[Sca-cooks] [MEDMED-L] AW: Spices and Medicine: From HistoricalObsession to Research...

[Terry Decker]

Curious.  I would like to see the rest of this conversation before 
commenting.  The initial frame of reference and the progression of the 
debate are necessary to understanding why a comment about a silly 
Europocentric idea is being answered with a Europocentric idea.

As to your question about advance/advancement, in broad terms, advance is 
the action of advancing or, as a noun, the act of advancing or a reference 
to the thing being advanced; advancement is the state or progression of 
advancing.  While the words are often used synonymously, the choice may 
provide greater precision in ones writing.  And why should we use advance 
rather than advancement?  The first written use of advacement is from 1553 
while advance only appears in 1668.  Advancement is not a Latinization of 
advance, rather advance is a truncation of advancement.

Bear

> Weren't Galen and Hippocrates European? And didn't their ideas continue to
> have a profound influence? If Europe was in decline intellectually, I'm 
> not
> sure  "Johnny-come-lately" is the right term. But certainly the use of
> spices in  medicine had its own history in the West, even if it was 
> refined and
> perfected  in the East.
>
> Me, I'm more dismayed to see academics perpetuating the tendency to
> over-Latinize perfectly serviceable words like "advance" - do we EVER need
> "advancement"?
>
> "How has Europe’s fascination with spices as both food and medicine
> contributed to the global exchange and advancement of medical knowledge 
> from
> medieval times to today? "
>
> Jim  Chevallier
> _www.chezjim.com_ (http://www.chezjim.com/)
>
>
> In a message dated 4/9/2013 6:02:26 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
> Paul-David.Buell at CHARITE.DE writes:
>
> To answer the question, no Europe was very much a backward,
> johnny-come-lately. It was actions outside of Europe that were governing 
> especially from
> the Middle East with the Indian Ocean as the power house.  Silly
> Europocentric idea for a conference. Shesh. Paul D. Buell