|
The New York Academy of Medicine Section on the History of Medicine and Public Health is pleased to announce the second talk in its 2005-2006 series of public lectures, and the second of a four-part mini-series "Medicine Before Modernity.
Thursday, October 27
James P. Allen, Ph.D.
The World of Ancient Egyptian Medicine
Reception 5:30 PM, Lecture 6:00 PM
Despite all of the ancient Egyptians' cultural advances, they inhabited a perilous and uncertain environment, and medicine was one attempt to understand and deal with life in that world. This illustrated lecture will look at ancient Egyptian medicine as it is preserved in art and writing.
James Allen is Curator of Egyptian Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Vice President of the International Association of Egyptologists. He curated the Met's exhibition "The Art of Medicine in Ancient Egypt" (which features the entire Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, on loan from the New York Academy of Medicine's Rare Book collection). One of the highlights of the exhibition is Allen's translation of the Smith Papyrus.
Medicine Before Modernity
Today's rapidly-accelerating medical knowledge can distort our perspective, flattening our view of the dynamic and swiftly changing field of medicine even a century ago into some undifferentiated "past," as remote and unrecognizable as a familiar landscape viewed from the wrong end of a telescope. This four-part lecture series turns the lens around, viewing the history of medicine from the vantage point of one of its foundational documents, the Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, a transcription from around 1600 BCE, of a much older document.
Tuesday, September 27
David Mininberg, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, "The Art of Medicine in the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean"
Thursday, October 27
James Allen, Metropolitan Museum of Art, "The World of Ancient Egyptian Medicine"
Tuesday, November 29
Michael McVaugh, University of North Carolina, "'An Ailment Not to be Treated': The Rationality of Pre-Modern Surgery"
Wednesday, December 7
Monica Green, Arizona State University, "Gynecology and Surgery: Alliances of Knowledge and Practice in the Premodern Period"
ALL LECTURES AT 6 PM, RECEPTIONS AT 5:30 PM
The series is accompanied by a rare book exhibition: "Holes in the Head: Mending Head Injuries from Pericles to Bonaparte." The exhibition, curated by Miriam Mandelbaum, starts from the fact that over half of the cases described in the Smith Papyrus deal with head injuries. The exhibition features "capital" examples of works from Renaissance editions of the Hippocratic corpus to the works of Dominique-Jean Larrey, Chief of the Medical Corps during Napoleon's Egyptian campaign in 1799.
These events are free and open to the public. For more information about NYAM programs in the history of medicine, visit our website at www.nyam.org/histmed , write history@nyam.org , or call Christian Warren at 212.822.7314.
Earlier this year, the Academy's Rare Book Room was featured in the New York Times. To read a press release, with a link to the article, visit http://www.nyam.org/news/2258.html.
Historical programs at NYAM are supported by the Friends of the Rare Book Room. Please join the Friends! Download a membership form at http://www.nyam.org/initiatives/docs/FRBR_Renewal.pdf.
THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE 1216 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK, NY 10029
| 
