Ante Škrobonja

Saints-protectors from snake bite: A short overview and a tentative analysis

A short overview of several saints, including Peter, Paul, John, George, Hilarius, Hubert, and Gaudentius, venerated in Christian tradition as protectors from snake bite, is offered as an introduction to a more substantial debate on the factors determining the choice of protectors in folk medicine, as well as on the possible adjuvant effect of (auto)suggestive therapy obtained by the invocation of saints.

The Cult of St. Lucia, Patroness of the Eyes: Some Examples from Croatian Ethnomedical Tradition

In the introductory part, the authors present several patrons/patronesses of the eyesand sight, as well as the protectors from eye diseases. In addition, presented is a shorthagiography of St. Lucia, the most famous among the patrons of the eyes. The secondpart is dedicated to the cult of St. Lucia, which has existed among the Croats from the10th century until present day. Testimonies to this are numerous churches, chapels,altars, paintings, sculptures, processions, pilgrimage, prayers, votive gifts, and manyother forms of folk piety. By reviewing several characteristic examples from Istriaand the region of Kvarner, the importance of this veneration is indicated, for generaland religious tradition as well as for the history of medicine, especially the history ofethno-ophthalmology.

Birth of St. Mary (St. Anne's parturition) in the light of messages from medical education: three examples from Croatian sacral heritage.

Abstract Christian tradition treats birth in several characteristic motives. The most frequent is the Birth of Jesus Christ, while much rarer is the apocryphal motive of the birth of St. Mary. By analyzing three paintings from Croatian 16–17th-century sacral-art heritage, depicting the parturition of St. Anne (St. Marys Mother), the authors of this paper are trying to define the role of ethnomedical notions in the formation of modern medical and general culture.

Saints-protectors from headache – historical hints of suggestive therapy?

A short overview of several saints, venerated in Christian tradition as protectors from headache, is offered as an introduction to a more substantial debate on the possibility and value of analysing historical literary and iconographic sources and their interpretation. Headache of possible psychosomatic origin allows (auto) suggestive therapy obtained by the invocation of saints to have had considerable success. This possibility favours the opinion that historical material can be useful not only for cultural-anthropological, but also for modern medical considerations as well.

Public Health Problems in the Medieval Statutes of Croatian Adriatic Coastal Towns: From Public Morality to Public Health

The article seeks out the regulations about public health in the oldest medieval statutes of fourteen cities of the eastern Croatian Adriatic coast, between the thirteenth and sixteenth century. The research revealed numerous examples of direct or indirect ways of protecting public health. Through the analyzed documents, a noteworthy relationship between public morality and public health can be noted. The described rules are important as a reflection of awareness about public health as a condition of survival and progress in the past. They witness a progressive transition from an original common law into a written law as well as the impact that religion had in influencing people’s general opinion and lifestyle in light of public health problems.

Anatomical knowledge among medieval folk artists: osteological interpretation of two Dance of Death motifs

Anatomy has a long history that started with dissection of animals and then expanded and flourished thanks to dissections performed on human bodies. Artists had a crucial role in uncovering the secrets of human anatomy. While most studies have focused on the influence of famous Renaissance artists on human anatomy studies, the anatomical drawings by pre‐Renaissance artists and local craftsmen have remained in their shadow. One of the most popular artistic genres in which complete or parts of human skeletons appear is the Dance of Death (Danse Macabre). This article is an anthropological study of two medieval Dance of Death frescoes that are unusual in being relatively early as well as accurately datable. A comparative morphological analysis of the two late 15th century works present in Istria has been conducted. The two works were painted by two local masters and show how the artists filled the gaps in their knowledge of human anatomy mostly with insights into animal bones and imagination. Their artworks, even though only 16 years apart, demonstrate substantial differences in the representation of the skeletons. The article argues that the history of medicine and of art could make good use of osteology and physical anthropology in attempts to define and understand how anatomical knowledge developed among pre‐Renaissance and post‐Renaissance artists and local people.

Public health problems in the medieval statutes of Vinodol, Vrbnik and Senj (West Croatia)

BACKGROUND The ancient Croatian statutes were written in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The aim of this study was to seek out regulations concerning public health in the oldest medieval statutes of the towns on the northern Adriatic coast (W Croatia). METHODS All translated text editions of the statutes of the three towns were examined. The statutes were written in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. RESULTS The research of the materials revealed the examples of direct and indirect ways of protecting public health. Regulations on keeping towns clean and the rules for dealing with animal products were found. Additionally, witches and fortunetellers were found to be treated as a negative force and defined as the embodiment of evil: they were thus considered to be heavily connected to illness and misfortune. CONCLUSION The aforementioned rules are not only important from the historical point of view, but also as a reflection of peoples awareness of public health as a condition of survival and the progress of the community as a whole. Furthermore, since those statutes were created from peoples customs that were to eventually become a law, they show substantial progress in medical history for that particular part of Croatia.

Two examples of reimplantation from Croatian sacral patrimony

In the current article, two paintings related to the topic of reimplantation from Croatian sacral patrimony are presented. The first one is “The Kiss of Judas,” the fresco by Vincent of Kastav (1474) in Beram in Istria—a Gospel scene with Jesus performing reimplantation of the ear to Malchus after it was cut off by Apostle Peter. The second one is an old oil on canvas from the island of Rab, presenting St. Anthony of Padua performing reimplantation of a boys amputated foot. Although in both cases the primary function of the painting is to convey a moral message, they are interesting from the medical–historical point of view for their view of universal popular imagination and the conception of healing severe wounds during the absence of modern medical knowledge.