Translation and medical humanities

Medical humanities is a multidisciplinary field, consisting of humanities, social sciences, and arts, integrated in the undergraduate curriculum of medical schools. Medical humanities enjoy an importance similar to that of classical disciplines such as anatomy or physiology, and this has been the case throughout history: the great humanists translated medicine, Vesalius corrected Galen (as Valla did with Hieronymus), and Leonardo da Vinci planned the best anatomy book in history but, unfortunately, only managed to write the introduction.

At first, Renaissance translators had to hire Greek teachers in order to translate into Latin the medical science that was “lost” during the Middle Ages. Later, medical translation became so complex that few translations from a single author were reliable.

Today, although not everyone is aware of it, medical translators benefit from the work of the great humanists of the past and, of course, from their own training in the humanities, medical or otherwise.

In this presentation we will take a journey from ancient Greece to the present day, pointing out where the sources of current medical translation are to be found and encouraging those attending to cultivate their more humanist facet, which will undoubtedly lead to an improvement in the quality of their translations.