A re-enactment of Blasius of Barcelona curing himself of the Black Death

Medicine Through Time – The Black Death, 1346-52

In this course, Dr John Aberth (Castleton State College) explores approaches to the treatment of the Black Death and attempts to stop its spread. In the first module, we use a re-enactment to look at how the fourteenth century medical student Blasius of Barcelona cured himself of the Black Death. In the second module, we situate Blasius of Barcelona’s plague cure in its medical context, focusing in particular on the different treatments proposed by various physicians and their accounts of the disease. In the third module, we turn to consider the poison theory of plague contagion, before in the fourth module evaluating the extent to which Christian and Islamic doctors varied in their response to the Black Death. In the fifth module, we conclude by thinking about the modern verdict that can be attributed to medieval treatments of the Black Death, assessing how our understanding of disease and its spread has changed, and how this affects our evaluation of medieval medicine.

A re-enactment of Blasius of Barcelona curing himself of the Black Death

In this module, we reenact the procedure whereby the 14th century medical student Blasius of Barcelona cured himself of the Black Death, focusing in particular on: (i) the use of fumigation and aspergation to cleanse a room of contagion; (ii) the context of Blasius of Barcelona’s experience of the Black Death as a medical student at the University of Toulouse; (iii) Blasius of Barcelona’s symptomatic progression; (iv) Blasius of Barcelona’s treatment of his buboe, the incision and aftercare procedure; and (v) what Blasius of Barcelona learned from his experience of the Black Death.