Medical Licensing and Learning in Fourteenth-Century Valencia

The Construction of a New Form of Learning and Practing Medicine in Medieval Latin Europe

“…In these years this type of medical practitioner was a new development, and given their numbers they were of course unable to provide medical attention to the whole population of Europe. The ratio of inhabitants to university physicians even in the most privileged regions of southern Europe in this period was only from 1 to 6 per 10,000 inhabitants (Garcia-Ballester et al 1989). So what relationship existed between these medical practitioners and those other physicians, surgeons, and barbers who were without direct access to academic circles, but who fulfilled an important role in providing a socially respectable form of medicine -for they were certainly not considered to be "quacks"?…”

“…On the need that medieval intellectuals, especially those of the thirteenth century, perceived to place the libri naturales in the context of practice, which developed from the thirteenth century onward as a network of medical care and attention. By means of this system, civil society (basically the city councils) endeavored to confront the health problems of individuals belonging to the community through the hiring of technically trained medical practitioners (Nutton 1981;Garcia-Ballester et al 1989;Me Vaugh 1993;Garcia-Ballester 1994a, 1994b.…”

“…Although the origins of this new category of university medicine are still somewhat uncertain, it is known that it started in the universities of Bologna, Paris, and Montpellier (Jacquart and Micheau 1990). This also made possible the creation of a new category of healer (whether physician or surgeon), which gradually spread through the lands of western Christendom (Garcia-Ballester et al 1989;McVaugh 1993;Garcia-Ballester et al 1994a). This model was based on the tenet that whoever wished to practice in the field of medicine needed to acquire certain knowledge about the constitution of matter (basically organic matter -in other words, living beings) and of the cosmos in general, which would enable him to provide satisfactory answers to basic questions on the causes of such natural processes as those of health and illness.…”

The Power of Words, Words with Power. The Assimilation of the Logic by Jewish Intellectuals in Medieval Spain

“…Et même si le langage est une réalité indépendante de la pensée, comme le prouve l'existence de langues nombreuses et diférentes, dans lesquelles -ou du moins dans un grand nombre d'entre ellesune même pensée peut trouver sa juste expression, à travers un langage quelconque, on peut également deviner les formes et les lois de la pensée en général, de même que, sous des vêtements, on devine les contours de la silhouette humaine qu'ils ne parviennent pas à comprendre, parce qu'ils sont dépourvus de l'instrument de la logique. 42 Durant le Moyen Âge, l'étude de la logique devint partie intégrante de la formation des médecins, ce qui rend parfaitement compréhensible la difusion de certains textes de logique traduits en hébreu, tant en Aragon qu'en Castille, du fait de la valorisation croissante accordée par les Juifs à la logique scolastique comme moyen d'exercer la médecine, ainsi que comme modèle intellectuel à imiter 43 . Ces traités de médecine promurent sans nul doute l'étude de certains aspects de la logique scolastique, qui à partir du xiv e siècle devint indispensable aux médecins juifs qui avaient intérêt à être reconnus par les autorités chrétiennes 44 .…”

Changing Research Perspectives on the Global Health Workforce

“…Health worker licensure, i.e., the authorization of health workers to practice their profession, has existed since the medieval period (Garcia-Ballester, McVaugh, & Rubio-Vela, 1989;Loewy, 1989). 11 Over time it has become increasingly structured and standardized (Rowe & Garcia-Barbero, 2005).…”