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St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380 AD): one of the earliest historic cases of altered gustatory perception in anorexia mirabilis.

  • Galassi FM Institute of Evolutionary Medicine, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057, Zurich, Switzerland.
  • Bender N Institute of Evolutionary Medicine, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057, Zurich, Switzerland. nicole.bender@iem.uzh.ch.
  • Habicht ME Institute of Evolutionary Medicine, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057, Zurich, Switzerland.
  • Armocida E University of Parma, Parma, Italy.
  • Toscano F Post-Graduate School of Public Health, University of Siena, Siena, Italy.
  • Menassa DA Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Division of Clinical Neurology, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX3 9DU, UK.
  • Cerri M Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, University of Bologna, 40126, Bologna, Italy.
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  • 2018-02-23
Published in:
  • Neurological sciences : official journal of the Italian Neurological Society and of the Italian Society of Clinical Neurophysiology. - 2018
Anorexia
Dysgeusia
History of neurology
Palaeopathology
St. Catherine of Siena
Anorexia
Anorexia Nervosa
Catholicism
Dysgeusia
Fasting
Female
History, Medieval
Humans
Italy
Religion and Medicine
Taste Perception
English St. Catherine of Siena suffered from an extreme form of holy fasting, a condition classified as anorexia mirabilis (also known as inedia prodigiosa). Historical and medical scholarships alike have drawn a comparison between this primaeval type of anorexia with a relatively common form of eating disorder among young women in the modern world, anorexia nervosa. St. Catherine's condition was characterised by a disgust for sweet taste, a condition also described in anorexia nervosa, and characterised by specific neurophysiological changes in the brain. St. Catherine's case may be considered one of the oldest veritable descriptions of altered gustation (dysgeusia). Moreover, a more compelling neurophysiological similarity between anorexia mirabilis and anorexia nervosa may be proposed.
Language
  • English
Open access status
green
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Persistent URL
https://folia.unifr.ch/global/documents/266651
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