Resumen de El pelo en la tradición médica latina medieval

María Mercedes Martínez González

• español

  Esta investigación explora el abordaje que hizo la medicina de tradición latina del pelo humano en salud y enfermedad. Dentro del sistema médico que conocemos como humoralismo y que dominó la cuenca mediterránea entre los siglos V a. C. y XVII, el pelo fue objeto de estudio en sí mismo, como asiento de patología y como elemento diagnóstico del estado general de salud. Utilizando fuentes médicas y quirúrgicas consumidas en las facultades de medicina de los siglos XIII y XIV, así como textos de la tradición salernitana, el trabajo aborda la morfo-fisiología del pelo y la patología específica del mismo, concretamente la alopecia, la canicie, la pediculosis, el conjunto de las tiñas y la sarna. El acercamiento se complementa con el estudio del papel del pelo en el manejo diagnóstico, pronóstico y terapéutica de una enfermedad sistémica, la lepra. El pelo como objeto de estudio ha permitido ilustrar el funcionamiento del humoralismo como un modelo holístico de conceptualización y práctica sobre los problemas de salud y enfermedad y reflexionar, desde la indagación histórica, sobre sus similitudes y diferencias con el modelo reduccionista dominante en la actualidad.

  This research explores the approach taken by a tradition of medieval Latin medicine towards human hair in health and in sickness. Within the medical system that we know of as humoralism, dominant in the Mediterranean basin between the fifth century B.C. and the seventeenth century, hair was the object of study in itself, as a seat of pathology and as a diagnostic element of the general state of health. Basing itself on medical and surgical sources used in the faculties of medicine of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, as well as texts from the Salernitan tradition, the work addresses the morpho-physiology of the hair and its pathology, specifically, alopecia, grey/white hair, lice infestations, the group of ringworms and scabies. The approach is complemented with the study of the role of the hair in the diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic management of a systemic disease, leprosy. The hair as an object of study has allowed us to illustrate the functioning of humoralism as a holistic model of conceptualization and practice on the problems of health and sickness and to reflect, from the perspective of historical inquiry, upon its similarities and differences to the dominant reductionist model of the present day.

• English

  This research explores the approach taken by a tradition of medieval Latin medicine towards human hair in health and in sickness. Within the medical system that we know of as humoralism, dominant in the Mediterranean basin between the fifth century B.C. and the seventeenth century, hair was the object of study in itself, as a seat of pathology and as a diagnostic element of the general state of health. Basing itself on medical and surgical sources used in the faculties of medicine of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, as well as texts from the Salernitan tradition, the work addresses the morpho-physiology of the hair and its pathology, specifically, alopecia, grey/white hair, lice infestations, the group of ringworms and scabies. The approach is complemented with the study of the role of the hair in the diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic management of a systemic disease, leprosy. The hair as an object of study has allowed us to illustrate the functioning of humoralism as a holistic model of conceptualization and practice on the problems of health and sickness and to reflect, from the perspective of historical inquiry, upon its similarities and differences to the dominant reductionist model of the present day.