Medieval Medicine List (MEDMED)
An international forum for scholars interested in aspects of medicine, health, and disease in the premodern period.
Welcome to the Web interface MEDMED, the list for scholars interested in all aspects of pre-modern health and disease. It is managed by Petros Bouras-Vallianatos, Zubin Mistry, and Richard Sowerby and hosted by the University of Edinburgh.
About MEDMED
Formerly called MEDMED-L (“medieval medicine list”), MEDMED was created in 2008 by historian of medicine Monica H. Green, who was then on the faculty of Arizona State University. She served as list manager until 2020. The list was moved into its new home at the University of Edinburgh in April 2021. MEDMED serves as an international forum for scholars interested in aspects of medicine, health, and disease in the premodern period. Just like diseases themselves and the medicines used to treat them, MEDMED knows no geographic or linguistic boundaries. Subscribers are welcome to post in any language they like, on any topic pertinent to the premodern period. The list serves as a forum to post notices of conferences, announce new publications, share news of in-progress work, and ask queries of fellow researchers. The increasing availability of digital resources makes this international community viable, and an ethos of free exchange of information makes it lively and welcoming. As a long-term subscriber put it, “This is simply the best forum to be a part of—such a mix of experience and of knowledge, and all offered with such generosity”.
List Managers
Petros Bouras-Vallianatos, University of Edinburgh
Zubin Mistry, University of Edinburgh
Richard Sowerby, University of Edinburgh
Advisory Board
Winston Black, St Francis Xavier University
Nahyan Fancy, DePauw University
Sara Ritchey, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
To join the list
On Mondays and Tuesdays, please get in touch with Petros Bouras-Vallianatos (petros.bouras-vallianatos@ed.ac.uk)
On Wednesdays and Thursdays, please get in touch with Zubin Mistry (zubin.mistry@ed.ac.uk).
On Fridays and Saturdays, please get in touch with Richard Sowerby (richard.sowerby@ed.ac.uk).
If you would prefer to receive the Daily Digest please mention this in your email when joining the list.
Posting messages to the list
Please send a regular e-mail message to the list address: medmed@mlist.is.ed.ac.uk. The most important “rule” about posting is that you must send messages from the same address as the one from which you subscribed. (Thus, for example, if you subscribed from a university account, but try to post from your Gmail account, the message will not go through.) Also, please remember that medmed@mlist.is.ed.ac.uk is unmoderated; your messages go directly out to the list “as is” so be sure to double-check your message before you hit “send”. When replying to a post on the list, hit REPLY ALL if you want your reply to go to the whole list; the default for just “reply” is that messages only go to the person who made the original post. This is setup as a safeguard to make sure private messages do not inadvertently get sent to everyone. (Note: if your program does not have a REPLY ALL function, please add medmed@mlist.is.ed.ac.uk to the cc: field.)
Policy on attachments
MEDMED welcomes the free exchange of news of new and forthcoming publications. Members should feel free (and indeed, are encouraged) to post to the list notices of publications with full bibliographic information, an abstract if available, and a link to the publisher’s website. (You can post in any language you like.) If you wish to distribute your own publications, please post an announcement on medmed@mlist.is.ed.ac.uk and ask interested individuals to contact you directly (off-list) to share the materials. For conference announcements and other open-access materials intended for wide dissemination (for example, syllabi you wish to distribute), you are welcome to add an attachment but please do not exceed 5 MB in file size. Also, please embed the basic information (and hyperlinks) in the main body of your message, so that fellow subscribers do not have to open the attachment unless they want additional information.