Hagiografía y medicina (I): intercesión de la santidad en el arte médico del Compendio de la humana salud (1494) de Johannes de Ketham

By means of two Latin writings, quickly translated into Spanish and published as incunabula: Flos sanctorum con sus ethimologías (derived from Legenda aurea) and Compendio de la humana salud (derived from Finis Fasciculi medicine), this work aims to examine the connection between hagiography and early modern medical arts. Generally, the narrative construction of the medical treatise from the 15th century —of a notorious providentialism— hasn´t been very analyzed, even less when it comes to saying that the hagiographic aspects, quoted in the medical literature, sustain and encourage a series of concepts and empirical procedures that were seeking the resurrection of health. This work will analyze the fact that there was a premeditated intention to emphasize some of the festivities from the liturgic calendar as key moments for making the phlebotomy treatment and for putting a diagnostic to the illness, through the knowledge of the human body´s pulse. Finally, it will be pointed the fact that the hagiographic references from the medical literature, also allude to a symbolic reading form inside the ideas of the Christian creed.