Medicine & Health Care in Early Christianity

Erscheinungsjahr 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4214-2006-6
Verlag: Johns Hopkins University Press

Buch, Englisch, 264 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 437 g

Drawing on New Testament studies and recent scholarship on the expansion of the Christian church, Gary B. Ferngren presents a comprehensive historical account of medicine and medical philanthropy in the first five centuries of the Christian era.

Ferngren first describes how early Christians understood disease. He examines the relationship of early Christian medicine to the natural and supernatural modes of healing found in the Bible. Despite biblical accounts of demonic possession and miraculous healing, Ferngren argues that early Christians generally accepted naturalistic assumptions about disease and cared for the sick with medical knowledge gleaned from the Greeks and Romans.

Ferngren also explores the origins of medical philanthropy in the early Christian church. Rather than viewing illness as punishment for sins, early Christians believed that the sick deserved both medical assistance and compassion. Even as they were being persecuted, Christians cared for the sick within and outside of their community. Their long experience in medical charity led to the creation of the first hospitals, a singular Christian contribution to health care.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ferngren, Gary B

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Wissenschafts- und Universitätsgeschichte
• Medizin | Veterinärmedizin Medizin | Public Health | Pharmazie | Zahnmedizin Medizin, Gesundheitswesen Geschichte der Medizin
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften: Allgemeines Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften, Formalen Wissenschaften & Technik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments
1. Methods and Approaches
2. The Christian Reception of Greek Medicine
3. Early Christian Views of the Etiology of Disease
4. Christianity as a Religion of Healing
5. The Basis of Christian Medical Philanthropy
6. Health Care in the Early Church
7. Some Concluding Observations
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Ferngren, Gary B
Gary B. Ferngren is a professor of history at Oregon State University, editor of Science and Religion: A Historical Introduction, and author of Medicine and Health Care in Early Christianity, both published by Johns Hopkins.

Gary B. Ferngren is a professor of history at Oregon State University and a professor of the history of medicine at First Moscow State Medical University. He is the author of Medicine and Religion: A Historical Introduction and the editor of Science and Religion: A Historical Introduction.