Article citationsMore>>

Gilson, S. A. (2007). The Anatomy and Physiology of the Human Body in the Comedia. In J. C. Barnes, & J. Petrie (Eds.), Dante and the Human Body: Eight Essays (pp. 11-42). Dublin: UCD Foundation for Italian studies/Four Courts Press.

has been cited by the following article:

• TITLE: DANTE’s Medical Knowledge: The Case of INFERNO, Canto XXX

  AUTHORS: Luigi Roffi

  KEYWORDS: Dante Alighieri, Hepatic Cirrhosis, Ascites, History of Medicine

  JOURNAL NAME: Advances in Historical Studies, Vol.7 No.1, March 28, 2018

  ABSTRACT: The Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri, describes an imaginative journey in afterlife. In Hell, canto XXX, Dante meets the falsifiers and sees a man who has the shape of a lute, a rotting face, and an abdomen bloated by “dropsy”. This horribly deformed sinner is Master Adam, who counterfeited Florentine money, and for this crime was burned at the stake. Previous critics had ascribed Master Adam’s punishment to various real or imaginary diseases, but an alternative possibility is that it may represent one of the most ancient, yet accurate, descriptions of tense ascites in the literature.