.Google Scholar
Talbot, C. H. 1978. ‘Medicine’, in Lindberg, D. C. (ed.), Science in the Middle Ages. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 391–428.Google Scholar
Temkin, O. 1971. The Falling Sickness: A History of Epilepsy from the Greeks to the Beginnings of Modern Neurology. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Theiss, P. 1997. ‘Albert the Great’s Interpretation of Neuropsychiatric Symptoms in the Context of Scholastic Psychology and Physiology’, Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 6.3: 240–56.Google Scholar
Thorndike, L. 1923. History of Magic and Experimental Science, vol. II. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Wallis, F. 2005a. ‘Medicine, Practical’, in Glick, T., Liveley, S. J., and Wallis, F. (eds.), Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine. New York: Routledge, 335–6.Google Scholar
Wallis, F. 2005b. ‘Medicine, Theoretical’, in Glick, T., Liveley, S. J., and Wallis, F. (eds.), Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine. New York: Routledge, 336–40.Google Scholar
Weill-Parot, N. 2002. Les ‘images astrologiques’ au Moyen Âge et à la Renaissance: Spéculations intellectuelles et pratiques magiques (XIIe–XVe). Paris: Honoré Champion.Google Scholar
Weisheipl, J. A. ed. 1980. Albertus Magnus and the Sciences: Commemorative Essays. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies.Google Scholar
Wyckoff, D. trans. 1967. Albertus Magnus: Book of Minerals. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×