People failed love, feared aging, worried about their weight and hated their jobs for almost as long as humans standed up.
In search of answers to these misfortunes, they asked the diversified and endless army for advice from those who would offer it. Or they have practiced a form of preventive medicine – looking at what they eat, how they sleep or exercise and reflect on their routines.
This global self-assistance industry is estimated today at some $ 45 billion.
“We know that people have been practicing preventive medicine without the help of doctors since the start of time, but because these well-being practices have never been so written in history that we do not know,” said Noa Nikolskyan assistant English professor in the University of Miami College of Arts and Sciences.
However, Nikolsky, a specialist in medieval literature and the history of science and medicine, has focused his research on a new kind of writing –Health patterns– which appeared in Europe after the rebirth of the 12th century. From the 13th century, these eccentric healthy lifestyles changed the landscape of well-being, especially for ordinary people.
“There is an explosion of scientific writing and an influx of new knowledge. We are starting to see many texts on prevention, so suddenly, these well-being advice becomes textualized in a significant way,” said Nikolsky.
And these guides – unlike the previous ones written by or intended for doctors or rich – are written in vernacular and intended for laymen.
One of the clues that these texts are intended for a profane audience is that many of these diets include the warning that if you follow these tips, you will not need to see a doctor or a health professional – an interesting inclusion since many of them are written by doctors.
“They talk to you, you, and saying that by reading this book, you have the power to get what you want. They put the agency in the hands of people,” said Nikolsky.
Eating eels is bad for the voice
Like those who know anything about medicine
Cheese and eel are harmful when consumed together in large quantities,
Unless you often drank wine.
“Preventive medicine is super important because the healing interventions are very risky and before you can do painless surgery with anesthetics, heavy drugs were used that most people did not have at their disposal,” said Nikolsky. “But preventive medicine is something you can do before one of these healing interventions.”
This new genre evolves over time to become “super popular”. Nikolsky attributes their partly popularity to the rise of universities and the increase in literacy among the population, which creates a new type of knowledge systemization and more market for these texts.
“It is not only that there are more drugs practiced, it is that these subjects find a place in the text, and you have these texts which are circulating which are preventive,” she said.
Nikolsky described “diets” as practical guides for daily life.
“This is a document to hold in your hand which gives you daily rules for health. It is not a question of being a good Christian-it is really just health. They give practical tools to have a healthy body. And that is why they look very much like books of self-assistance,” she said.
In the Middle Ages, universities in particular were the learning centers for doctors, but the information of these regimes emanated from universities and, although in many cases, the authors were unknown, they were not written for people trained by the University or those who have access to formal education.
“There are many practitioners in public spaces – Barber surgeons, apothecaries, shamans and folk healers. They have knowledge, or you could also consult your neighbor or ask a friend who may have experience with a certain illness. There are therefore a lot of different levels on which medicine has been practiced, ”she noted.
As a researcher, Nikolsky focuses on the question of whether texts are a medical practice.
“You do not consult someone, do not have a medical encounter with a doctor. But what you do is read this medical text as a medical meeting between the person and the text, rather than between the person and the patient,” she said.
Because she is not a health professional, Nikolsky refrains from commenting if the advice in the diets are good medical advice.
“Anyway, these texts teach you to pay attention to different parts of your body and your habits – exercise, food, sleep – which have an impact on your physical and emotional health,” she said. “So, our notion of psychosomatic health – understanding that there is a holistic relationship between the mind and the body – is not as modern as we could think.
“Whatever the medical advantages of real advice, it is useful to think, even if you do not implement the advice themselves,” she said. “The rules endow you with the agency – that your health is in your hands. They encourage us to be responsible for our own body,” said Nikolsky, whose current book project explores the rise in mutual aid writing and preventive medicine at the end of medieval Europe.