Essential Readings in Medicine and Religion

About this book

"Intended as a companion to Ferngren's Medicine and Religion: A Historical Introduction, which traces the history of the relationship between medicine and religion in the Western world, this sourcebook brings together primary sources to address this relationship, with annotations placing the sources in their historical context. They relate to Mesopotamia, Egypt, Israel, Rome, Greece, early Christianity, the European Middle Ages, Islam, early modern Europe, and the 19th through the 21st centuries, and themes like concepts of health, the causes and cure of disease, medical ethics, theodicy, beneficence, religious healing, consolation, and death and dying. Each chapter begins with an introduction that furnishes a basic historical setting for the period covered. Modern translations, some of which have been made especially for this volume, are used whenever possible. The texts are numbered sequentially within each chapter and preceded by a short introduction to both the author and the subject.