Santé et médecine dans l'Egypte médiévale

Maïmonide (1138-1204)

Call for Papers: Health and Medicine in Medieval Egypt (VIIth-XVIth Century): Specificities and Continuities

The objective of this conference is to focus on the development of Graeco-Arabic medicine in Egypt. Graeco-Arabic medicine developed in medieval Egypt in line with the scientific and intellectual advancements which took place in Bagdad during the first centuries of the Abbasid dynasty. In this conference, we will consider Egypt as a part of the Islamic world closely related to the scientific centers of learning that flourished over this period, as well as a specific milieu.
Our starting-point is that medieval Egypt, as a historical and geographical context, influenced the development of medicine. Firstly, medieval Egypt constituted the historical background of the medical
texts written therein, since there was no such thing as “Egyptian Medicine” – at least in the field of humoral medicine inherited from the Greeks. Consequently, the medical texts written in Egypt were consistent with Graeco-Arabic medical theory as it developed in the Islamic world. It is, however, worth considering the socio-historical as well as intellectual context of these texts, in order to understand better medieval medical theory and practice and the role of Graeco-Arabic
medicine in society. Secondly, some physicians addressed the problem of the peculiarities offered by Egypt in that they either sought to adapt the framework of Galenic medicine to particular factors like Egyptian climate, or to promote medical practices or remedies not present in Greek sources.

In this conference, we welcome papers that will address the following questions:

1) What was the role of medicine in Egyptian society from the VIIth to the XVIth century? For example, what do juridical texts reveal about therelationship between medicine and law, and between medicine and society? Were the Galenic principles followed and put into practice within society?

2) What was the intellectual context offered by medieval Cairo? For example, how did the philosophical ideas developed in Cairo influence medical theory? Which scientific achievements and philosophical ideas informed the interpretation of the medical texts from this period ? Did the growth of Sufism have an impact on medical theories? But also, how did Cairo as a centre or learning over these different periods correspond with centers of learning such as Aleppo ?

3) How did Egyptian physicians such as Ibn Riḍwān (d. 1068), Ibn Ǧumayʿ (d. 1198), Maïmonides (d. 1204) or al-Qūsūnī (d. 1524) interact with the overall framework of Graeco-Arabic medicine? Our aim is to draw attention to how medical theories treat Egyptian peculiarities, or failing to do so, how they lie within the framework of Greek medicine and contribute to the construction of Arabic medieval medicine. Beyond the Greek, did Egyptian medieval physicians engage in some way with
medicine of Ancient Egypt ?

The conference will be hosted by the Institute for Oriental Archeology in Cairo, 5-6 May 2013. Please send abstract before 15 September 2012 (about 250 words) to Pauline Koetschet, Institut français d’archéologie orientale (pkoetschet AT ifao.egnet.net).