Please join us for this fourth entry in our 2021-2022 Lecture Series, also the keynote lecture for Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Annual Symposium “Animals and Humans in the Medieval and Renaissance Worlds”!
**Please register at https://osu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0kf-mrqz4rGtPCWnezSbH8kWBxyzFCb2mK to receive the Zoom meeting room link.**
Abstract: This lecture will discuss how two ailments, rabies and scabies, were ascribed to both animals and humans and are prime examples of diagnosis and treatment working across the species divide. Animals and humans, by sharing the same humoral framework, were not constructed as a separate category. Visual differences such as thick shaggy fur or skin colour were explained by internal humoral workings, but the basic framework stayed the same. I argue that it is essential to consider disease across species when studying premodern medical history, as ignoring its manifestations in animals greatly diminishes how people observed and understood disease that they encountered, whether on their own bodies or their livestock or pet dog. Both scabies and rabies were considered to be highly contagious, and I will also discuss how medical and veterinary authors, writing in different genres, understood the nature of contagion and how it might cross the species divide. The issue of human-animal interactions and resulting diseases could not be more timely or impactful, and this lecture hopes to centre historical zoonotic encounters as an essential part of the history of premodern medicine.
Bio: Dr Walker-Meikle’s research interests focus on the relationship between animals and humans, particularly in medicine and natural history. She received her PhD from University College London, and published Medieval Pets (Boydell & Brewer, 2012), the first social and cultural study of companion animals in the late medieval period. Research has included work on medieval toxicology and animal bites (Wellcome Trust Fellowship, University of York), 11th and 12th c. pharmacology in the Antidotorium magnum (Saint Louis University, project supervised by Dr Monica Green), late medieval magic and cosmology (University College London) and most recently, skin diseases and animal skin on the Renaissance Skin project at King’s College London. She has recently started at the Science Museum Group in London as Research Grant Manager.
