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Darrera modificació: 2015-03-14
Bases de dades: Sciència.cat
Bos, Gerrit, "Balādhur (marking-nut): a popular medieval drug for strengthening memory", Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 59/2 (1996), 229-236.
- Resum
- According to the medieval medical concept, ultimately going back to Galen, memory is a psychical faculty located in the posterior ventricle of the brain. When this faculty is affected by a disturbance of the balance of the four bodily humours, i.e., by too much moisture and/or coldness of the brain, forgetfulness will be the result. One way to treat this affliction is to restore the humoral balance by administering warm drugs. A popular but also notorious drug for forgetfulness was balādhur (Semecarpus anacardium L; marking-nut), indigenous in India, and called by the Arab physicians habb al-fahm (nut of apprehension). The popularity of the marking-nut is sometimes explained from the fact that its juice when exposed to the air turns into a black corrosive fluid which was used as an indelible ink for marking linen and woollen clothes. Another explanation is that the nut has the shape of a heart, cf. the Latin anacardia and the Arabic epithet habb al-qalb. The black, resinous, viscid and acrid juice of the nut is called ‘honey' by the medieval physicians; it is, according to them, hot and dry in the fourth degree and is recommended for a variety of diseases, but above all forgetfulness.
- Matèries
- Medicina - Farmacologia
Medicina - Dietètica i higiene
Àrab
Tècniques - Tèxtil
- URL
- https://www.academia.edu/4777761/Baladhur_A_popular ...
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X00031542
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