To kick off the Winter Quarter, we welcome Dr. Alain Touwaide. He is a trans-disciplinary scholar with a PhD in Classics from the University of Louvain (Belgium, 1981) and he researches the history of ancient science, particularly botany, medicinal plants, medicine and therapeutics in the Mediterranean World. Dr. Touwaide started the presentation by describing his interest in choosing the Mediterranean as his choice of study. The main reason is that the Mediterranean basin is the third leading hotspot in terms of having the most endemic plants and vertebrates.
With such interests he has been in residence in medical schools, colleges of pharmacy, and faculties of sciences across the globe in a scientific Grand Tour that included the Botany Department of the Smithsonian Institution over the past 15 years.
To better foster the development of original research in this vast and complex field of research he co-founded the Institute for the Preservation of Medical Traditions in 2007. Here, Dr. Touwaide and other scholars keep records of a collection of different medicinal plants, their shapes, and their findings. By showing us an example of his database, Dr. Touwaide walked us through how he would typically associate a plant to curing an illness, ranging from the skin and nails to the urinary tract, the respiratory systems and eyesight. For instance, certain properties in the plants are useful for maintaining harmony in the body and these techniques have been used for centuries. Today, one of the most popular plants used to treat wounds and bleeding is sage.
Today, Dr. Touwaide continues to search for Greek manuscripts and texts on these topics in libraries all over the world, and has been doing research and teaching in departments of Classics and History, centers for Byzantine studies, and faculties of Humanities worldwide. To contact him or learn more about the Institute for the Preservation of Medical Traditions please visit the website: https://medicaltraditions.org/ or contact him at atouwaide@hotmail.com.
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