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[Human abnormalities--their importance in the world view during antiquity and the early Middle Ages]
1Institut für Geschichte der Medizin, Martin-Luther-Universität, Halle/Saale, Germany.
Insights
This study explores historical scientific views on the origins of human malformations. It finds that moral interpretations of disabilities, particularly in Augustinian theology, influenced early scientific understanding.
Area of Science:
- History of Science
- Medical History
- Philosophy of Science
Context:
- Examines historical societal beliefs linking parental moral behavior to infant malformations.
- Investigates the scientific approaches to understanding human malformations in antiquity.
Purpose:
- To determine if physical appearance and moral attitude were historically prioritized in scientific explanations of malformations.
- To analyze teratological theories from Greek medicine, Aristotelian philosophy, Pliny, and Augustine.
Summary:
- Reviews ancient Greek and Aristotelian teratological theories.
- Analyzes Pliny's 'Historia naturalis' and Augustine's 'De civitate dei' regarding malformation origins.
- Demonstrates that Augustinian theological thought led to moral interpretations of human malformations.
Impact:
- Highlights the historical influence of theology on scientific understanding of congenital conditions.
- Provides insight into the evolution of scientific thought on human development and anomalies.
- Underscores the shift from philosophical inquiry to theological dogma in explaining natural phenomena.
Abstract:
In consideration of the experience that also in our present day society the development of a handicapped baby is understood by some as the visible result of a morally guilty behaviour of the parents, the present study raises the question, whether the identification of physical appearance and moral attitude has been in a certain historical epoch the preferred approach in science for understanding the origin of human malformations. After the treatment of the teratological theories in greek medicine and aristotelian natural philosophy the question of the origin of human malformation is examined in Pliny's "Historia naturalis" and Augustine's "De civitate dei". A comparison between the theories presented shows that the moral interpretation of human malformation is an inevitable consequence of the augustinian theological thinking.