Louise Bishop, associate professor of literature and associate dean of the Robert D. Clark Honors College, will discuss the healing power of words in medieval England on Thursday.
Bishop’s work focuses on cultivating a long line of folk knowledge about the seasons and healing properties of plants. In her 2007 book, “Words, Stones and Herbs,” she draws on a 15th-century manuscript, which provides treatment for everything from a flesh wound to pregnancy.
Bishop, who holds an Ersted Award for teaching, says Western society has come to neglect the healing power of literature, which she believes is the most revolutionary of
human technologies.
“Poetry can heal. I think poetry can heal even today,” she said.
In medieval times, a doctor might have hung a written charm onto a broken arm to alleviate the patient’s pain, she said, which she said produces real results.
“That’s a placebo effect, but the point is it’s a real effect. We call it placebo effect because as of the 19th century we’ve divided anything that had to do with spirit from what we consider verifiable scientific fact,” Bishop said.
Even today, Bishop pointed out that there are phrases like “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” In those days, however, it wasn’t unusual for someone to memorize 150 lines of poetry, knowledge that might stipulate, among other things, the color of one’s urine and its indication for health.
Although, at the time writing and reading were limited to the hands of the wealthy, many of the healers were in fact women, and Bishop believes it very likely that the anonymous author of the document on which she wrote her book was also a woman. Through her research, she has found women were at every level of healing.
“I was looking first for women healers, and I wanted to know what the role of women was in healing in the Middle Ages,” Bishop said. “I think women were doing most of the healing.”
The male-dominated field has affected the modern philosophy of medicine, in Bishop’s opinion. Women seemed to do more nurturing in their medical efforts, and they have a different way of understanding the world, she said.
One of the radical changes of the modern age is that medicine has come to be dependent
on science.
“Medicine (in the middle ages) was very much a part of the study of language. It’s an
integration of humanistic and scientific approach,” said Barbara Altmann, a professor of French, who specializes in late medieval French poetry. “It’s a model we no longer give
validity to.”
Bishop feels the conversation should shift its focus from medicine to healing. Healing, she explained, involves looking at the bigger picture, and this is something society needs to consider with the current health care debate when weighing the individual’s cost of health.
“This is a book on a really cutting-edge topic,” associate professor of English Martha Bayless said. ” People have treated medicine as if it’s in a different dimension from the rest of culture, and Louise helps show how this has never been the case.”
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