Fearful to start another thread with the equally elementary question: To what
extent was an equation drawn in the Middle Ages between sickness and sin?
(Hence recovery associates with repentence, and MM is the type of the repentent
sinner);

     I remember reading an article by Bernard Bachrach and Jerome Kroll, "Sin and the Etiology of Disease" in the _Journal of the History of Medicine_ 41 (1986): 395-414. If I remember correctly, they argued that disease was not necessarily seen as the result of specific sins on the part of the individual--it could be, but that was not the first conclusion one would jump to. They based this on a survey of cases and the causes adduced for these diseases.
    As others have noted, disease has specific meanings in different contexts--saints' lives and miracles, homilies on sin, theological explanations of the human condition, medical theory, practical medicine, etc. Overall, the "meaning" of someone's illness would depend upon context, as opposed to the often oversimplified view taken by some of my students that medieval people were gullible and believed that sin caused all their diseases.
    Nonetheless, sin as connected to disease is one potential interpretation of someone's illness--Jesus made that connection in the story of the paralytic lowered through the house roof (much to the annoyance of the Pharisees). I was intrigued to read a patristic comment (I think it was Augustine) linking this story to Psalm 41, where David is apparently so ill that he cannot arise from his bed and then pleads for mercy, "heal my soul for I have sinned against thee."
Karen Jolly

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Dr. Karen Jolly
Associate Professor, History
University of Hawai`i at Manoa
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http://www2.hawaii.edu/~kjolly