Neurological history claims its earliest origins in the 17th century with Thomas Willis's publication of Anatomy of the Brain, coming fully into fruition as a field in the late 1850s as medical technology and advancements allowed for in depth study of the brain. However, many of the foundations in neurology can find the seed of their beginning to a time much earlier than that, to ancient Greece in fact. Neurological Concepts in Ancient Greek Medicine is a collection of essays exploring neurological ideas between the Archaic and Hellenistic eras. These essays also provide historic, intellectual, and cultural context to ancient Greek medical practice and emphasizing the interest in the brain of the early physicians. This book describes source material that is over 2,500 years old and reveals the observational skills of ancient physicians. It provides complete translations of two historic Hippocratic texts: On the Sacred Diseases and On the Wounds of the Head. The book also discusses the Hippocratic Oath and the modern applications of its meaning. Dr. Walshe connects this ancient history, usually buried in medical histories, and shows the ancient Greek notions that are the precursors of our understanding of the brain and nervous system.
It is thus with regard to the disease called Sacred: it appears to me to be nowise more divine nor more sacred than other diseases, but has a natural cause from the originates like other affections. Men regard its nature and cause as divine from ignorance and wonder, because it is not at all like to other diseases. And this notion of its divinity is kept up by their inability to comprehend it, and the simplicity of the mode by which it is cured, for men are freed from it by purifications and incantations. But if it is reckoned divine because it is wonderful, instead of one there are many diseases which would be sacred; for, as I will show, there are others no less wonderful and prodigious, which nobody imagines to be sacred. The quotidian, tertian, and quartan fevers, seem to me no less sacred and divine in their origin than this disease, although they are not reckoned so wonderful. And I see men become mad and demented from no manifest cause, and at the same time doing many things out of place; and I have known many persons in sleep groaning and crying out, some in a state of suffocation, some jumping up and fleeing out of doors, and deprived of their reason until they awaken, and afterward becoming well and rational as before, although they be pale and weak; and this will happen not once but frequently. And there are many and various things of the like kind, which it would be tedious to state particularly. They who first referred this malady to the gods appear to me to have been just such persons as the conjurors, purificators, mountebanks, and charlatans now are, who give themselves out for being excessively religious, and as knowing more than other people. Such persons, then, using the divinity as a pretext and screen of their own inability to of their own inability to afford any assistance, have given out that the disease is sacred, adding suitable reasons for this opinion, they have instituted a mode of treatment which is safe for themselves, namely, by applying purifications and incantations, and enforcing abstinence from baths and many articles of food which are unwholesome to men in diseases. Of sea substances, the surmullet, the blacktail, the mullet, and the eel; for these are the fishes most to be guarded against. And of fleshes, those of the goat, the stag, the sow, and the dog: for these are the kinds of flesh which are aptest to disorder the bowels. Of fowls, the cock, the turtle, and the bustard, and such others as are reckoned to be particularly strong. And of potherbs, mint, garlic, and onions; for what is acrid does not agree with a weak person. And they forbid to have a black robe, because black is expressive of death; and to sleep on a goat’s skin, or to wear it, and to put one foot upon another, or one hand upon another; for all these things are held to be hindrances to the cure. All these they enjoin with reference to its divinity, as if possessed of more knowledge, and announcing beforehand other causes so that if the person should recover, theirs would be the honor and credit; and if he should die, they would have a certain defense, as if the gods, and not they, were to blame, seeing they had administered nothing either to eat or drink as medicines, nor had overheated him with baths, so as to prove the cause of what had happened. But I am of opinion that (if this were true) none of the Libyans, who live in the interior, would be free from this disease, since they all sleep on goats’ skins, and live upon goats’ flesh; neither have they couch, robe, nor shoe that is not made of goat’s skin, for they have no other herds but goats and oxen. But if these things, when administered in food, aggravate the disease, and if it be cured by abstinence from them, godhead is not the cause at all; nor will purifications be of any avail, but it is the food which is beneficial and prejudicial, and the influence of the divinity vanishes.
