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Ancient Medicine: Module 3
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Gravity
Terms in this set (39)
Types of sources
1) Epigraphic
2) Papyrological
3) Manuscript (literary source)
Epigraphic Evidence
Comes from all times and places over Mediterranean world
Tells us about social world (places in society, tax breaks, religious honors and priesthood)
Learn nothing about medical theories
Forms of Epigraphic evidence
-Gravestones
- honorific inscriptions
Papyrological Evidence
Written on a papyrus leaf from Egypt (only from egypt)
From 2nd century BCE to 6th century CE
Provides best general picture of average healers
problems with papyrological evidence
- very short
- used to provide a general cultural picture of healing practices, not individual theories or ideas
Literary evidence
- Written on animal skins
- Much has been lost
- certain things were never written down at all (clinical skills written at bedside)
- Certain people never wrote ( some people were not literate)
Survival of evidence
- Manuscripts copied by hand
- Manuscripts from vellum last longer than manuscripts from papyrus
- Medical materials are technical knowledge (demand depends on demand of practitioners)
-Latin works had to pass through a bottleneck in late antiquity; if they survived to 700-800 CE we can still read them
- Greek works has to survive sack of Constantinople; if they survived past 13th century we can still read them
Hippocrates and the Hippocratic Corpus
450-100 BCE
About 65 treatises in greek
Apollonium of Citium
90-70 BCE
3 books illustrated commentary on Hippocrates "On Joints" in Greek
Celsus
30 CE
8 books on dietetics, pharmacology, and surgery in Latin
Erotian
fl. 30-70 CE; collection of vocabulary notes on Hippocratic treatises in Greek
Scribonius Largus
fl. 40 CE; 1 treatise on pharmacology in Latin
Dioscorides
60-90 CE, 5 books of herbs, their compounds and properties in Greek
Pliny the Elder
fl. 77 CE, books 20-32 of his Natural History, an encyclopedia, concern medicine and pharmacology in Latin
Marcellinus
c. 100; 1 treatise on history and doxography of pulse theory in Greek
Soranus
c. 100 CE; 4 treatises in Greek, gynecology
Aretaeus
c. 100 CE; 2 treatises on diseases, their symptoms and causes, in Greek
Rufus of Ephesus
c. 100 CE; 7 treatises in Greek
Anonymous Londinensis
100-200 CE; papyrus roll, medical doxography from Aristotle's school in Greek
Galen
129-216 CE; about 150 treatises survive in greek, more in medieval Latin & Arabic
Oribasius
fl. 360 CE; 26 of 50 book collection of excerpts from previous authors in Greek
Caelius Aurelianus
fl. 400 CE; 2 treatises in Latin as translations from Soranus' Greek (which do not survive in Greek)
Paul of Aegina
650-700 CE; 7 book revision of Oribasius' collection
Four periods on Ancient History
Classical Greece (500-323 BCE)
Hellenistic Period (323-31 BCE)
Roman Empire (31 BCE-250 CE)
Late Antiquity (250-600 CE)
Amount of materials from four periods
Most from Roman Empire
Some from Classical greece
Almost none from Hellenistic
Large summaries from late antiquity
3 strands of medical knowledge before Hippocrates
-Foreign Healing Cultures
- Medical Knowledge in folk tradition
- Philosophical interest in natural world
Source for best doctors
Egypt according to the Iliad
Medicine in Ancient Egypt sources
-Eye painting
- 5-10 Papyri
- Cippi (magical protective amulet)
Medical knowledge in Greek Folk Tradition
Iliad- Apollo releases plague on invading army
Works and days- Myth about decline to man & intro to disease to humans
Asclepius
Doctor in Iliad- mortal man taught by centaur Chiron
Podalirius and Machaon
Sons of Asclepius- treat other warrior cheiftans
Summarization of Greek Folk Tradition
- Disease comes from Gods
- Mankind in it's current state has always bee afflicted by disease
- Professional healing is a family tradition, taught from father to son
- Homer and Hesiod are oral poets
Pre-Socratic Philosophers
Greek philosophers that lived before Socrates
Interested in questions of moral and natural philosophy
Socrates
Greek philosopher
Interested in moral questions
Thales
Earliest philosopher
Thought earth was made of only water
Alcmaeon of Croton
First to dissect the eye
Nutton quotes his account of health as harmonius blending of qualities
Empedocles of Acragas
Theory of cycle of love and Strife
Theory of four elements
Mechanical process of digestion
Comparison of breathing to water filling and leaving a water clock
Democedes of Croton
-Historic doctor
-Known from historian Herodotus
-Son of doctor Calliphon
-Served polycrates of Samos and King Darius of persia
- Cured King Darius's wife of breast disease
Somrotidas son of Mandrocles
Grave memorial in Megala Hyblea, in Sicily
Earliest Epigraphic evidence of professional doctor
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