Health in Antiquity

316 Pages·2005·1.59 MB·English

by  Helen King

HEALTH IN ANTIQUITY

HEALTH IN
ANTIQUITY
Edited by
Helen King
First published 2005
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library,2005.
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© 2005 Helen King for selection and editorial material; individual
contributors for their contributions.
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.
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
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN 0-203-32384-XMastere-bookISBN
ISBN 0–415–22065–3(PrintEdition)
IN MEMORY OF DOMINIC MONTSERRAT,
SCHOLAR AND FRIEND

CONTENTS
List of figures ix
List of tables xi
List of contributors xiii
Acknowledgements xix
List of abbreviations xxi
Introduction: what is health? 1
HELEN KING
1 Disease and the prehistory of the Aegean 12
ROBERT ARNOTT
2 Health and disease in Greece: past, present and future 32
CHARLOTTE ROBERTS, CHRYSSI BOURBOU, ANNA LAGIA,
SEVI TRIANTAPHYLLOU AND ANASTASIA TSALIKI
3 Health in Hellenistic and Roman times: the case
studies of Paphos, Cyprus and Corinth, Greece 59
SHERRY C. FOX
4 Health and the life course at Herculaneum
and Pompeii 83
RAY LAURENCE
5 Holding on to health? Bone surgery and
instrumentation in the Roman Empire 97
RALPH JACKSON
vii
CONTENTS
6 ‘Without you no one is happy’: the cult of health in
ancient Greece 120
EMMA STAFFORD
7 Hygieia at dinner and at the symposium 136
JOHN WILKINS
8 Women’s health and recovery in the
Hippocratic corpus 150
HELEN KING
9 Drama and healing: ancient and modern 162
KARELISA HARTIGAN
10 ‘Curing’ disability 180
NICHOLAS VLAHOGIANNIS
11 The salubriousness of the Roman city 192
NEVILLE MORLEY
12 Buildings for health: then and now 205
PETER BAREFOOT
13 The health of the spiritual athlete 216
GILLIAN CLARK
14 ‘Carrying on the work of the earlier firm’: doctors,
medicine and Christianity in the Thaumataof
Sophronius of Jerusalem 230
DOMINIC MONTSERRAT
Bibliography 243
Index 284
viii
FIGURES
2.1 J.L. Angel 40
2.2 Modern example of cancer affecting the pelvic bone
in a 65 year old male 47
2.3 Radiograph of Figure 2.2 and the opposite side, also
showing destructive lesions 47
3.1 Paphos, Cyprus and Corinth, Greece in the
Eastern Mediterranean 61
3.2 Immature left parietal from Paphos with active
porotic hyperostosis 72
3.3 Healed cribra orbitalia of adult from Paphos 72
3.4 Radiograph of subadult tibia with giant cell
tumour from Corinth 74
5.1 Some of the Roman instruments of bone surgery from
theDomus‘del chirurgo’ find at Rimini 99
5.2 Roman instruments of bone surgery 102
5.3 Trepanning kit and folding handles 105
5.4 The Bingen trepanning kit 106
5.5 One of the fused clusters of instruments from the
Domus‘del chirurgo’ at Rimini 107
5.6 Detail of the tomb relief of the freedmen Philonicus and
Demetrius, from Frascati, Italy 109
5.7 The Celsian version of the Hippocratic technique for
disclosing a hairline skull fracture 113
5.8 Roman instruments of bone surgery 114
6.1 The Hope Hygieia 121
6.2 Hygieia and Asklepios approached by worshippers 128
6.3 Asklepios and Hygieia attend a patient 129
6.4 Hygieia and worshipper in healing shrine 133
ix