5. Mind and Body - the Six 'Non-Naturals'

About this Lecture

Lecture

In this module, we look at how ideas about the connection between the mind and the body were developed in the Arabic world. Fundamentally this was based on the Greek ideas of humeral pathology and the six ‘non-naturals’. In particular, these ideas influenced how Arabic physicians treated mental disorders, such as ‘melancholia’ and ‘lovesickness’.

Course

In this course, Professor Peter Pormann (University of Manchester) explores how medicine was practiced in the Medieval Arabic world. In the first module, we look at the Baghdad translation movement of the 9th century. We then turn to consider how various Arabic scholars digested and built on the work of the Greeks. After this we focus on perhaps the greatest innovation of the Medieval Arabic world - the hospital. Then, in the fourth module, we explore the new ideas and treatments developed in the Arabic world. We then move to look at how ideas about the connection between the mind and the body were developed in the Arabic world. In the sixth and final module, we explore the legacies of Medieval Arabic medicine.

Lecturer

Professor Peter Pormann is Professor of Classics & Graeco-Arabic Studies at the University of Manchester. He is primarily concerned with the transmission of the Greek medical and scientific heritage into the Islamic world and the use of information technologies to facilitate its study. He has published on medicine and philosophy in late antique Alexandria, Greek-Syriac-Arabic translation technique, the history of mental illness, hospital provisions in tenth-century Baghdad, Arabic philosophy, and the reception of Graeco-Roman thought in the modern Middle East.