John Zacharias Aktouarios was a physician who lived in the 13th & 14th centuries in Constantinople. Dr Petros Bouras-Vallianatos, Wellcome Lecturer in History of Medicine, The University of Edinburgh, joins the show to discuss John’s life, medical practices, and contributions to the field of medicine.
Some topics explored
- What Byzantine medicine and health care was like leading up to John’s life including the role religion, astrology, and the practice of magic played in medicine
- What’s known about his family life
- To what degree John practiced from a clinic, a hospital, and conducted health calls
- How John was trained
- Who some of his friends were
- John’s practices of medicine
- His writings
- His major contributions to the field of medicine
- How John Zacharius Aktouarios should be best remembered
Listen to the episode
The episode can be streamed below and is available on major podcast apps: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music.
Show Notes
- Dr Bouras-Vallianatos is author of the book Innovation in Byzantine Medicine: The Writings of John Zacharius (c. 1275 – c. 1330) (Oxford University Press, 2020) and co-editor of Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Galen (Brill, 2019)
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