Modern medical epistemology in the Divine Comedy: a few suggestions on evidence-based medicine

Abstract

Dante's knowledge of the various fields of medieval medicine, in terms of disease patterns and pathogenetic hypotheses, is well known. At that time, Dante acquired this knowledge by attending, directly or indirectly, the lessons of Taddeo Alderotti, one of the founders of the Medical School in Bologna. Regarding Dante's attitude towards medicine and science in general, in this paper has been considered the episode of Pier della Vigna, presented in the thirteenth canto of the Inferno. This concern how the origin of the cries and lamentations is established, which come from the weeds into which the suicides had turned. A parallel has also been drawn between Dante's approach and the methods used today in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases using Evidence-Based Medicine. Moreover, some hypotheses have also been ventured about the origin of this parallelism.