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Miraculous fish therapy for leprosy (‘elephant disease’) and other skin diseases in Byzantium*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 April 2016

Petros Bouras-Vallianatos*
Affiliation:
King's College Londonpetros.bouras-vallianatos@kcl.ac.uk

Extract

This article discusses a unique case of a miraculous fish therapy used for a variety of skin diseases, which seems to have been practised in the mid-fifth century at the shrine of St. Michael in the city of Germia (mod. Gümüşkonak). It aims to enhance our knowledge of Byzantine therapeutic approaches to ‘elephant disease’ and contribute to debates on modern fish spa therapy.

Type
Short Note
Copyright
Copyright © Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham, 2016 

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank the anonymous referees for their helpful suggestions on an earlier draft of this paper. Special thanks go to Philipp Niewöhner for pointing out to me the case of fish therapy in Germia during the symposium on ‘Healing in Byzantium’ at Istanbul (Pera Müzesi, March 2015).

References

1 Han, X. Y.et al., ‘A new mycobacterium species causing diffuse lepromatous leprosy’, American Journal of Clinical Pathology 130 (2008) 856–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Dzierżykray-Rogalski, T., ‘Paleopathology of Ptolemaic inhabitants of Dakhleh Oasis (Egypt)’, Journal of Human Evolution 9 (1980) 71–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 For a brief account of the various terms used in ancient and medieval medical literature, see Leven, K.-H., ‘Lepra’, in Leven, K.-H. (ed.), Antike Medizin: ein Lexikon (Munich 2005) 565–67Google Scholar; and Nutton, V., ‘Leprosy’, in Cancik, H. and Schneider, H. (eds), Brill's New Pauly (Leiden 2006)Google Scholar available online at: http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/brill-s-new-pauly/leprosy-e701780 (accessed 27 September 2015).

4 Demaitre, L., Leprosy in Premodern Medicine: A Malady of the Whole Body (Baltimore 2007) 75102Google Scholar, provides a long discussion of the various terms that were used in sources to denote leprosy and other skin diseases in the Middle Ages. See also the examination of terminology in the light of the English medieval evidence by Rawcliffe, C., Leprosy in Medieval England (Woodbridge 2006) 72–8Google Scholar.

5 A brief survey of the scarce palaeopathological evidence from Byzantine sites is provided by Zias, J., ‘New evidence for the history of leprosy in the Ancient Near East: an overview’, in Roberts, C.et al. (eds), The Past and Present of Leprosy (Oxford 2002) 259–68, esp. 263–5Google Scholar. See also a recent study, Rubini, M.et al., ‘Paleopathological and molecular study on two cases of ancient childhood leprosy from the Roman and Byzantine empires’, International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 24 (2014) 570–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which reports a case of infantile leprosy from a burial at Kovuklukaya, which is located close to the major Byzantine Black Sea port of Sinope and seems to date to somewhere between the eighth and the tenth centuries.

6 On retrospective diagnosis, see Leven, K.-H., ‘“At times these ancient facts seem to lie before me like a patient on a hospital bed”– Retrospective diagnosis and ancient medical history’, in Horstmanshoff, H. F. J. and Stol, M. (eds), Magic and Rationality in Ancient Near Eastern and Graeco-Roman Medicine (Leiden 2004) 369–86Google Scholar; and Mitchell, P. D., ‘Retrospective diagnosis and the use of historical texts for investigating disease in the past’, International Journal of Paleopathology 1 (2011) 81–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 For a recent treatment of the early Byzantine period with references to a variety of sources, see Miller, T. S. and Nesbitt, J. W., Walking Corpses: Leprosy in Byzantium and the Medieval West (Ithaca and London 2014) 2747CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 On Byzantine leper houses, see Kislinger, E., ‘Leprosenhäuser (Byzanz)’, in Auty, R. et al. (eds), Lexikon des Mittelalters, V (Munich 1991) 1903–4Google Scholar.

9 Paul of Aegina, Paulus Aegineta, ed. J. L. Heiberg, I (Leipzig 1921) 317–21.

10 Philes, Manuel, Manuelis Philae Carmina, ed. Miller, E., II (Paris 1857) 25–6Google Scholar.

11 The case is mentioned neither by Miller and Nesbitt, Leprosy in Byzantium and the Medieval West, nor by Demaitre, Leprosy in Premodern Medicine.

12 There is an incomplete Latin translation available in Migne, J.-P., Patrologiae Series Graeca, CXL (Paris 1865) 573–92Google Scholar. Some fragments in Greek have been published by Gedeon, M., Ἔγγραφοι λίθοι καὶ κεράμια (Istanbul 1892) 17–8Google Scholar, and by Halkin, F., Inédits byzantins d’Ochrida, Candie et Moscou (Brussels 1963) 147–52Google Scholar. The text survives in a large number of manuscripts. See a survey by Halkin, Inédits, 147–8; a list of witnesses is provided at http://pinakes.irht.cnrs.fr/notices/oeuvre/id/9360 (accessed 27 September 2015).

