Hagiographical texts of the Byzantine period contain a significant
number of miraculous treatments of several diseases of the ear, nose and
throat. The comparison of the conservative treatments referred to as
well as the often concealed surgical interventions of these texts with
those known from the medical texts of the eminent Byzantine physicians,
lead the writers to conclude that a series of real treatments were
carried out in the churches or in the Xenones (hospitals) of Byzantium
