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A dense encyclopedical database of medical knowledge

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  • A dense encyclopedical database of medical knowledge
• A dense encyclopedical database of medical knowledge

• A dense encyclopedical database of medical knowledge

  19820109NR > Yesterday, 04:16 AM

  To me, Voynich looks like someone wrote database not in excel but on "paper", capturing the knowledge of that time in a codified way. unfortunately, the entity description, table and column headers and full text of the codified characteristic have been lost. it probably was written using a stencil, someone dictating from a human language textbook what to code into the database. using the stencil, it must have been very easy to read. nobody tried to hide anything in that book. it was made to last for centuries as a condensed backup to also copy from.
  
  
  The chapters cover:
  
  - plants and parts: how to identify and for what illness to apply and how to process. 
  - calendars: on when to harvest and when to plan for certain processing
  - "astrology" section indicating the very practical phases of life of the patient and then indicating phase of life, symptoms illustrated by the human figures in the concentric circles and code for referring to the medicine
  - general anatomy (and body fluids): where the figures codify the leading symptoms of the disease and treatment area
  - process instructions: how to convert plants into medicine. the cylindrical objects on the left are graphical code for the production process bottom to top
  
  I cross-checked the idea on three plants regarding their application and processing: Deadly Nightshade, Yarrow and Mandrake. 
  
  I compared to general descriptions on how they should be processed and where identical code sits, which indicates the "towers" on the left might really represent the "cooking & cooling & processing receipt in full". I assume that back in time, the storage containers for medicine might have worked like a kanban "box", with the shape and color indicating in a codified way how to create the ingredient once it ran empty, the stripes for measurements of quantities or time, circles on white days or weeks resting and waiting. Narrow areas representing destillation or reduction, blue for watery extract, green for oil, red for heat. The text on the left would then list the plants, probably also refer back to a code block for symptoms and maybe the times in the year when to process. multiple plants mean either complex multiplant medicine or applicable for those plants. 
  
  I looked into what I interpret as codified patient - symptoms overview, particularly the black goat (baby), the sheep (toddler) and then gemini (kids in school age). So as a medical you would choose your page based on the age = stage in life. the babies and toddlers illnesses = symptoms are encoded in the female figures, the barrel indicating that they cant fully express themselves. also explaining why there are fewer symptoms for those symbols. 
  
  how I interpret the symbols: 
  
  female figure: can be male or female, male: illness in males only - why the females: because appetite can be indicated using breasts.
  15 women versus 30: half dose only (small patient)
  star: with yellow dot: vomiting, grounded by "rope": diarrhea
  the hand/arm reaching to the star might indicate level of activity
  the other arm indicates location on the body
  not sure about the hand position right now
  breasts: patient is hungry (or not at all)
  hair / head cover: fever, body temperatur for simple caps
  crown might indicate either a rare condition or a wealthy patient who would get better treatment.
  unconcious women: exactly that.
  tears: indicating pain
  hair: indicating pain type
  rotation: no idea yet
  
  the zodiac signs and what I think they represent as a stage in life of the patient:
  
  capricorn: prepping for getting pregnant
  aquarius: early pregnancy
  pesces: pregnancy
  goat: baby
  sheep: toddler
  gemini: (pre)school kids
  lobsters: symbol for apprentice, the time kids learned a trade of craft, fokus on the hands
  lion: puberty, start of sexual activity & sense of being superior
  virgin: age of starting a family
  libra: a more settled age 40-60
  scorpio: the bitter, old people
  sagittarius: the very old age to death
  
  So - and i repeat myself - you look up the symptoms depending on the stage in life and then the code leads to the medicine.
  
  Anatomy part: The figures sitting in basins: theories that link symptoms codified in the figure with the body part the disease sits and probably also the medicine that needs to be applied. 
  
  all of these symbol code blocks: probably in most cases starting with a letter that represents a latin word. 
  
  code blocks I suspect in that medieval database: Plant Description, Processing Instructions,  Dosis Instructions: example: "DAIM" = daily after meal.
  
  What I would look for: books from the same time that are less information dense and more "normal language" of that time to find identical first letters of the words that describe common characteristics, processing of the known 3 plants and compare for the flow diagram hypothesis. Typical symptoms / triage systems of that time. 
  
  Assumption: this book was super easy to read with a stencil on top that deciphered the letters and the symbols. once someone used that, they rarely forgot.
  
  in my job, I get huge amounts of dirty data "thrown over fence" and have to figure out how to put it in databases. no medical expert.
  
  Your turn, good luck with that approach and further guessing. the data base needs some reverse engineering to add headers.

• RE: A dense encyclopedical database of medical knowledge

  DG97EEB > 9 hours ago

  Brush up on Rugg..

• RE: A dense encyclopedical database of medical knowledge

  JoJo_Jost > 8 hours ago

  DAIM = Day after meal?
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