Search results for " ancient medicine"
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Breast Cancer in Two Ex‑Votos, A Millennia Apart: Patients’ Hope and Faith Expressed Through the Centuries in Votive Offerings
2023
A votive offering or ex-voto includes a variety of usually non-professional artworks offered to divinities and placed in religious sites to fulfill a vow or in gratitude for recovery from an illness or injury. Unfortunately, the ancient period lacks a scientifically verifiable understanding of the true nature of cancer and its natural history and, consequently, a lack of effective treatment. This paper discusses two ex-votos potentially related to breast cancer distant more than 2000 years, one from the other. The ex-votos convey the complex relationship of humans with illness through an art expression stemming from the heart and minds of ordinary people.
The words of conjecture. Semiotics and epistemology in ancient medicine and rhetoric
2016
This article considers the epistemology of Classical rhetoric and Hippocratic medicine, focusing on two key terms: semeion and tekmerion. Through an analysis of the specific case of ancient Greek medicine and rhetoric, we hope to bring out the conjectural and fallible nature of human knowledge. The paper focuses on the epistemological and methodological affinity between these two ancient technai, and considers the medical uses of semeion and tekmerion in the light of their meaning in the rhetorical sphere. Chronologically, the analysis follows an inverse pathway: it starts from Aristotle and from Rhetorica ad Alexandrum, and then moves on to Antiphon’s texts (chosen as an exemplary case) an…