Animaux et maladies dans la période médiévale et moderne

Rabies, scabies, beast and man: Animals and disease in medieval and early modern period
 

CMRS Symposium/Lecture: Kathleen Walker-Meikle (UCL)


December 3, 2021
3:15PM - 4:30PM


Location
Online (Registration links forthcoming)




Description

Please join us for this fourth entry in our 2021-2022 Lecture Series, also the keynote lecture for Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Annual Symposium “Animals and Humans in the Medieval and Renaissance Worlds”!

Abstract: This lecture will discuss how two ailments, rabies and scabies, were ascribed to both animals and humans and are prime examples of diagnosis and treatment working across the species divide. Animals and humans, by sharing the same humoral framework, were not constructed as a separate category. Visual differences such as thick shaggy fur or skin colour were explained by internal humoral workings, but the basic framework stayed the same. I argue that it is essential to consider disease across species when studying premodern medical history, as ignoring its manifestations in animals greatly diminishes how people observed and understood disease that they encountered, whether on their own bodies or their livestock or pet dog. Both scabies and rabies were considered to be highly contagious, and I will also discuss how medical and veterinary authors, writing in different genres, understood the nature of contagion and how it might cross the species divide. The issue of human-animal interactions and resulting diseases could not be more timely or impactful, and this lecture hopes to centre historical zoonotic encounters as an essential part of the history of premodern medicine.

Bio: Dr Walker-Meikle’s research interests focus on the relationship between animals and humans, particularly in medicine and natural history. She received her PhD from University College London, and published Medieval Pets (Boydell & Brewer, 2012), the first social and cultural study of companion animals in the late medieval period. Kathleen received a Wellcome Trust fellowship grant to examine animal bites and toxicology in the late medieval period. Kathleen has a strong interest in palaeography, manuscript studies, and digital humanities, and has worked on the Antidotarium magnum with Professor Monica Green (Arizona State University), with the Consortium of European Research Libraries on archival digital infrastructures and at University College Cork on Irish humanism and palaeography. She was recently a research fellow at UCL on the Inner Lives project, examining late medieval cosmology, magic, astrology, and emotions. On the Renaissance Skin project she will be focusing on animal skin and diseases afflicting the skin.