Nutton - Ancient Medicine

ANCIENT MEDICINE

The first edition of Ancient Medicine was the most complete examination of the medicine of the ancient world for a hundred years. This new edition includes the key discoveries made since the first edition, especially from important texts discovered in recent finds of papyri and manuscripts, making it the most comprehensive and up-to-date survey available.

Vivian Nutton pays particular attention to the life and work of doctors in communities, links between medicine and magic, and examines the different approaches to medicine across the ancient world. The new edition includes more on Rufus and Galen as well as augmented information on Babylonia, Hellenistic medicine and Late Antiquity.

With recently discovered texts made accessible for the first time, and providing new evidence, this broad exploration challenges currently held perspectives, and proves an invaluable resource for students of both classics and the history of medicine.

Vivian Nutton, FBA, is Professor Emeritus of the History of Medicine at University College London, and an honorary Professor in both Classics and History at the University of Warwick. He has published extensively on all aspects of medicine before the seventeenth century and, in particular, on Galen and the Renaissance.

SCIENCES OF ANTIQUITY

Series editor: Liba Taub

Director, The Whipple Museum of the History of Science, University of Cambridge

Sciences of Antiquity is a series designed to cover the subject matter of what we call science. The volumes discuss how the ancients saw, interpreted and handled the natural world, from the elements to the most complex of living things. Their discussions on these matters formed a resource for those who later worked on the same topics, including scientists. The intention of this series is to show what it was in the aims, expectations, problems and circumstances of the ancient writers that formed the nature of what they wrote. A consequent purpose is to provide historians with an understanding of the materials out of which later writers, rather than passively receiving and transmitting ancient ideas, constructed their own world-view.

TIME IN ANTIQUITY

Robert Hannah

ANCIENT ASTROLOGY

Tamsyn Barton

ANCIENT NATURAL HISTORY

Roger French

COSMOLOGY IN ANTIQUITY

M. R. Wright

ANCIENT MATHEMATICS

S. Cuomo

ANCIENT METEOROLOGY

Liba Taub

ANCIENT MEDICINE

Second edition

Vivian Nutton

First published 2004

This second edition published 2013

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Routledge

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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2004, 2013 Vivian Nutton

The right of Vivian Nutton to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

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ISBN: 978-0-415-52094-2 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-415-52095-9 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-0-203-08129-7 (ebk)

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CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

FIGURES

NOTE TO THE READER

All quotations from Greek and Latin have been translated into English by me, unless otherwise stated, and ancient titles have been given in English throughout. Ancient names have been generally given in their most familiar form, without any attempt at total consistency between a Greek and a Latinate spelling. I have often indicated also the modern name or general location of an ancient place. The exact dates of many ancient writers are rarely known, and only approximations are often possible. I have tried to be consistent in indicating all dates BC, but I have added AD only to dates where there might be confusion in the mind of the reader, especially in chapters that crossed the boundaries between the Hellenistic and Roman worlds.

Two features in the notes should be mentioned here. Square brackets around the name of an author, e.g. [Aristotle], indicate that the work cannot be attributed with any degree of certainty (and usually with none) to that author. Hence, for reasons made clear in the text, I refer to writings in the Hippocratic Corpus always as by [Hippocrates].

Second, the two main blocks of ancient medical material are cited in two different ways. All references to Hippocratic texts are with an English title, their book and chapter heading, and the volume and page number in the standard edition of Emile Littr (Paris: Baillire, 183961). By contrast, in order to save space, I have cited Galen mainly by the volume and page number in the standard edition of K. G. Khn (Leipzig: K. H. Knobloch, 182133), adding, where possible, the page number of an accessible English version. Where necessary, I have occasionally referred also to an improved text in a more recent edition, usually in the CMG series. Texts not in Khn have been cited by title, section and page in the relevant modern edition.

I have generally used standard editions of other ancient texts, indicating where necessary the name of the editor. I have not provided full bibliographical references to papyri, usually indicated by P., and to inscriptions, e.g. I. Ephesos or Griechische Versinschriften. Those with Greek or Latin who wish to check these documents in their originally published form should consult the list of abbreviations in Liddell, H. G., Scott, R. and Jones, H. S. (1968) A GreekEnglish Lexicon, ed. 9, with Supplement, Oxford: Oxford University Press; and the revised Supplement (1996) ed. P. G. W. Glare, Oxford: Clarendon Press; or in the Oxford Latin Dictionary (196882) Oxford: Clarendon Press.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I have incurred many obligations in the writing of this book, which has taken far longer than I or the original editor of the series, the late Roger French, envisaged. Many parts of this have been presented at conferences or seminars around the world, and I am grateful for the comments and criticisms of the audiences on these occasions and, particularly, in London, Paris and Pisa. Several colleagues read and commented on the manuscript either in whole or in part: Elizabeth Craik, Jason Davies, Helen King, Cornelius OBoyle, Thomas Rtten, Manuela Tecusan, Philip van der Eijk and Heinrich von Staden. Isabella Andorlini, Klaus-Dietrich Fischer, Ivan Garofalo, Mariaelena Gorrini, Ralph Jackson, Marie-Hlne Marganne, Innocenzo Mazzini and Gotthard Strohmaier kept me informed of very recent discoveries in their particular fields of interest, and allowed me to cite some of their work when it was still unpublished. Ralph Jackson and Nikolai Serikoff kindly provided photographs from their own collections. I also had the privilege of discussing many of the ideas in this book with two friends who, in their different ways, made a great contribution to the study of ancient medicine, Luis Garcia Ballester and Owsei Temkin. Neither, I am sure, would have entirely approved of some of my speculations, but both would have encouraged me in my aim of presenting to a wider public the recent findings of my own and others scholarships.