Traitement magique des maux de dents à l'époque impériale romaine (Ier-Ve siècles)

Remèdes magiques aux maux de dents à partir d\u27auteurs médicaux et de textes médico-magiques d\u27entre le 1er et le 5e siècle

Le serpent, source de santé

Cet article s\u27appuie principalement sur les écrits de médecins (Dioscoride, Arétée, Galien...) et les livres de remèdes de l\u27Histoire naturelle de Pline l\u27Ancien. La médecine antique employait surtout la vipère, mais des serpents sans souci d\u27espèce précise étaient aussi beaucoup utilisés et Pline montre des emplois plus rares d\u27autres serpents, venimeux ou non. Les animaux étaient utilisés entiers ou bien l\u27on se servait surtout de la mue, de la graisse et de la chair, la tête et le fiel ayant aussi un certain rôle. Cependant, malgré la préférence pour la vipère, les modes de préparation et/ou d\u27emploi visaient souvent à éliminer le venin, dont la conception était de plus différente dans l\u27Antiquité. Les maladies soignées l\u27étaient surtout en vertu du principe de l\u27action du semblable sur le semblable (morsures de serpent, problèmes de la peau...) et de qualités prêtées au serpent (par exemple, bonne vue permettant de soigner les problèmes oculaires). Si l\u27on excepte l\u27intégration à la thériaque de pastilles à la chair de vipère, les serpents ne constituent pas un ingrédient essentiel de la pharmacopée des médecins gréco-romains, l\u27attitude ambivalente envers le venin conduisant à une grande précaution d\u27emploi ; toutefois, l\u27utilisation par la magie et la médecine populaire, si l\u27on se réfère à Pline, était sans doute plus développée

Morsures, piqûres et empoisonnements dans l’Histoire Naturelle de Pline l’Ancien

This article aims to explain the large amount of space devoted by Pliny in his Natural History to remedies for the effects of bites and poisonous substances. Pliny is a compiler and reports a medical tradition known from the Alexandrian age. The interest of Pliny and other authors in this matter reflects a fear arising especially from two causes : on the one hand, the discovery by Greeks and Romans of Asian and African venomous animals ; on the other hand, the poisons used since Hellenistic times for criminal purposes. There are, however, other factors directly linked to Pliny’s life and beliefs : the use – and abuse – of poison in Nero’s time, the theme of the serpent in contemporary literature, and, above all, Pliny’s adherence to the doctrine of ‘sympathies’ and ‘antipathies’. In holding this point of view, Pliny has been influenced profoundly by a Pseudo-Democritus, Bolos of Mendes, the author of a lost book On Sympathies and Antipathies, with extensive discussion of magic, an art associating knowledge of animals, poisons and their remedies

Accueillir l’enfant illégitime : modalités, enjeux, limites de la benignitas canonica. Des théories romano-canoniques aux pratiques sociales (XIIe-XVe siècles)

This paper purposed to study figures of children considered as bastards through medieval sources, as rejected and stigmatized one because they were born outside of wedlock but also as children whom society and parents had to take care, who were symbolically, legally and judicially protected. They could not inherit of their father, at least in theory, but those had to feed and educate them, or to contribute by alimenta to do it. Canonists diverged from romanists who nevertheless defined what nutrire or alere meant because from the second part of the twelfth century, popes and decretalists, step by step, demonstrate that parents had to take care of their children, even those who had been born spurii. The idea that supported this form of representation of bastards had nothing to do with favor prolis but simply sollicitudo or benignitas canonica that obliged everyone to put at the first rank the jus naturale instead of human laws that might had restricted bastard’s rigths. But those canonical demonstrations had to be precisely qualified by notarial or judicial sources that proved fatherhood obligations but also difficulties for spurii. Those medieval representations, sometimes paradoxal ones, were finally compared with conclusions of some anthropological studies