In this episode of “In the Same Vein,” we chat to historian of medieval medicine Nichola Harris about her subfield: lapidary medicine, or, the use of stones and minerals for medicinal purposes. Harris talks us through how objects like coral, pearls, diamonds, amber, loadstones, and eaglestones were utilized in the medieval period (and ancient and early modern periods) as cures and for general health and wellness. Our questions for Nichola Harris are inspired by two of her recent pieces of writing: “Loadstones are a Girl’s Best Friend: Lapidary Cures, Midwives, and Manuals of Popular Healing in Medieval and Early Modern England” from the book The Sacred and the Secular in Medieval Healing: Sites, Objects, and Texts and “The Protection of Innocents: Red Coral as a Lapidary Cure for the ‘Children’s Disease’ and Conditions Related to Childbirth in Medieval and Early Modern England” from Death and Disease in the Medieval and Early Modern World. 


MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE:

Rudolph Bell, How to Do It: Guides to Good Living for Renaissance Italians (1999)

Hildred S. Geertz

Patrick Wallis

Erin Connolly

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