L’Aromathérapie au temps de la « peste » en France (XVIe-XVIIe siècles
Aromatherapy in Times of Plague in France (XVIth-XVIIth century

Author(s): Magdalena Koźluk
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, 16th Century, 17th Century
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
Keywords: Medicine XVIth-XVIIth century; Aromatherapy; plague
Summary/Abstract: Historians of medicine often write of the “psychosis” and “the omnipresent fear” that, in the Middle Ages, paralyzed the whole European population, due to the many mysteries that surrounded the plague, its origin, its inexplicable recurrence and its nature. These mysteries led to an abundance of treatises on the plague written in Latin as well as in the vernacular, which appeared in the XVIth and XVIIth centuries in France. Their authors, physicians, barber-surgeons and apothecaries, advanced theories and proposed efficient prophylactic treatments. Our research is concerns principally with the status of the proposed remedies, in particular on the importance of their aromas. We first consider the role assigned to the quality of the air (climate, home), to its alterations and to the best means of improving it (fumigation, incense). We then examine the aromatic composition of the remedies proposed, focusing on their forms and uses.

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