Description

The pathological and therapeutic analogies in the works of N. Oresme, Ph. de Mézières, Ch. de Pizan and J. Gerson furnish insights into the diseases and treatments of the time. They also show the extent of the influence of medicine on the intellectual life of the late Middle Ages. Mézières, for example, deals with moral, social, political and religious issues with references to the sick human body and to its medical treatment. A comparison with H. de Mondeville's "Chirugia" and G. de Chauliac's "Grande Chirugie" points to Mézières' extensive medical knowledge. Other writers, such as Ch. de Pizan and J. Gerson while not demonstrating a knowledge as vast as Mézières', also use disease and medicine as a source for their analogies. Long before the French Renaissance, medical science contributed to the development of humanism at the court of Charles V.