13 This may be deduced from a reference to a reportedly recent incident involving a certain candle-bearer (kerophoros) called Markianos, which according to the narration took place during the reign of Michael III and Theodora (842–56). The passage has been published by Halkin, Inédits, 148.5–7: ‘θαύματος πρόσφατον γεγονότος [. . .] ἐν τοῖς χρόνοις Μιχαὴλ τοῦ εὐσεβεστάτου βασιλέως καὶ Θεοδώρας τῆς τούτου μητρός’. The earliest manuscripts of the work date to the 10th/11th c. For example, Parisinus gr. 1510 (10th c.), ff. 74v-108v, Halkin, F., Manuscrits grecs de Paris; inventaire hagiographique (Paris 1968) 190–91Google Scholar; Sinaiticus gr. 497 (10th/11th c.), ff. 259v-267v, Kamil, M., Catalogue of all Manuscripts in the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai (Wiesbaden 1970) 90Google Scholar; Vindobonensis Phil. gr. 158 (first half of eleventh c.), ff. 99r-106v, 115r-122v, 213r-220v, Grusková, J., Untersuchungen zu den griechischen Palimpsesten der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek: codices historici, codices philosophici et philologici, codices iuridici (Vienna 2010) 73–4Google Scholar; and Vaticanus gr. 821 (11th c.), ff. 5r-53v, Devreesse, R., Codices Vaticani Graeci: Codices 604–866 (Vatican City 1950) 357–59Google Scholar. On the dating of the collection, see also the corresponding discussion by Mango, C., ‘The date of the Studius basilica at Istanbul’, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 4 (1978) 115–22, esp. 117–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 On Byzantine Germia, see Mango, C., ‘The pilgrimage centre of St. Michael at Germia’, Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 36 (1986) 117–32Google Scholar.

15 Martindale, J. R. et al., The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, II, s.v. Studius 2 (Cambridge 1980) 1037Google Scholar.

16 Theophanes, Chronographia, ed. C. de Boor, I (Leipzig 1883) 240.10–2.

17 The short excerpt was published in C. Mango, ‘St. Michael and Attis’, Δελτίον τῆς Χριστιανικῆς Ἀρχαιολογικῆς ‘Εταιρείας 4.12 (1984) 39–62, esp. 47: ‘Ἐν γὰρ τοῖς θαυμαστοῖς ἐκείνοις τῶν Γερμίων ὕδασιν ὁ μετὰ πίστεως θερμῆς καὶ ἐξαγορεύσεως τῶν αὑτοῦ ἁμαρτημάτων κατερχόμενος ἀσθενὴς καὶ καταδυόμενος ἕως πώγωνος ἵσταται ἐκεῖσε ὁλοσχερῶς ἱκετεύων τὸν παντοδύναμον θεὸν καὶ τὸν ἅγιον αὑτοῦ Μιχαὴλ τὸν ἀρχιστράτηγον, καὶ εὐθέως θεοῦ προστάξει συνάγονται ὁμοῦ οἱ ἐν τοῖς ἐκεῖσε ὕδασιν ἰχθύες καὶ περιλείχουσι διόλου ὅλον τὸ σῶμα τοῦ ἀσθενοῦς, καὶ παραυτίκα ἀνέρχεται ὑγιὴς ψυχῇ τε καὶ σώματι, θεραπευόμενος χρονίων τε καὶ νεαρῶν καὶ κρυφίων καὶ φανερῶν νοσημάτων, δοξάζων τὸν θεὸν καὶ τὸν ταξιάρχην αὑτοῦ Μιχαήλ. πολλοὶ γὰρ ἐκεῖσε λεπροὶ καὶ ἐλεφαντιῶντες ἐκαθαρίσθησαν καὶ ξηρὰς ἔχοντες τὰς χεῖρας καὶ τοὺς πόδας ἰάθησαν καὶ ἄλλα πλεῖστα καὶ παντοδαπὰ πάθη παραδόξως ἐθεραπεύθησαν· τὴν δὲ τῶν ῥηθέντων θαυμάτων πιστοῦται ἀλήθειαν καὶ ὁ θεοσεβὴς ἀνὴρ καὶ περίβλεπτος ὕπατος Στούδιος’.

18 For a discussion of sacred places with fish, including fish worship, see Hasluck, F. W., Christianity and Islam under the Sultans, I (Oxford 1929) 244–9Google Scholar; Dermenghem, É., Le culte des saints dans l’Islam maghrébin (Paris 1954) 145–8Google Scholar; and Horden, P. and Purcell, N., The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History (Oxford 2000) 408–9Google Scholar.

19 Niewöhner, P., Gülseren, D., Ercan, E., et al., ‘Bronze Age höyüks, Iron Age hilltop forts, Roman poleis and Byzantine pilgrimage in Germia and its vicinity. “Connectivity” and a lack of “Definite Place” on the central Anatolian high plateau’, Anatolian Studies 63 (2013) 97136, esp. 127CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Niewöhner et al., ‘Pilgrimage in Germia’, 108–10.

21 Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, ‘Technical note on fish pedicures services’, July 5, 2010, available online at: http://www.ciphi.on.ca/images/stories/pdf/resources/technical_note_fish_pedicures_2010.pdf (accessed 27 September 2015).

22 Health Protection Agency, ‘Health Protection Agency Fish Spa working group guidance on the management of the public health risks from fish pedicures: draft for consultation’, Aug 31, 2011, available online at: http://www.hpa.org.uk/webc/HPAwebFile/HPAweb_C/1317131045549 (accessed 27 September 2015).

23 Özçelik, S., Polat, H. H., Akyol, M., et al., ‘Kangal hot spring with fish and psoriasis treatment’, The Journal of Dermatology 27 (2000) 386–90CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

24 Özçelik, S. and Akyol, M., ‘Kangal hot spring with fish & psoriasis treatment’, La Presse thermale et climatique 148 (2011) 141–7Google Scholar.