This book is a study of the ways in which Galen sought to establish the brain as the regent part (hegemonikon) of the body, utilising a rigorous anatomical epistemology and an often sophisticated (but perforce limited) set of physiological arguments Part One surveys the medical and philosophical past in which the study of the brain occured, and looks at the materials and methods which Galen employs to legitimate his hegemonic argumentation. Part Two examines Galen's anatomical understanding of the brain, especially the ventricles. Part Three offers a critical evaluation of Galen's physiolgy of the brain. This is the first monograph to offer a detailed account of this subject, setting it within the cultural and intellectual contexts of its era, and will be of interest to those in classics, medical history, history andphilosophy of science and the history of ideas.
Against the backdrop of unprecedented concern for the future of health care, this i Very Short Introduction/i surveys the history of medicine from classical times to the present. Focussing on the key turning points in the history of Western medicine - such as the advent of hospitals and the rise of experimental medicine - but also offering reflections on alternative traditions such as Chinese medicine, Bill Bynum offers insights into medicine's past, while at the same time engaging with contemporary issues, discoveries, and controversies.
The Hippocratic texts and other contemporary medical sources have often been overlooked in discussions of ancient psychology. They have been considered to be more mechanical and less detailed than poetic and philosophical representations, as well as later medical texts such as those of Galen. This book does justice to these early medical accounts by demonstrating their richness and sophistication, their many connections with other contemporary cultural products and the indebtedness of later medicine to their observations. In addition, it reads these sources not only as archaeological documents but also in the light of methodological discussions that are fundamental to the histories of psychiatry and psychology. As a result of this approach, the book will be important for scholars of these disciplines as well as those of Greek literature and philosophy, strongly advocating the relevance of ancient ideas to modern debates.
Why did some doctors in Classical Greece feel compelled to study the universe as a whole? How could cosmological principles be employed in clinical practice? This book explores the works of the cosmological doctors, such as On Breaths, On Flesh, and On Regimen, and argues that they form part of a much broader reorganization of medical knowledge in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. These healers used cosmological principles as a supplement to, rather than a replacement of, more traditional approaches to health and disease, creating theories about the cosmos whose obscurities can best be understood as the products of medical thinking. Through fresh readings of many ancient sources, the book revises customary views of the intersections between medicine and cosmology in Classical Greece and advances our understanding of one of the most remarkable periods in the history of ancient thought.
This volume forms the second part of the three-volume commentary on the fragments of Diphilus, who belongs to the prominent triad of the poets of New Comedy alongside Menander and Philemon. The present volume comprises the text and an English translation of the fragments of twenty-two plays of Diphilus, followed by a full-scale (philological, thematic, literary, interpretative, historical) commentary that also yields insight into the reception of Diphilan comedy in Roman theatre. This in-depth study of the Diphilan techniques of verbal humour and performance aims at shedding light on the dramatist's distinctive place in the comic tradition, as well as showcasing a degree of variation in the overall image of the production of new comedy.
Posttraumatic Epilepsy: Basic and Clinical Aspects provides a synthesized resource on the recent basic and clinical science developments in the field of posttraumatic epilepsy. This book provides a clear understanding of the history of studies and epidemiology of posttraumatic epilepsy after head injury. The book also considers the neuropathology of posttraumatic epilepsy and clinical trials of antiepileptogenic agents evaluated after traumatic brain injury. The book covers the basic science of animal models of traumatic brain injury and the necessary and sufficient changes that must occur to generate epilepsy after head trauma. The authors explore potential mechanisms and novel therapeutic approaches to prevent posttraumatic epilepsy. The book is written for basic and clinical researchers in neuroscience as well as for clinicians treating patients with epilepsy. - Reviews the history and epidemiology of posttraumatic epilepsy - Considers the neuropathology of posttraumatic epilepsy - Synthesizes studies demonstrating risk factors for susceptibility to epilepsy after head trauma - Reviews animal models of traumatic brain injury - Addresses our current understanding of mechanisms of posttraumatic epilepsy - Explores novel therapeutic approaches to prevent posttraumatic epilepsy
A pioneering interdisciplinary study of the art, production and social functions of Late Antique ritual artefacts. Utilising case studies from the Graeco-Egyptian magical papyri and the Heidelberg archive it establishes new approaches, provides a holistic understanding of the multi-sensory aspects of ritual practice, and explores the transmission of knowledge traditions across faiths.
