Search results for "Ancient Medicine."
showing 5 items of 5 documents
Glosse mediche (embriologiche) nel Lessico di Esichio: una ricognizione
2021
The Lexikon by Hesychius from Alexandreia (V-VI century) is one of the most important lexicographical works in Ancient Greek. It contains an encyclopedic amount of glossematic terms (lexeis) from several kinds of literary sources – epic, lyric and dramatic poetry, rhetoric, historiography, paremiography, neo and veterotestamentary tradition, and so on. Although medical glosses – in particular Hippocratic – are significantly present in the Lexikon, they have not been systematically investigated so far. After presenting a brief story of the more recent studies on the textual tradition and the edition of the Hesychius’ work, this paper aims to offer a thorough investigation of some Hesychian g…
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…
Dr Monk's medical digest.
2003
The Liber passionalis is an early and hitherto mostly unexplored example of a composite medical work on diagnosis and therapy, similar to the better-known compilations circulating under the titles Petroncellus and Gariopontus (Passionarius Galieni). It shows the efforts made to provide comprehensive coverage of morbid conditions drawn from a choice of the best sources available to the compiler, sources which in some instances complement or enhance our knowledge of ancient medicine in a way overlooked by specialists in the field for a long time and which provide the best clue when trying to assess medical expertise at the turn of the first millennium. The paper explores the transmission, str…
Ancient Medicine in the Galenic Corpus: The Story of a Concealment
2021
The paper proposes, starting from some certain or probable allusions (in part. a passage in Galen's Commentary on 'Epidemics' 2, only extant in Arabic translation), but also from some striking omissions ('Ancient medicine' is not mentioned in the history of hygiene that Galen traces out in the central chapters of Thrasybulus), to reconstruct the history of this significant ‘concealment’. This will also be done in the light of the numerous passages in the corpus in which Galen advocates, constantly linking it to Hippocrates, the ideal of medicine that is ‘physiologica’.