O literaturze mirakularnej, epilepsji i innych zagadnieniach poruszonych przez Elżbietę Nowosielską w książce pt. „Melancholia, szaleństwo i inne »choroby głowy« w Rzeczypospolitej w XVII i XVIII wieku”

For decades, the history of medicine, healing, medical culture, health, etc. has been fascinating researchers: historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, and doctors alike. Researchers in this field use source materials that have been known in science for a long time, often creating a questionnaire of issues and questions that no one has posed so far. Elżbieta Nowosielska’s publication, entitled „Melancholy, madness and other ‘headaches’ in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 17th and 18th centuries” (2021) belongs to this group of works. It is clear to anyone who has dealt with books of miracles and graces that, on the basis of the miraculous literature, if properly explored, E. Nowosielska would have come close to one of the goals outlined in the book’s introduction – a possibly complete picture of the approach to madness or melancholy. The author underestimated the effort made by Jowita Jagla, a researcher into the books of miracles and graces, and the votive offerings, who discusses issues related to epilepsy in her work, and disregarded several other texts. This does not speak very well of the search she carried out.